Until you sit down and think about it a) you might not realise how much plastic you are currently using in your daily lives, but b) how difficult it can be to remove it from your life (style). Following that blog will be a huge revelation for us all and a great learning tool in following the path ourselves, at the very least to some degree.

Two very important considerations are food storage, and apparel

Plastic makes an efficient and long lasting container for foods and liquid leftovers - and unlike glass will not break as easily when dropped as well as being lighter to carry

Also, if vinyl and nylon are considered part of the plastic family - one has to decide whether to buy leather (which is taken from animals) versus buying vinyl or nylon for those cold rainy days.

Rather than simplistically cut out plastics altogether, surely a more useful exercise is to investigate the many complex issues surrounding it? For example:

- Which plastics are recyclable and what percentage gets recycled? What's the energy or environmental cost of recycling plastic?

- Is there a low environmental impact way of manufacturing plastic? (There have been developments in compostable and biodegradable plastics for example.)

- What kinds of alternative packaging can replace plastics and where can its' use be abandoned altogether?

(I don't know the answers to these questions by the way)

Plastics are used not just for packaging but for a myriad of other purposes. We don't have to throw every plastic item we purchase in the bin. All we have to do is think a little harder before we make a purchase about a product's intended use and longevity. The fact that we throw away so much is not just because of excess packaging but as much a symptom of our endemic consume-and-discard culture.

Too often, environmental concerns about products or materials are simplified to the level of

natural = good
synthetic = bad

There is a lot to dislike about plastic and it's environmental footprint, but it also has its genuine uses. I'm sure there is a lot that can be done to lessen it's environmental impact - let's have a sensible wide-ranging debate rather than a simplistic one :-)

the youth of los angeles, called the green ambassadors, are trying to ban plastic from los angeles. we do emperical research of plastic in our environment. did you know in the middle of the pacific ocean there is 6x more plastic than plankton (by weight)..there is a patch double the size of texas of plastic garbage becuase of you and me.
I went to galpagos this year to study plastic and spread this curriculum around the world...and gues what...there was plastic (tiny tiny plastic) in the sand on the GALAPAGOS islands.
This year the green ambassadors built tiny boats out of used plastic bottles to float down the ballona wetlands of Los Angeles with our city leaders.
Please, Let us BANNED together to BAN plastic from this planet. If we do nothing we will collapse our marine ecosystems, but we have the power of choice...please choose the alternatives or the solutions.

Some of the oldest plastics have only been around for about 50 years, yet the estimates are they can last for up to 500 years. But of course we don't know yet!

The very attributes that make plastics so hard to break down in nature are the same that make them so useful for us.

Things like carrier bags and food packaging are probably the best examples of human convenience triumphing over the proper use of resources. Those 3 carrier bags you use for about 2 minutes between the check out and the car. Those 50 grams of attractively styled plastic in the bottle of water you just bought, drank and threw away after 10 minutes.

Imagine giving one of these transparent, almost indestructable, lightweight and well-sealed bottles to someone 200 years ago. They'd go bananas for 'em! Properly looked after it could probably serve you for years. Nowadays, it's in the bin and on it's way to landfill within the hour.

So cherish the plastic around you ;)

I've been living plastic free for about three months now, and I can say that, while difficult at first, it's become second nature now. Also, I kind of see it as a fun challenge to find a plastic free alternative when I run out of a product that I bought before I made the change.

Anyways, it's obvious that we shouldn't do away with plastic all together since it has many applications, especially in medicine. But for everyday life this environmentally harmful and possibly unhealthy substance just doesn't need to be omnipresent as it is.