A few months back we took a trunk-full of plastic to the recycling center. It was several months worth of plastic--rather than having it whisked away weekly, we let it pile up--which resulted in an accumulated mass that was eye-popping and seemed so pointless. A bunch of plastic cartons to hold two tomatoes? We seriously bought those? To figure out exactly where we can reduce our plastic usage we did a little accounting as we emptied the trunk into the recycling dumpsters (x's for each plastic container):
Milk xxxxxxxxxxxxx (mostly half gallon)
Yogurt xxxxxxxx (some big and small ones)
Juice xxxxxxx (mix of half and full gallon)
Soaps xxxxxxx (cleaners, hand, body, dish, etc.)
Lettuce xxxxxx (the prewashed mixes)
Desserts xxxxxx (Mmmm)
Hummus xxxxx (mix of smaller organic and bigger non-organic ones)
Strawberries xxxxx (pints)
Tomato xxxx (mostly those awful two-tomato cartons)
Detergent xxxx
Cheese xxx
Olives xx
Cherries xx
Applesauce xx
Ketchup xx
Batteries xx
Qtips x
Mustard x
Butter x
Eggs x
Pita x
Tofu x
Below is how we're thinking of limiting plastic from the the sources above. Keeping it specific to the biggest offenders on the list will hopefully make the plan more manageable and give us a chance at sticking to it...
Buy big. For a number of products there aren't great alternatives (milk, yogurt, juice, detergent, cheese, ketchup, strawberries), and buying big will maximize the product:plastic ratio. This is probably the easiest solution to minimizing many of these plastics at the moment. We'll buy the biggest dish soaps possible and refill when possible. We need to be careful not to waste though, so we'll freeze half of the strawberries when we buy a big one. For milk, when we lived in Iowa the local co-op offered reusable glass milk bottles--in hindsight we did not make nearly enough use of that, and we haven't found it in central PA. So we'll replace our half plastic gallons of whole and 1% milk with a single full (still plastic) gallon, and alternate which kind. It's not eliminating the plastic, but it's an improvement in getting the same amount of milk with a little less plastic.
Go without. We can go without liquid soap and just use bars. For food, if we can't get it at the farmers market, then it's probably not locally sourced (olives, cherries, strawberries most of the year), and we'll reserve it for an occasional treat. When tomatoes are only available at the grocery store, we'll go without or...
Buy fresh, grow and make at home. Buy foods that haven't been pre-whatevered (washed, cut, bundled, etc.), buy at a farmers market, grow in the garden. These take more work and time, and are more rewarding--we'll use less plastic and get better food. And preparing fresh and homemade food is time well spent for mind, body, and spirit. We'll limit plastic lettuce bins by buying the damn head of lettuce, or greens at a market. Same story for tomatoes, berries, etc. We'll make our own hummus more often--one small (plastic) bag of fresh garbanzos made the equivalent of about four plastic hummus tubs.
These steps will hopefully put a dent in our plastic garbage patch.
