Lately, God knows why, I've become extremely resistant to the idea of plastic products. I don't like the idea of man made chemical products surrounding my life. True, plastic has its benefits - it makes things cheap, easy to produce, and plastic lasts a long time. Which is why every time I throw plastic packaging (that isn't recyclable) away I feel so guilty that I'm just adding more to an already overflowing landslide. Did you know that there's a Great Pacific Garbage Patch just floating in the Pacific Ocean? I can't even bring myself to put pictures up here - it's horrifying. As part of my Simplifying 2012 project, I've decided to, as much as I can without putting a large financial strain on myself, eliminate plastic products from my life (and dispose of them responsibly, of course). Individual actions do matter - maybe by cutting down on the demand for plastic ever so slightly, I might make a tiny dent in the Garbage Patch.
There are certain things that are unrealistic to trade in for my goal to be plastic free:
1. My computer. I have the old MacBook right now, and it's very unreasonable to go out and replace my perfectly functional computer with a new (expensive) aluminum MacBook.
2. My car. I drive a Prius, and while they are amazing for keeping my gas expenses down, are FULL of plastic on the inside. It would be ridicules to try and even find a plastic free car, let alone buy a new car.
Given the near impossibility of this project, I thought I would start with really small steps.
1. Body wash. I found an amazing bar of soap (packaged in paper) at Target to replace my plastic bottled body wash and my face wash. It's fair trade, organic, and not tested on animals, and relatively inexpensive. True, bar soap isn't as moisturizing, but I always put on lotion after I shower anyways, so problem solved. Read more about Dr. Bronner's products here.
2. Loofahs! I currently use a plastic loofah, and easily switched to a natural loofah that I found at Whole Foods with no packaging. I still haven't figured out how to ethically get rid of my plastic loofah and may just have to trash it... so maybe I'm already defeating my purpose of adding less to the landfill.
We'll see how this goes...
