When Dubbo councillor David Grant first considered taking part in Plastic Free July, he opened up his cupboards and had a look.
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"You don't realise the amount of plastic you use," he said.
For Cr Grant, one of the main things that struck him was the amount of plastic in what the family was packing for their lunches, such as packets of chips or biscuits.
"That's a big thing for our family because we are busy. My wife works, I work, we have two young girls who are active. We're a bit time poor just like any family so that will be a big change for us," he said.
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Rather than buying individual packets of the snack foods, Cr Grant said the family was planning to buy one big packet and then separate it into reusable containers.
"The only other one we thought about was with our dog," he said.
"Instead of buying the smaller bags of dog food maybe we need to look at the bigger bags and store them in a big reusable container. And making sure if we do get a bag it's recyclable, it's not just going straight into landfill.
"It's all those little things, we want to me more aware."
He'll also be making sure to avoid putting things like fruit and vegetables in plastic bags at the supermarket and using reusable bags when he shops.
"We thought it was an opportunity to look at what we can do. We recycle - we're pretty stringent with that - we use the green bin for food waste. But if we want to reduce the amount going into landfill or into the recycling it's even better," Cr Grant said.
He has admitted that while the month is called Plastic Free July, he won't be able to go completely without plastic.
Rather, Cr Grant is hoping to reduce his plastic use, create better habits and also provide a good example for his daughters.
'It's just us doing our little bit and changing a few habits. At the end of the day it's to help the environment," he said.
Cr Grant has encouraged other members of the community to also join the Plastic Free July challenge.
He'll be posting regular updates for anyone to follow along with his progress.
"We'll be posting things on Facebook about what I've done and how things are going. It could be a whole big failure, but I hope not," Cr Grant said.
Sign up by heading to the Dubbo Regional Council website and following the links.