Going Anti-Plastic: One Girl’s Journey into Minimizing Her Carbon Footprint

Cooking with my used pot and bamboo cooking spoon, wearing a skirt I got at Goodwill.

It was an article in the “green” column of the company newsletter that jumpstarted my obsession with reducing my impact on the ecosystem.

The article mentioned a few blogs—like No Impact Man—by people who weren’t content with just chucking things in the recycling bin like I was.  They took the leap to decide that if disposable items were bad, they would examine every facet of their lives to try to rid their lives of them completely. I had had no idea there was such a vibrant online community about this. And the more I read, the more apparent it became that I wasn’t doing nearly enough.

I just plain didn’t know exactly how damaging plastic—and other consumer materials—was to the ecosystem. Of course I knew enough to frown upon it, but I certainly didn’t realize, for instance, how damaging it was to ME, directly— e.g. that it was soaking into my skin from cosmetics and could even cause cancer.  I learned things that kick you right in the gut—like the Mae West turtle and the Pacific Garbage Patch and the prediction that the entire North Pole may melt completely in just a few decades.  I learned that avoiding soda in a plastic bottle wasn’t just nice—it was imperative.

I became an addict, poring through every article of every blog I could find (like Fake Plastic Fish) for tips on changes to make. And I was surprised to find how maddeningly hard eliminating plastic was.  Aluminum cans have a plastic liner?  You can’t get medication in anything other than plastic?  You can’t buy a printer made out of, I don’t know, wood??

It became an exciting challenge. One website, Crunchy Chicken, even runs incredibly hardcore challenges that kickstart you into amping up your habits. I’ve always been a bit of an ascetic, a bit of an eccentric, and a bit of a luddite, and this new obsession drew those qualities right to the surface. Not that you have to be those things in the pursuit of becoming more eco-friendly; that’s just what I found most fun about it.

I love pretending I’ve entered the world of Little House of the Prairie.  Instead of washing my dishes with a plastic sponge, I started using a hand-crocheted cloth— just like in ye olden tymes!  I brush my teeth with baking soda, line-dry my laundry, make most of my meals from scratch, buy only used clothing, buy from bulk bins, etc., etc., etc.  And the changes I’ve made have become so ingrained that I barely notice them anymore.

Of course, I still have a long way to go. My next anti-plastic project is to get a crockpot and a tortilla press so I can indulge in my craving for refried beans and tortilla chips without having to toss out yet another can and plastic bag. But at least I’m now fully aware of these issues, which is, of course, half the battle.