The news that dead whales were washing up on beaches with their stomachs full of plastic brought home to Ben Tupas that he needed to make some changes.
Ben says it made the environmental impact of single-use plastics "very real" for him.
"I know there's a problem, which I know I can change within my own household," he says.
The Toowoomba-based dad of two has been making a concerted effort to use less single-use plastics in his home.
Packing lunches for himself and for his 14-year-old and 11-year-old has been a mix of success and failure in terms of getting to a zero-waste lunchbox.
"I occasionally still use gladwrap, which I know is pretty bad," Ben says.
"[The kids] had no problem with going to more sustainable ways to wrap their lunch… it's not a massive issue for them. They want the food [that's] inside the packaging."
Ben is far from alone in his quest to avoid plastic. ABC Everyday spoke to Ben and three others at different stages of zero-waste living for tips on how to use less plastic when packing your lunch for school or work.
Choosing the lunchbox
Lindsay Miles is an author and waste educator in Perth and she says the first thing you should do before making changes is an audit of what you usually pack for lunch.
Work out what single-use plastics you use and whether there are alternatives you can switch to — but don't rush out and buy new things before you know if you'll use them or not.
"If you really love sandwiches then don't go and buy a rectangular metal lunch box because the bread will never fit," she says.
There are a lot of metal lunchboxes available these days and some can be really expensive.
The ones with compartments, a bit like a bento box, can be used instead of a whole heap of wrapping and single containers.
This is what Sarah Bury, founder of PlasticWise Taroona, bought for her four-year-old to take when he started kindy.
"I liked this one because it was stainless steel," she says.
"It's got compartments in the lunch box, so you can put cut up fruit and veggie sticks and a sandwich and nothing needs to be wrapped."
Ben uses a tiffin for taking salads and cold foods for lunch.
"I have a colleague who is Indian who said, 'Oh I remember these, my mum would pack lunch in them'," Ben says.
Lindsay says you can find tiffins in Asian food supermarkets for much less than some of the compartment metal boxes and it can be worth checking out op shops for second-hand tiffins and strong, reusable plastic containers that will last a long time.
"It doesn't have to be labelled zero waste. People were doing zero waste before it was a thing, because plastic didn't exist," Lindsay says.
A metal box will last for many years if you take care of it, but they can become dented (think of it as character!) and they can leak.
Another thing to remember with metal containers is you can't stick them in a microwave to heat food up, whereas some of the hard-plastic and tempered glass containers are microwavable.
If it's not plastic or silicone, it will leak
Lindsay says it's important to remember that it's harder to have leak-proof containers when they're totally plastic or silicone free.
"If you need to get a container with a silicone lip because you need it to be leak proof, that's a really important consideration," she says.
Bags with removable and flat bases can help keep containers upright and prevent spillages, according to Crystal Attrill.
Crystal is a social worker near Ulverstone in north-west Tasmania who started avoiding excess plastic packaging to save money and now tries to minimise all her family's waste.
She bought her husband an insulated shoulder bag with a removable floor to encourage him to take lunch from home instead of buying takeaways with disposable packaging.
Crystal also uses insulated bags for her kids' lunches as they can fit a number of containers and jars for easy transporting.
What to use instead of cling wrap
Beeswax and other reusable food wraps
You've probably heard of beeswax wraps already, but if you've never seen them they're piece of fabric soaked in a mixture of beeswax, oils and sometimes pine resin.
This makes the fabric bendable and keeps the air out, and if there's a resin in the mix it sticks to itself quite well too, making it a good replacement for cling wrap, says Sarah.
The wraps can be wiped down and used over and over again and if the fabric used is a natural fibre, the wrap can be composted when its useful life is over.
You can make beeswax wraps yourself, there are lots of recipes and instructions on the internet, and Sarah says it's a good way to use bits of an unwanted doona cover or tea towel.
There are also fabric wraps you can buy that have a bioplastic coating (a type of plastic made from biological substance instead of petroleum) that can be used for covering things like sandwiches.
These can be put through the washing machine, but you can't make them yourself, so the cost can be more.
For smaller things like muffins, you can put them in little containers to keep them fresh, says Lindsay, or you can try freezing them before you put them in the lunchbox, so that by lunch time they've thawed but haven't gone stale.
Zip lock bag replacements
Crystal says she still has some zip lock bags in the pantry from before she stopped buying plastic.
When she uses them for snacks, she washes them out and uses them again until they get holes, then she puts them in a specific bin for soft-plastic recycling.
Soft plastics such as chip packets can be recycled through programs like redcycle, which is available in some supermarkets, or check with our local council if there's a soft plastics recycling option near you.
Lindsay says there are silicone bags that you can use in place of plastic zip lock bags.
Silicone can't be recycled in Australia, but if you use a lot of zip lock bags, replacing the one-use ones with ones that are designed to be used for years will cut down on the plastic waste.
Reuse jam and sauce jars for snacks and sauces
Ben says he uses a washed jam jar for taking chips for a snack.
Glass jars are a favourite for Lindsay and Sarah for taking things like salads, sauces and dressings — a small vegemite jar is great for sauce or nuts and you can use a wide-mouth pasta sauce jar for a salad, for example.
If you want inspiration just search mason jar salad online — it's totally a thing, but best to reuse the jars you already have than buy fancy ones with handles just for the looks.
Glass containers are often easy to clean and dishwasher safe, but they can be heavy to carry so might be better suited for using in a work office than carrying to a school yard or building site.
Don't rely on individual tubs and bags
Individual tubs of yoghurt, small packets of chips or biscuits and muesli bars are quick and easy for lunchboxes but they also create a heap of plastic waste.
Crystal says she now buys big buckets of yoghurt as her husband likes to take small containers of it as a snack — he just put a serve in a reusable container which is washed and used again — and they use the large buckets for other things around the house.
When it comes to the biscuits, chips and snack bars commonly seen in playgrounds, Crystal says part of reason for not buying those for her daughters is she doesn't want them eating all the sugar and salt, but she does make them treats for lunch at times.
"At the moment they wanted hot cross buns, because everyone's getting hot cross buns, so on the weekend I made up a batch for them to take," she says.
And if the girls do get the occasional treat of chips or lollies, Crystal encourages them to bring the packaging home for recycling instead of just chucking it in the bin.
"I probably take it to the next level, because at the moment they bring back their apple cores and banana skins so I can put them in the compost," she says.
Ben says he has just started collecting soft plastics for recycling through redcycle bins.
"Once you see how much you can save you start to up the ante within yourself, to kind of go 'that could go in the compost' and I think it becomes a holistic thing," he says.
School lunch orders and buying takeaway
When it comes to school lunch orders, Crystal still tries to avoid plastic where she can by ordering things she knows can be served without it.
"I try and order stuff like chicken nuggets, which they sometime put in a plastic tub, so I've taken to writing on the order 'no plastic please, can you put them in a paper bag'," she says.
She also sends her daughter with a container of sauce from home so she doesn't end up with the disposal small tubs.
Lindsay is also a fan of taking your own sauces and dressings to work for lunches and says it's a good idea to keep a reusable container at work so if you get takeaway you can say no to disposable plastics.
She also carries cutlery in her bag so she never has to use plastic ones.
"You can't eat with a plastic fork anyway [and] a plastic knife doesn't cut anything," she says.
Don't beat yourself up, changing habits takes time
Changing habits can be hard and finding things that work for you takes time and a bit of trial and error.
Crystal says she's learnt to make changes bit-by-bit so her kids and husband aren't overwhelmed with too many new things at once.
"It's one little thing at a time," she says.
Ben acknowledges he has a way to go to quit his plastic habit, but by being more aware of his consumption and habits he feels he can make a difference, at least to his little patch of the world.
"I'd like to think that we can all realise that if a whale can wash up with a huge amount of plastic in its belly that we can all change," he says.
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