Get Rid of These 7 Single-Use Plastics Once and For All

It’s not your fault plastic is everywhere. Here’s how to protect yourself, children and the planet.

You don’t mean to use single-use plastic, but somehow it happens.

You most likely know single-use plastics are impossible to recycle. These plastics end up in landfill or sent to a recycling plant on the other side of the planet.

They make plastic from petrochemicals, which are toxic to health. Let’s take one plastic chemical called DEHP — you will find this in toys, clothing, food packaging, flooring and personal care products.

Harvard Medical School researchers showed exposure to the plastic additive diethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP) could cause fertility problems. The study showed that DEHP increases breaks in the DNA during egg production and impairs cells’ ability to repair these breaks.

This is one of many health problems caused by plastic exposure.

Why do we use plastic if it is so bad for us?

“93 percent of Americans carry BPA in their bodies, according to the CDC, or it could be that exposure is coming through different routes than food, such as the polyvinyl chloride (PVC) pipes often used for water lines in modern homes.” — Scientific American, January 28, 2009.

Plastic is convenient, cheap, lightweight and supermarkets argue it reduces food waste in our long supply chains.

Since the late 1970s, plastic is the most used type of material in the world.

It’s so popular, that you will find:

• The rate of plastic wastage is growing at a rate of 9% every year
• Plastic outnumbers sea life by six to one
• 93% of Americans (above the age of 6) test positive for a plastic chemical BPA
• The planet uses one million plastic bags every minute
• The average person consumes 70,000 microplastics each year

What can you do when the world seems designed to give you plastic everywhere you go?

Here are seven single-use plastics to avoid now. They are also relatively easy to replace with an alternative.

1. Paper plates and cups

They are not as friendly as they first appear. They are non-biodegradable plastic laminated on the paper. Recycling is more costly when plastic and paper are fused together. Expensive = not done.

2. Plastic cutlery

Plastic cutlery that has come into contact with food is not recyclable. These hard, colourful plastics need specific recycling operations offshore and/or out-of-sight. Shipping waste across the world contributes to emissions.

3. Bottled water

Bottled water is one of the most significant sources of plastic pollution in the world. They also need the use of fossil fuels to recycle. Yet, this one is simple to change: bring your own reusable water bottle with you.

4. Plastic and Polypropylene (PP) bags

Plastic and cloth bond together under heat to form PP bags. This renders them unrecyclable, especially if multi-colored.

5. Plastic shrink wrap

Large supermarket chains believe that plastic helps track food along the supply chain. Until they stop pre-packaged fresh goods, shop at bulk food stores, local stores or markets. To keep meals fresh at home, store them in steel containers.

6. Single-use sachets

Common in cosmetic samples and convenience food, such as ketchup sachets. The recycling of little aluminium and plastic sachets is costly. Complicated to recycle, wind up in landfills and in animal stomachs.

7. Laminated packaging

Plastic bonded to an interior layer of aluminium are unrecyclable.

For a quick snack, a packet of chips can cause serious waste in our river systems as litter.

There can be light at the end of the tunnel

Environmentally friendly alternatives to plastic have never been easier to find and swap out.

If you do not see alternatives where you live, then ask for an alternative — because they are available.

But if we don’t stop using these 7 single-use plastics now, the next generations will hate us later.

Further reading:

How Clever Marketing Sold the World The Myth of the Carbon Footprint

The Hydration Hustle: How Marketers Sold Us on Bottled Water