7 ways to Eliminate Plastic One Piece At a Time
It’s Earth Day!
Every year this day serves as a poignant reminder that the Earth needs us to make changes to the way we live and the products we consume.
We are thinking about what we can do in our daily lives to reduce our waste and be more in harmony with nature.
In this article, we are addressing the plastics that are over-saturating our environment, how we got into this mess, and the solutions that we have found.
Plastic waste is one of the biggest problems we face right now.
We can’t kid ourselves any longer that plastic is recyclable. The plastic that can be recycled can only be recycled once or twice at most due to degradation. 91% of plastic made is not recycled.
Every plastic toothbrush, every shampoo bottle, every dish soap, and laundry soap bottle that has ever been made is still in our environment and won’t go away for hundreds of years.
As it turns out, when researching the history of plastic, we found this kind of waste was intentionally created as an industrial strategy to increase profitability.
“In 1956, Lloyd Stouffers editor of Modern Packaging, Inc., famously and controversially at the time declared: ‘The future of plastics is in the trash can’.” Stouffers idea addressed an emerging problem for industry. Products tended to be durable, easy to fix, and limited in variation (such as color and style). With this mode of design, markets were quickly saturating. Opportunities for growth and thus profits were rapidly diminishing, particularly after America’s Great Depression and the two World Wars, where an ethos of preservation, reuse, and frugality was cultivated in response. Industry intervened on a material level and developed disposability through planned obsolescence, single use items, cheap materials, throw away packaging, fashion, and conspicuous consumption. These changes were supported by a regimen of advertising that telegraphed industrial principles of value into the social realm, suggesting the difference between durable and disposable, esteemed and taboo. American industry designed a shift in values that circulated goods through, rather than into, the consumer realm. The truism that humans are inherently wasteful came into being at a particular time and place by design”
As you can see, we were deliberately trained to be wasteful as a society and this idea was instilled in humans in the name of more profits.
Although Americans resisted this at first, the push by industry eventually overcame their resistance, and people adopted this new ‘disposable’ lifestyle.
60 years after disposable living became en vogue, we now have over 8.3 billion metric tonnes of plastic in landfills and in our natural environment.
THE PROBLEM WITH PLASTIC
The main problem with plastic is that it never goes away.
It’s hard to recycle and the process of recycling plastic involves harsh and toxic chemicals.
It breaks down into microplastics in the environment where it is deadly to humans, wildlife, and entire ecosystems.
Plastic originally was a byproduct that came from the process of refining crude oil into fuel.
Petroleum is costly to extract and it pollutes the environment. Now, plastic has become one of the main products of the petroleum industry. As demand for oil for fuel diminishes, the petroleum industry pushes plastic products even harder onto consumers.
Much of our plastic waste is finding its way into streams, rivers, lakes, and the oceans and causing all kinds of problems to already threatened wildlife.
Birds accidentally eat plastic and it accumulates in their digestive tracks killing an estimated 1 million seabirds a year. Sea Turtles mistake plastic bags for jellyfish and choke on them. Over 100,000 marine creatures perish from plastic entanglement each year.
A plastic garbage island, known as ‘The Great Pacific Garbage Patch"‘, is floating in the Pacific Ocean that is now estimated to be the size of the state of Texas. At current rates, plastic is expected to outweigh all the fish in the sea by 2050.
Fortunately, The Ocean Cleanup, a vision created by Boyan Slat, is working on removing plastic from our oceans. Even so, we have got to do our part by preventing plastics from continuing to enter our environment.
Plastics have saturated our environment and now, our bodies.
Microplastics are released into the water every time a piece of clothing that is made from synthetic fibers is washed. Polyester, Rayon, Nylon, and fleece are big contributors to this problem.
Soft plastics containing phthalates function as estrogen mimickers and wreak havoc on our health. Microplastics have even been found in breastmilk.
THE SOLUTION IS IN OUR HANDS
The good news is, we don't have to face this problem alone.
There are companies all over the world actively creating products that are free of plastic packaging and made with high-quality, clean ingredients.
By taking a look at the products that we use on a daily basis, we find that almost all of them not only contain petroleum-based ingredients, but all come in some form of plastic that cannot be recycled.
We decided to make a plan to eliminate plastic from our lives one piece at a time. As we need to replace these items, we are finding alternatives.
We started with our toothbrushes and our toothpaste. Did you know that one billion toothpaste tubes are thrown out into landfills each year?
Bite offers an exciting alternative. Their toothpaste bits come in a 4 month supply! We ordered the bits, the whitening gel, and the bamboo toothbrush, and have been very pleased with the results.
Next, we replaced all of our bath soap, shampoos, and dish soap with plastic-free alternatives from Earthling Co. We ordered the Ultimate Low Waste Starter Pack. This bundle includes:
1 Shampoo Bar, 1 Conditioner Bar, 1 Wooden Soap Lift, 1 Soap Bar, and 1 Facial Soap Bar, 1 Sisal Soap Saver Bag, 1 Solid Dish Soap, and 1 Dish Brush.
We love the dish soap and plastic-free dish brush!
Earthling Co is having a 20% off sale in honor of Earth Day. Click the image below and get a $10 coupon!
Looking for plastic-free alternatives has really turned up some good finds.
We started to replace clothing items one at a time and found organic cotton and wool options so we can avoid purchasing synthetic materials.
Pact Clothing company has all of our clothing basics covered. For Terry’s birthday this year, I ordered him a 6-pack of boxer briefs, a pair of sweatpants, and a zip-up jacket. He practically lives in them now! I got 3 shelf bra camisoles and they are fantastically comfortable and provide really good support.
They also offer organic cotton sheets. Organic cotton uses 91% less water to produce and no toxic chemicals. We can’t wait to get a set!
Pact has everything you need - even plastic-free leggings!
Big plastic laundry detergent bottles are totally unnecessary and a huge waste. We found loads (see what I did there?) of plastic packaging-free detergent options like these:
The Leaf Shave company makes completely plastic-free razors that you can have delivered right to your door. For Earth Day, Leaf is offering to donate $5 towards saving our coral reefs for every razor purchased.
Cloud Paper, from Seattle, Washington, has made it their mission to make 100% tree free toilet paper and paper towels that are delivered to your home when you need them. Imagine that: totally tree free! Also, totally plastic free! We love supporting companies like Cloud Paper!
Much of our food comes in plastic packaging. A great way to reduce this waste is participate in a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) weekly box of seasonal foods produced from farms in your bioregion.
Find a farm near you on Local Harvest.
Plastic can be eliminated from our lives one piece at a time and together we can make a huge difference for humans and all life on the planet.
Let’s make Earth Day every day!
