Until this week, I never really realized how much plastic is involved in my life. It's nearly everywhere and its inescapable, from shampoo bottles to receipts, baby wipes to food containers, plastic is something we can't avoid. Microplastics accumulate at alarming rates in our oceans and our landfills, they even begin to disperse through the air. We must slow down our plastic consumption and optimize our recycling methods to work towards a cleaner environment and greener planet!
Given that the everyday consumer isn't going to slow down their consumption rates, going plastic-free is a big ask and in reality is very difficult to do. I envision a world where plastic use isn't a burden put upon the individual but rather mitigated by the systems that sell us these products. Banning single-use plastics (i.e shopping bags, straws, etc) is a start but large companies such as Johnson and Johnson should rethink the way they manufacture their products and have an alternative for the plastics they use. The beauty industry generates incredible amounts of plastic waste with their packaging as well, making the simple switch to biodegradable paper boxes or glass pots for makeup rather than plastic tubes can make a huge difference.
Hi Vy,
I agree that going plastic-free is a actually a really difficult task to do and will take some time. Biodegradable packaging is a great alternative for companies that use a lot of unnecessary plastic for their product packaging.
I totally agree that we shouldn't be using plastic so much. I think so much of our use of plastic is very unnecessary and could so easily just not be there or replaced with something else.
I truly agree! consumers aren't going to slow down consumption rates, even I cannot promise that to myself because as a user there just don't seem to be enough alternatives which is saddening
I agree with you! I also find it interesting how single-use plastic bags are banned in the city, but the smaller plastic bags for bagging produce are still being used. Such a strange oversight by the municipal government and obviously corporations just do not care at all.
I definitely agree with your sentiments Vy! I've personally tried to go plastic-free in my bathroom before and it is difficult, inconvenient, and kinda expensive! I also hope for transformative changes in how these companies administer/package these products.
Plastic is largely involved in everyones' lives, whether we realize it or not. It definitely takes longer than a single glance to understand how much plastic you use, and an even more time to realize how detrimental it is to the environment.
Hello Vy! I appreciate the realistic outlook you have on this. As well, I agree with you that we should be pushing companies to make changes in production that mitigates our usage of disposable plastics. Although we as consumers can do our best to make sustainable choices and lessen our usage of single-use plastics, it is definitely still difficult to avoid them due to the vast amount of products that we require that use plastic packaging.
Plastic is so unavoidable in modern, every day, life and it's awful. Just to mention a few, we even unnecessarily use plastic for packaging oranges and securing bananas in bunches. Why are we packaging items that have their own natural packaging?!? It's silly that we do this but that just means there are so many things we can cut back on in regard to our plastic usage that would have virtually no impact on us considering it's unnecessary usage in the first place.
We definitely need more innovation into solutions for reducing plastic consumption - I'm curious as to whether it would be possible for concepts such as grocery stores where you use reusable jars can be scaled up.
Hi Vy,
Great ideas with just banning single-use plastic and focusing on one industry to reduce plastic waste. I also think that if you switch to glass pots, there should be an incentive to reuse. For example, if you had lotion that you buy monthly, maybe you can bring back your glass jar and get refills instead of buying a limited amount every time that are contained in plastic bottles.