Looking back on my childhood summers at the beach in New York, the only image I have in my mind is the clear blue water, endless grains of sand, sea birds, and a diverse sprinkling of shells to find.
Occasionally, if you were lucky, you’d spot a colorful piece of sea glass - the only human-made treasure on the beach.
But plastic? I don’t remember seeing it on the beach in those days.
Now however, I can’t think of a beach and not imagine plastic. Lots of it. Microplastic, huge chunks of styrofoam, tampon applicators, shards of colorful hard plastic, nylon netting, rope, and plastic bags…so many plastic bags.
When you go in the water, you can see it floating by and feel it brush against your skin in some places where it’s really bad.
I long for those days in the 70’s.
Well….Guess what month it is?
It’s Plastic Free July!
Now’s the chance to pitch in and do something about this monumental problem we face.
But first some facts.
Living in Boulder, CO, we are very lucky to have a wonderful Zero Waste store called Nude Foods.
On their website, they shared these statistics about plastic:
“National Geographic spelled it out in alarming terms: The United States uses more than 36 billion disposable utensils a year. Laid end to end, they could wrap around the globe 139 times.
Humans buy about 1,000,000 plastic bottles per minute in total. Only about 23% of plastic bottles are recycled within the U.S.
Americans purchase about 50 billion water bottles per year, averaging about 13 bottles per month for every person in the U.S.! That means by using a reusable water bottle, you could save an average of 156 plastic bottles annually.
It is estimated that 4 trillion plastic bags are used worldwide annually. Only 1% of plastic bags are returned for recycling. Americans throw away 100 billion plastic bags annually. That’s about 307 bags per person!
Half a million straws are used in the world every day.
500 billion disposable cups are consumed every year. Americans alone throw away 25 billion styrofoam coffee cups annually. Styrofoam cannot be completely recycled. Most of the Styrofoam disposed of today will still be present in landfills 500 years from now. UGH.”
In addition to harming the environment and our oceans, more and more, science is revealing that plastic leaches into our food and drinks and can be a risk to our health. Even BPA-free plastic which most modern food storage and reusable water bottles are made of these days.
So, what can you do as an individual consumer to eliminate plastic from your daily life?
I’ve put together five main ways to begin the process.
Note: if you end up shopping any of the Earth Hero links in this article, the code VESSELIFY gets you 10% off at checkout. Our school receives a small percentage of any sales from these links.
1. Lose the disposable, single-use plastics
Ninety percent of the plastic items we use daily are used once and then tossed - this is devastating to our environment.
These single-use plastics include:
Plastic grocery bags
Plastic produce bags
Plastic wrap
Plastic zip lock baggies
Plastic food containers
Disposable cutlery
Straws
Coffee cup lids
Coffee cups
Become aware of how often you rely on these products and shop at places like Earth Hero to replace them with reusable alternatives. You can make it a habit after only a few incidences of bringing a shopping tote, bamboo cutlery, or a reusable coffee mug to your daily rounds of going to work, the coffee shop, or the grocery store.
In the kitchen, replace your plastic wrap with beeswax wrap (lasts over a year or more depending on use and can be washed with soap and cool water) and replace your zip lock baggies with a fun collection of these silicone Stasher Bags or Zip Tuck Bags.
Add reusable straws to your silverware drawer! I like glass, bamboo, or stainless steel straws, and I have brushes to clean them.
2. Avoid buying water in plastic bottles unless there is literally no other choice for safe drinking water. Each year, according to NRDC, close to 20 billion plastic bottles are thrown in the trash. Instead, have a reusable water bottle with you. If you’re nervous about the quality of your local tap water, get a water bottle with a built-in filter, look for filtered water stations to refill, or purchase water in glass or metal which can more easily be recycled.
Filtered water stations can often be found:
In airports near the gates
At hotel gyms (bring your bottle to the gym with you to fill up during your stay)
At the workplace
At yoga studios and gyms
At events and in conference rooms
3. Give clamshell packaging for greens the boot!
I know it’s convenient to buy your triple washed greens and salad mixes in those big plastic tubs, but they’re HUGE! And as we know, they’re likely not going to be recycled as much as you hope they would. Instead, get yourself a salad spinner and buy heads of lettuce and bunches of greens (like kale or chard) that have no packaging. When you get them home, soak them in a bowl of water for an hour so they crisp up. Then rinse and spin them dry, and store in a Stasher Bag in your crisper drawers. I know it’s extra work, but can you imagine if more households across the country kept that many clamshells out of the oceans and landfills?
4. Minimize take-out/doggy bags by cooking more
Most restaurants and eateries are still using single use plastic containers and cutlery for take out and doggy bags. Sadly, even the compostable containers can compromise composting programs and limit many of the environmental benefits of successful composting. Cooking at home solves this problem, and besides, it’s a lot healthier. If you do need to order in or eat out, tell the restaurant that you don’t need any plastic cutlery, and don’t be ashamed to bring your own food-storage containers to restaurants to bring home the doggy bag leftovers!
5. Speak up!
While it’s important for each of us to act individually to eliminate plastic from our lives, policy and plastic bans are what truly move the needle.
Speak out regularly in support of plastic bans in your area. I use Facebook Messenger and iMessage to text my representatives daily on this and many other issues using Resistbot to make it super easy!
You could also submit an op-ed to your city’s newspaper, or start conversations with your loved ones and neighbors. Tweet, call, or send letters to the companies of your favorite products to let them know you’re concerned about their packaging. Ask them to switch to reusable, recyclable, renewable, biodegradable, and/or recycled-content packaging with less or no plastic.
For more information and resources on Zero Waste and getting plastic out of your life:
22 Zero Waste Products for 2022, by Earth Hero
Create a To-Go Bag, by Nude Foods
7 Ways to use a Stasher Silicone Bag, by Earth Hero
5 Full Circle Zero Waste Products We Love, by Earth Hero
Single Use Plastics 101, by NRDC