We’re hearing a lot these days about how plastic leeches chemicals into foods and beverages that may be bad for our health. There are other reasons to avoid buying plastic. For example, even if every bottled water gets recycled, the amount of energy used in that recycling is huge, as is the energy used in manufacturing the bottles and transporting them, and the impact to third world countries where much of the water comes from (who don’t, ironically, have access to clean drinking water themselves) made me feel like a criminal. Additionally, plastic is a petroleum product, and consumption of it helps drive up oil costs.
I’m not trying to convince you. This article is for people who have already decided for themselves they want to buy less plastic, but aren’t sure how they can live without it. Because that’s where I was a few years ago, and these are the steps that got me off my plastic dependency. Remember: you don’t have to do it all. Every step you take toward being more green is a help.
Stop buying bottled water. Get a canteen instead. For taking water with me in the car, I opted for the Klean Kanteen Stainless Steel Water Bottle with the optional steel cap and have been happy with it. You can get a non-leeching plastic “sippy spout” if you prefer a sports top. And no, you don’t taste the steel.
Start drinking tap water. You don’t have to drink it straight out of the rap. Even though tap water in the US and Europe is perfectly safe, it doesn’t always taste good. It can be overly chlorinated or have naturally occurring minerals that affect the flavor. But bottled water is not safer than tap:
“In fact,” said the report, “there are more standards regulating tap water in Europe and the United States than those applied to the bottled water industry.”
Think about that. Your bottled water isn’t being tested by your government agencies as well or as often as your tap. Which sounds safer? In fact, last year Pepsi announced that Aquafina is tap water.
Fortunately, the solution is simple: you can buy a water filter (like Pur or Brita) for the faucet, or even have a filtration system installed if you own your dwelling. Refrigerators also can come with filtered drinking taps which will improve the flavor tremendously. You can also just buy a cheap pitcher to filter your drinking water, since tap water is safe for everything else. (And if you’re also struggling to drink more plain water and break the soda habit, try infused water to help you make the transition.)
Get rid of plastic food storage containers. At home, use glass dishes for leftovers and wax paper where you would normally use a Ziploc. I bought these Anchor Hocking glass storage dishes and I love them: they’re inexpensive, they come in great shapes and sizes, and they’re much easier to clean than plastic. And they don’t retain the smells of certain foods the way plastic dishes can. I’m finding wax paper is great for brown-bagging sandwiches and other items.
For kids’ lunches, you can use wax paper for sandwiches. You can also make a “baggie” out of it by stapling the edges together and folding the top over with a clip. Items like yogurt (or chips) can be put into small Kleen Kanteens – or just shop for “stainless steel lunch box” at Amazon or other online vendors. Some of these lunch boxes have compartments for food, which makes them even easier to use than traditional lunch boxes that required you to bundle up each food item separately.
Avoid buying stuff packaged in plastic. This one is nearly impossible. Everything seems to be packaged in plastic these days. When you have a choice, buy products that are packaged in other materials. The less plastic that gets sold, the less will get manufactured. And if you can find the time, write to manufacturers and let them know they could improve their packaging. It’s stupid, but one letter can impact a company’s thinking more than 100 marketing surveys. I know, I know – if plastic is the cheapest way to package, they’ll be loathe to give it up. But much of the reason so many things are sealed in plastic is out of over-inflated security and shoplifting concerns. I’m all for being able to tell if medicine has been tampered with, but why do DVDs need to be shrinkwrapped?
Babies. It’s true – plastic has made raising babies much safer and more convenient. Babies drop and throw things, and this is much easier to deal with when those things are plastic and unbreakable. You can obviously reduce baby plastic consumption by using cloth diapers. But one of the simplest ways to reduce consumption is something parents have been doing forever, and that’s hand-me-downs. Ask friends and family for used baby cups and plates and bottles. One collection of plastic baby stuff could get quite a few kids through their early years.
You can reduce the plastic in your life significantly by just following a few of these steps. Are you trying to reduce your plastic consumption? If you’ve got more tips, share them in the comments!
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Updated: November 29, 2011
Copyright: July 21, 2008
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