southernhybrid
Contributor
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/16/style/plastic-free-living.html
I read the linked article last month about a woman who decided to try and live without any disposable plastic products. I think most of us know that plastic pollution is a huge global problem and it also is contributing to global warming, but how many of us could live without plastic? I don't think I could, could you?
After I read the article, I looked around my house and realized that I was surrounded by plastic. In addition to plastic grocery bags and garbage bags, just about everything I buy comes in plastic containers. There's produce containers, toothpaste, shampoo, deodorant containers, toothbrushes which are only used for several months, as well as the container that hold dental floss. My husband will only drink water that comes in plastic bottles, and many food products come in plastic containers, including candy. It also looks as if the protective lining on the outside of many things, like bags of dog food and those frozen foods that the women mentioned in the article. I mean the list goes on and on and on. Do we even need to mention the plastic containers that fast food restaurants use, plastic food utensils, take out boxes etc.? You can't even get paper bags in most stores anymore, and very few people cart around reusable bags when they shop. Oh, I forget about laundry detergent and fabric softener containers. Oh my!
It also made me think of the old movie "The Graduate". I remember the man who told Dustin Hoffman, who played the young grad, that the future was in plastic. I think the movie was made around 1965. We had no idea how much plastic would fuck up the environment.
I also read that plastic production is expected to increase enormously over the next twenty years. OMG!
Could any of you live without plastic? Are any of you trying? The woman in the link is doing it but despite her determination, it's been extremely difficult.
For Beth Terry, the epiphany came when she read an article about how albatross chicks are being killed by discarded plastics. It was time to banish plastic from her life.
First, she focused on her kitchen and got rid of the shopping bags, microwaveable Stouffer’s macaroni and cheese, Clif energy bars and the prewashed salads in plastic tubs.
Then she turned to her bathroom, where she switched to shampoo bars instead of bottles and made her own hair conditioner from apple cider vinegar. Toothpaste without plastic packaging was exceptionally hard to find, so she started making her own with baking soda.
Sometimes her personal war on plastic created awkward moments. During a vacation to Disneyland in California to run a half-marathon, Ms. Terry and her husband left their reusable cloth bags in the hotel, soon discovering that the local supermarket only had plastic bags. How to carry a bunch of apples, oranges, avocados and melons?
I read the linked article last month about a woman who decided to try and live without any disposable plastic products. I think most of us know that plastic pollution is a huge global problem and it also is contributing to global warming, but how many of us could live without plastic? I don't think I could, could you?
After I read the article, I looked around my house and realized that I was surrounded by plastic. In addition to plastic grocery bags and garbage bags, just about everything I buy comes in plastic containers. There's produce containers, toothpaste, shampoo, deodorant containers, toothbrushes which are only used for several months, as well as the container that hold dental floss. My husband will only drink water that comes in plastic bottles, and many food products come in plastic containers, including candy. It also looks as if the protective lining on the outside of many things, like bags of dog food and those frozen foods that the women mentioned in the article. I mean the list goes on and on and on. Do we even need to mention the plastic containers that fast food restaurants use, plastic food utensils, take out boxes etc.? You can't even get paper bags in most stores anymore, and very few people cart around reusable bags when they shop. Oh, I forget about laundry detergent and fabric softener containers. Oh my!
It also made me think of the old movie "The Graduate". I remember the man who told Dustin Hoffman, who played the young grad, that the future was in plastic. I think the movie was made around 1965. We had no idea how much plastic would fuck up the environment.
I also read that plastic production is expected to increase enormously over the next twenty years. OMG!
Could any of you live without plastic? Are any of you trying? The woman in the link is doing it but despite her determination, it's been extremely difficult.