Brace yourselves. May 25 has been set as "International Plastic-Free Day," so you may be seeing a lot of stories and social media posts about avoiding single-use plastics for the next several hours.
The nonprofit group Free the Ocean set the day to "call attention to the plastic we use day to day, especially single-use plastic."
The group claims that if everyone globally quit using single-use plastic for one day, "we'd avoid over 7.6 billion items of plastic on that one single day."
I haven't done the math myself, but the global population as of 2020 was an estimated 7.8 billion people, so the group must figure nearly all of those individuals purchase single-use plastic items each day. I think you can call me skeptical about it's claims.
That's not to say that I don't see value in avoiding single-use plastics, no matter the day. I rely on reusable bottles, bring my own bags to the store and either reuse or recycle takeout containers. But I'm not certain if a bunch of social media posts are going to change anyone's opinion on plastics, and picking a random day to be plastic-free isn't going to fix the global recycling infrastructure.
But if you see your cousin or your friend's friend that you met once or twice posting something on Facebook in the next few days, don't be surprised.
Oh, and be prepared for July 3. That's "International Plastic Bag-Free Day."