Living Life Without Plastic
Humanity has quickly become addicted to plastic. In just over 70 years, we've gone from a lifestyle with extremely limited uses of plastics to plastic in almost everything. Even your car is about 25 per cent plastic!
Plastic has infiltrated our lives because of its unique properties: the fact that it can be freely molded while hot and then retain its shape when cool has allowed industry to come up with an almost infinite range of uses. Also, different types of plastic retain different levels of rigidity when cool - this is why plastic can be as thin and flexible as plastic wrap or as solid and rigid as your car's bumper.
This is why we produce 20 times as much plastic today as we did 50 years ago.
Given the insidiousness of plastic, what would happen if you tried to live plastic free? Well, one blogger has tried to do just that, and is writing about it for the web
Introducing "Living Plastic Free"
Envirowoman is the blogger behind the site Living Plastic Free. She has completed two full years of living with the pledge to bring no new plastic into her life. Her total plastic garbage for 2008 amounts to a mere .42 kilograms, or just under 1 pound.
While Envirowoman lives a lifestyle that may not appeal to you (she is a vegetarian who has been willing to give up her car to avoid plastic), she is an example of what you can do to limit your plastic consumption. In the end, she states that she's not only healthier, but the planet is too and her children have learned some valuable lessons about being a conscious and responsible consumer.
While you may not want to go as far as this woman (and not many of us would), she does show that it is possible to live a reasonable lifestyle in the middle of a large urban center (Vancouver) without having to buy or own plastic yourself.
Tips To Avoid Non-Biodegradable Plastic
Not willing to go "cold turkey" on plastic? No worries! There are a lot of steps that you can take to reduce your plastic consumption,
Plastic has infiltrated our lives because of its unique properties: the fact that it can be freely molded while hot and then retain its shape when cool has allowed industry to come up with an almost infinite range of uses. Also, different types of plastic retain different levels of rigidity when cool - this is why plastic can be as thin and flexible as plastic wrap or as solid and rigid as your car's bumper.
This is why we produce 20 times as much plastic today as we did 50 years ago.
Given the insidiousness of plastic, what would happen if you tried to live plastic free? Well, one blogger has tried to do just that, and is writing about it for the web
Introducing "Living Plastic Free"
Envirowoman is the blogger behind the site Living Plastic Free. She has completed two full years of living with the pledge to bring no new plastic into her life. Her total plastic garbage for 2008 amounts to a mere .42 kilograms, or just under 1 pound.
While Envirowoman lives a lifestyle that may not appeal to you (she is a vegetarian who has been willing to give up her car to avoid plastic), she is an example of what you can do to limit your plastic consumption. In the end, she states that she's not only healthier, but the planet is too and her children have learned some valuable lessons about being a conscious and responsible consumer.
While you may not want to go as far as this woman (and not many of us would), she does show that it is possible to live a reasonable lifestyle in the middle of a large urban center (Vancouver) without having to buy or own plastic yourself.
Tips To Avoid Non-Biodegradable Plastic
Not willing to go "cold turkey" on plastic? No worries! There are a lot of steps that you can take to reduce your plastic consumption,