Tips for a Life Less Plastic

In the fall of my freshman year of college, I was enrolled in a wonderful English class called American Dreams. We discussed a variety of issues, from the suburbs to music to consumption to security to environmentalism, reading articles and excerpts to supplement each topic. The one that stuck with me most was called Polymers Are Forever, written by Alan Weisman. In it, Weisman discusses the origins of plastic, its ever-expanding place in human consumption, and its environmental consequences, including the North-Pacific Gyre, the largest mass of garbage in the world. I definitely recommend reading this article. It is eye-opening.

Plastic is by no means an enemy. Without plastic, the computer I'm typing this entry on wouldn't exist and we wouldn't have great cheap, reusable, break-proof, flexible, heat resistant, water resistant, tarnish resistant, great plastic products. We'd be chopping down more trees, mining more metals, etc. The enemy here is disposable plastic: grocery bags, packaging waste, etc. As Weisman addresses in his article, plastic doesn't biodegrade like most of the other things we throw away. Even "biodegradable" plastic only does so in very specific conditions, none of which are found in landfills or the ocean. So here are a few ways I've been trying to reduce plastic (and other) waste.

First on the list is one in Weisman's article. If you still haven't stopped using commercial body wash, face scrub, or exfoliants, check the ingredients for "polyethylene." Some such products use all natural exfoliants—seeds, salts, sugars, ground up shells—but the ones that don't use tiny, tiny plastic beads, which drain directly into sewers and waterways, ie. ecosystems. Most plastics are at least wrangled into landfills before blowing off into the environment. These beads go there directly. There are plenty of natural exfoliants: oatmeal, baking soda, brown sugar, salt; the list goes on. Ditch the product with plastic beads. (And throw it away, don't drain it.)

Other common disposable plastics are saran wrap, ziplock bags, and other disposable means of food storage. If you use a ziplock bag, try to wash and reuse it. Avoid saran wrap by using reusable containers like tupperware, jars, or even by putting a plate over a bowl instead of wrapping it in plastic.

Try to reduce packaging waste by buying products that aren't individually packaged. This applies to packaging materials other than plastic too. For example, buying loose leaf tea instead of individually wrapped tea bags with staples, strings, and tags, or using a French press to make coffee instead of buying filters for one-time use and disposal. Granola bars, biscotti, Life Savers: these are but a few examples of products with individual plastic wrapping that I see from where I am sitting in my family's kitchen.

Buy things in bulk whenever possible. (Check this shit out. This is what every grocery store in my utopian dream world looks like. That blog, which I was reminded of when I typed this entry title, is a great place if you're interested in the environmental aspect of a blog like this.) I'm fortunate enough to live in a town with a local dairy where you buy milk in glass bottles and take the bottles back when you're done. Take advantage of establishments like this when possible. Everything you pull off the shelf at the store, think about the waste that results once you've had your way with it. Can it be reused? Composted? Recycled? Even if you don't go zero-waste, being conscious of the remains of your consumer choices will help reduce your impact on the environment.

The thing that made me sit down and type this up right now was doing the dishes with a scrubbie dishcloth that I just crocheted out of cotton yarn instead of using the clean and firm plastic sponge that just replaced the dirty, limp, empty husk of a sponge we just threw away. A cotton dishcloth or scrubber is machine washable and will probably outlive a plastic sponge. And when it comes time to retire it, less worry about its particles lasting forever. If you don't knit or crochet, you probably have a friend who does. If you don't have a crafty friend, a dishcloth is a perfect place to start learning how to do it yourself.

Use a bar of soap instead of buying liquid soap in a plastic container with a plastic plunger whose reuse requires a large plastic bottle if you do make the choice to refill it. Reuse that empty deodorant stick by filling it with your homemade deodorant. Buy a box of baking soda (cardboard box!) and a bulk container of shea butter instead of over packaged face wash, exfoliant, toner, and moisturizer. Get a box of corn starch (paper bag in a cardboard box!) instead of plastic bottles of shampoo and conditioner. Buy a dental floss that's actually made of waxed floss and not plastic.

Use a reusable mug instead of the paper cup, cardboard sleeve, and plastic lid you get at the coffee shop. I don't care that the cup and sleeve are made out of 100% post-consumer recycled materials. It doesn't change the fact that your actions could leave them 100% out of the trash.

Take canvas bags to the grocery store, and if you forget them and end up with plastic bags, reuse the ones you can. Use grocery-sized plastic bags for trash instead of those big ones that will let you throw away gallons of stuff before you have to face the voluminous results of your waste. If the bags are holy, ripped up, or otherwise unusable, take them back to the store for recycling.

Be creative with things that could easily become trash. Make a planter out of an empty plastic bottle or milk carton. Make compost out of food scraps. Make yarn out of the hair your pet sheds (if you're feeling creative and unusually resilient to disgust and scorn). Visit some DIY sites like Instructables for inspiration or just do a Google search if you're looking for ideas.

Come up with techniques of your own following the basic guidelines of REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE. Think about them as first, second, and third resorts in that order. Because if you think about it, recycling is only environmentally friendly compared to throwing something into a landfill. If you can keep something from entering your front door, awesome. If you can keep it from leaving your house in a trash can by making it into something useful, fun, or cute, good. If you can send it away to get processed into something else, okay, fine. But be conscious of what ends up in the trash and creative about keeping things out of it.