Plastic pollution has become one of the most depressing environmental issues. But we do have to remember, not all plastics are bad. Plastic made so many unimaginable things possible by providing some life-saving devices such as incubators, IV bags, mere helmets, water purification equipment and also helping reduce food waste by keeping produce fresh for long, and so on. So where did it go wrong? It’s the “one-use” culture that is actually causing the problem. Single-use plastics account for 40% of plastics produced in a year. Even though we use the single-use plastic spoon just once for a single meal. It stays and even outlives us in the environment for 1000 years.

It is not only causing damages to the environment but also to our health. According to experts, human eats around 1 credit card worth of plastics. That’s a lot of plastics and the BPA (bisphenol A) in plastics could cause cardiovascular problems, Fertility issues in both males and females, Hormonal issues, finally even cancer.

According to CDC, 93% of the people had detectable levels of BPA in their urine. (In a group of around 2500 members participated.)

But first, Lets see why we need to take it upon ourselves to do our part,

• According to a report by Eunomia in 2016, approximately 12 million tons of plastic waste reaches the ocean every single year. That’s equal to circle the earth circumference with plastic waste 3 times.
• Approximately 700 species and 100,000 marine animals are known to have been affected by plastics and most of the death of animals is caused by the entanglement of plastic materials. Marine animals strangle mostly in fishing nets or six-pack rings. And 1 million sea birds die from ingesting plastic. It’s not marine animals but even the land animals were affected starting from elephants to cows.
• Plastic production contributes to global warming too by releasing greenhouse gases in every single step of its production and degradation. Refineries that turn crude oil into plastics are the most aggravated producers of greenhouse gases and contributing heavily to the rising greenhouse gases. The production of plastic is increasing exponentially in past decades to the level of 448 million in 2015. It is not in line with our carbon reduction goal and expected to double by 2050.

On a side note: While researching for this article I found pictures of animals with plastic in and around them. It was so disheartening to see how we are polluting their home for our convenience. You can check out the pictures here

Anyway lets get back to what we can do in order to avoid polluting more of their homes and reducing our carbon footprint.

1. Reusable shopping bags

For all this section, I did my own research. On average, I would be using 156 shopping bags per year just for grocery and not even considering the other form of shopping such as dress, home, amazon delivery, target, etc., By simply carrying the reusable shopping bags, I was able to reduce pollution and carbon footprint. There are a variety of reusable shopping bags available but I personally use IKEA big blue bag which I got from a friend, a Comcast bag in which modem and other supplies came in, etc., So I never actually bought a bag for shopping but instead reused the bags I had at home.

To be honest, in the overall lifecycle, reusable bags actually produce more carbon than plastic bags (All this research considers only carbon footprint and not littering )but if you use them for years, you will significantly reduce the carbon footprint equivalent and stop littering the world.

Never use paper bags too as they are more harmful to the environment as trees are being cut for their production and the production process uses more water and emit more acid rain inducing chemicals.‘

The best reusable bag is the one you already have at home, or you could borrow from friends or neighbor from their extra stash and in the worst case, there are reusable bags made from recycled materials (those seems to have less impact on the environment and reduces littering by recycling). Simple yet effective.

2. Mesh produce bags

Again I did research on myself and the number was staggering. I was using on average 35 plastic produce bags each time I do the shopping and that totals up to 910 bags/ year (On average Americans use 1500 produce bags/year). In order to help reduce my own litter, I switched to Mesh produce bags and I am using them for a year now and they are perfect.

• They are washable
• They are transparent
• They come in different sizes
• Breathable and keeps fruits and veggies fresh for long especially the leafy greens.

the key to keeping our carbon footprint is to keep using the produce bags as long as possible by taking good care of them. I am an Indian and it seems going back to the roots of “Manja Pai” (yellow reusable cotton bag) seems to the way to save the environment and avoid plastic pollution.

Finally, remember the numbers and if you think being an individual, we will not make a dent then think again. If enough of us start doing then the impact will be unimaginable. So let’s all do our part to keep our home (Earth) clean and green.

3. Stainless Steel Straws

Straws are currently the 6th most find from the ocean cleanups (data from ocean conservancy’s from July 2019) making it the most found litter. There are many videos available online about the impact of straws on marine animals and birds. Please check out the video here (Nathan J. Robinson removed a 10 cm (4 in) plastic straw that was entirely embedded into the nostril of an olive ridley sea turtle during the research project in Costa Rica and video recorded by Christine Figgener).

Ever since I saw this video, I have reduced my plastic straw production to almost 0. I still use the plastic straws sometimes out of necessity but it’s more like once in a blue moon rather than every single time. There is no more compelling argument than that video. Please use reusable straws and next time you are in a restaurant, coffee shop, boba shop request a plastic straw-free drink and carry your own steel straws.

4. Beeswax Food Wrap

Plastic wrap helps us to prevent food wastes and helps us keep our food fresh for long. It is good for our food but it isn’t good for our home (Earth). Most plastic wraps are produced from LDPE and have been invented by mistake. And mostly this history seems to be all over the internet. Not only that but the fact of nearly 80 million Americans had used at least one roll of plastic wrap in the past 6 months. That’s a lot of plastic wraps to end up in landfills and the ocean as trash because 100% of the plastic wraps are not recycled. The only way to prevent plastic wrap from ending up in the ocean and landfills are to never use them.

Instead, we could use beeswax wrap. All it has is a cloth (cotton, linen (i prefer linen as it is much more eco-friendly material)), jojoba oil, and tree resin (mostly pine tree) and that its. Everything is naturally available and it will last you for a year minimum if you maintain it appropriately. When it’s time for you to part ways it is still compostable. I have been using it for a year now. I use it to wrap watermelon, avocado, cover a bowl of batter, anything and everything that plastic wrap can do. It does get stained by food such as watermelon etc., But make sure to wash and scrub according to instruction and you will be fine.

5. Reusable water bottle & water purifier

oh yes!!! the PET bottle. They are very convenient for our current on-the-go lifestyle but it is as harmful as it gets for the ocean, marine animals and the environment overall. They produce more greenhouse gases during its production and also uses water twice the time it holds (for ex. 1-liter pet bottle uses 2 liters of water to be manufactured). Worst of all is that it gets used for an average of 12 minutes and thrown away without even a second thought to be ended up in a landfill or ocean. The sad truth is only 23% of PET bottles are getting recycled, rest all mostly ends up in ocean garbage patch.

We have a very simple solution here. Buy water filters and filter the tap water, and in the worst-case boil the water for drinking. While traveling and on the go, carry a reusable steel bottle to carry water, and then you can refill.

America uses about 50 billion water bottles per year, which average up to 13 bottles per person per month. While I traveled a lot around America and Canada, I found the sophisticated level of infrastructure available for water refilling stations. So if you as individual starts to use reusable bottles, it could save up to 156 plastic bottles.

Sources:

• Bisphenol A (BPA) “niehs.nih.gov”
• Bisphenol A (BPA): Use in Food Contact Application(Nov 2014) “fda.gov”
• Health risk of exposure to Bisphenol A (BPA) (2015) “pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov” by Aleksandra Konieczna, Aleksandra Rutkowska, Dominik Rachoń
• Benefits of using reusable cotton produce bags (2019) “ecoroots.us”
• How Can Reusable Produce Bags Benefit the Environment? “gallantintl.com”
• Every straw counts in the fight against climate change(2019) “unep.org”
• Plastic Wrap, Convenient for Humans Yet A Deadly Product For Our Planet “earthbuddies.net”
• Production of methane and ethylene from plastic in the environment ( 2018) “journals.plos.org” Sarah-Jeanne Royer, Sara Ferrón, Samuel T. Wilson, David M. Karl 
• ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution
• The sticky problem of plastic wrap (2019) “nationalgeographic.com” Sarah Gibbens
• The Amount of Plastic Waste on Earth Is Enough to Wrap the Whole Planet (2016) “natureworldnews.com” Jessica F
• The US Consumes 1500 Plastic Water Bottles Every Second, a Fact by Watershed (2020) “treehugger.com” Petz Scholtus
• Fact Sheet: Single-Use Plastics (2018) “earthday.org”
• The sticky problem of plastic wrap “plasticactioncentre.ca”
• The environmental impact of plastic straws- facts, statistics, and infographic (2018) “get-green-now.com” Hugh
• Environmental toll of plastics (2020) “ehn.org” Jessica A.Knoblauch
• Single-Use plastics 101 (2020) “nrdc.org” Courtney Lindwall
• The world’s plastic pollution crisis explained (2019) “nationalgeographic.com” Laura Parker
• MORE RECYCLING; U.S. PACKAGING AND WRAPPING; HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW; STATISTA; CLEAN AIR COUNCIL

Check out my other “Liveclean.Eatclean” post here!!