It’s time to reduce – reuse – recycle. It’s also time to say NO to plastic

 In my absence from my blog and if you are not on social media and not keeping up to date with the joys of Get Lick’d Iceblocks – let me fill you in. 

One thing I love to do is sustaining the world and the environment.  If I can buy second hand when I can.  I will – I see no point wasting money and ‘keeping up with the Jones’.  I grew up with a favourite few toys, a tape player, cassettes and my brother and sister.  We weren’t rich.  But we weren’t poor either.  We bought second hand, we op shopped ever since I could remember, I was always in an op shop on school holidays on Mum’s day off from work.  I loved it then and I love it now.  We reused school bags from the year before.  The lady’s at the church always seemed to give us their kids hand me downs.  As a church community – that was the norm.  So when I had my own family – my kids got second hand clothes aswell.  It gets trickier now that 2 are teenagers, but they still love a great op shop shop. 

What’s the point of blog post so far Kaz?  Well, in April, I was on Gumtree one day, just wasting time (refer to previous blog about why I get nothing done) I seen an ad that was selling an icecream cart, an iceblock bike and umbrellas.  If you were going to start an iceblocks or icecream business – you needed this.  It had everything.  I somewhat discussed with my husband if I actually needed it.  He said ‘probably not’ but I had other thoughts – I emailed the seller and asked him if he could hold it for 2 weeks until I rearranged my family budget.  He said yes.  I said shit  and better tell the husband.

Then 2 weeks later I took the kids for a road trip to the Sunny Coast, loaded the trailer with my new goods – had a great conversation with the seller and was on my way. On the drive home, I realized how freaking awesome I was, as a business owner – as a business owner that wants to give up her day job and work full time in her hustle business.  When I say ‘give up my day job’, I’ve given myself a 4 year plan to do so, ultimately, even work from full time to permanent  casual –  I’d be happy with that aswell.  Never give up on your dreams friends.    

Here’s a little before and after of the iceblock cart.  Very me.  Have I mentioned I love colour?  Wait until you see the bike.  That revamp is nearly done.  I have to say goodbye to Get Lick’d Iceblocks original trike.  I have no doubt it will go to a well loving family or a person that hates driving for their groceries and rides bikes instead.

You’ll be seeing this cart around whenever I am at events.  It’s only been to one event so far.  That was www.thelaneandco.com store reopening.  Which was very fun. If you have little kids and appreciate great handmade, quality clothes then check out Lacey Lane – a small business created by 2 sisters, have achieved amazing things, all while raising their children.  Kudos to you ladies.  I’ll be in for a visit soon.

As you may know, Get Lick’d Iceblocks are now 100% plastic free – there was a while there earlier in the year where I said I was plastic free – but then re assessed my stock and made the discovery that I had about 150 unused plastic wrappers .  I was totally bummed.  These wrappers were bio degradable, but I sort of hated them.  Alot.  As soon as I could get rid of them – I did.  After some trial and error with some brown paper bags – I finally found ones that suited the iceblocks- they are pretty perfect.  The only plastic that is used is for the ingredient label.  But I’ll be working on that in the near future, to change that to paper.   I get a lot of positive feedback about NOT using plastic.  I hate the stuff – I really do.  I am slowly getting rid of the plastic use in my household aswell.  Gald wrap is slowly disappearing and we are using homemade bees wax wraps instead.  Paper bags for lunches and reusable containers and shopping bags.

It is really quite simple – if only other people would realise how easy it actually is to not use plastic – the world and oceans would be a little bit cleaner and happier.  It’s also important for adults to teach our children this aswell. 

Reduce                 Reuse                   Recycle

Even if it’s something little.  Small habits turn into be habits and that then becomes the norm. 

Me and my family went for an afternoon fishing  trip on the beach at the Gold Coast a few weeks ago.  When we finished fishing and packed up – we went for a walk along the sand.   On this walk I collected some plastic rubbish that I found on the sand.  This rubbish wasn’t in the dunes – it was actually on the beach.  In this ‘collection’ of rubbish there was a coffee pod – what the heck is a coffee pod doing on the beach?  I also picked up a can of Jim Beam and as we walked further on there were 2 fisherman, one of these fishermen kindly offered to take ‘his can’.  Umm what?  I told him that it was ok and that I would be sure to put it in the bin along with the other rubbish that we found.  Clearly, he was just having a good time on the beach, with a few mates and drinks and was drunk – so I gave him back the can and pointed to him that the bin was up on the footpath and to put all his rubbish in the bin when he’s done for the day.  He didn’t seem to impressed by that comment – but told me that he would go to the bin.  Hopefully he did.  But idiots will be idiots!    

Let’s all be brave, smart  and help save our world.  If you have any tips – feel free to share them on Get Lick’d Iceblocks social media accounts.  I’ll be to spread the word and show people how you sustain this beautiful world we in.  Hopefully by the time our children’s children get to have this oceans that aren’t full of plastic and where single use plastic bags will be a ‘folks tale’.