Plastic was invented in 1907, and ever since then, it has boomed. Plastics help keep bacteria out of our products and add tremendous value to our life. I find it interesting how much of our world revolves around single-use plastics. Try to identify how many single-use plastics you use on a daily basis (tens, at least).
We need plastic. But I want a world without plastics. Single-use and non-compostable ones, at least.
Reducing our single-use plastics is easy: buy less and, when possible, invest in a reusable alternative. For example, buy a full pineapple instead of buying precut pineapple in a plastic container. Bring your own shopping bags to get that pineapple! The ideas are endless.
AND we luckily live in a beautiful day and age for science, and creating the next big compostable plastic is a hot topic. Here are some of the things we're looking to make plastics out of right now:
Corn
Potato
Tapioca
Cellulose
Soy
How do we take this to the next level? We need stricter laws on single-use plastics and to invest more in ensuring plastics are compostable and can be taken to a bigger scale. No one wants to diminish their life to fit into the box of YOU CAN NOT USE A SINGLE PLASTIC EVER! But if we can find better alternatives to our current plastics and make small changes, we can succeed!
Hi Katie! I love your vision for the future. I definitely resonated with your statement about how nobody wants to feel restricted to never use single use plastics ever or go full zero waste overnight. I think it's important to identify that "better" is still progress and we don't have to aim for perfection in order to make gains in this movement in ending the use of plastics!
Hey Katie, I totally agree with you. I'm also concerned about over-packaging. Sometimes plastic packaging is used in unnecessary ways.
Agreed! I've also found that certain types of snacks and candies are individually wrapped when they could just be bundled in a larger package. Some of these more "premium" snacks often use this tactic to give a sense of heightened value that their product gives. These corporations should be the first ones to go and stricter laws are, in my opinion, the only effective way to get these companies in line.
I think that it is so cool to make compostable bags out of things like corn, potato, and tapioca. It would be fascinating to use these bags and then just pour a fluid onto the bag and have it disintegrate into something you can use in the garden. However, I do think that the technology to make this possible will take some time to develop and get it to fully function.
Really like your idea. To be honest, I hate boxed pineapples in the supermarket, I don't know why, maybe because I don't think it's hygienic either, maybe because I don't think it's cost effective, but I've never been put off buying them because of the box they're wrapped in.
The development of compostable materials is very promising, more and more home composting facilities are being popularized, this is the big trend, like you said, we need plastics, but we don't need disposable and non-compostable plastics, we need more environmentally friendly plastics.
Good thoughts! Your point on not looking at this from a binary of plastic/no plastic reminds me of the sentiment that we don't need a few people doing zero-waste perfectly... we need millions doing it imperfectly.
I think it is inevitable that plastic alternatives will replace single-use plastics, there is too much demand for it and we have the technology and science to develop them, the only problem really is funding and scaling. Either big companies have to realize the market potential and fund these projects or be forced to by governments.
I think you pose a very interest dimension to the possible solutions for the plastic problems. Using science and our understanding of manipulating matter around us can really grant us alternatives that can circumvent many of the issues that we have. I would add that bioplastics if implemented correctly could also include other parts of the environments and organisms can maybe even place a role in its breakdown.
I agree with you that replacing single-use plastics with organic materials such as starch and other natural fibers could greatly reduce reliance on CO2-emitting fossil fuels, but do you think the cost of these materials would be a deterrent to their being implemented?
Hi Katie,
Great post! I totally agree that it is important to remember that we do need plastics, but we can (and should) remove the single-use ones in our lives. I've heard of some of the alternatives you mentioned such as corn and cellulose but was surprised to see potatoes on your list! We definitely need more investment in single use plastic alternatives to contribute to change!
I am interested in the plastic alternative on your list. I hope in the future these alternatives would replace single-use plastic.
Great post! I think banning many single-use items is a great idea because humans adapt to the world around them fairly easily. Grocery stores who ban plastic grocery bags don't see declines in their customer base because these customers quickly catch on that they need to be bringing their own bags. The same goes for coffee shops -- banning single-use cups will just encourage customers to bring their own travel mugs. These behaviours to bring reusable items will become solidified quickly if we just take the leap of faith and ban many single-use items.
Hey Katie, great post! I agree we definitely need to make plastics out of more sustainable alternatives and have laws restricting single-use plastics!
Hi Katie, I had a similar post where I also think certain types of plastic should be kept because they are useful to our lives. But single-use plastics are not needed at this moment on Earth.
Great post! I totally agree that plastics are needed for many things, but single-use and non-compostable ones can definitely be significantly reduced in many simple ways and hopefully they will be eradicated in the near future.
Katie, it's scary how crazy plastic boomed. I didn't know how many alternatives there were!