Everyone agrees that single-use plastic is one of the worst things that’s happened to the environment.  Plastic sticks around  for ages, threatening wildlife and spreading toxins.    Activists have banned the use of plastic bags in a few American cities,  but the trend really hasn’t taken hold. Even though I bring cloth bags to Aldi’s because I have to, I will admit to laziness when it comes to supermarkets who provide multiple plastic bags. It’s so much easier to let them do it. Environmentalists insist that the day must come when we stop jamming up our oceans with piles of plastic trash.  But the question is, can we  live without single-use plastic?

Let’s start at the bottom with disposable diapers.  There are charitable organizations that provide free disposable diapers to low income  women.  Can anyone of child bearing age believe that you can do without them?  Well, I did.  Used cloth diapers, which could be thrown in the washing machine and reused for years on end.  However, by the time my third child was born, I succumbed  to the lure of disposable diapers.  Which are actually coated with plastic.

Disposable baby diapers  form a sizeable portion of non-recyclable landfill waste. They also contain many harmful chemicals that are subsequently dispersed into the environment.

Let’s move on to packaging.  Half the products on our shelves are in plastic containers.  Laundry detergent, ketchup, mustard—the list goes on and on. They used to sell such  products in either cardboard boxes or glass bottles. I guess that was a lot more expensive than using plastic.

According to the National Geographic:

“The conveniences plastics offer a throw-away culture that reveals the material’s dark side.  Today, single-use plastics account for 40 percent of the plastic produced every year. Many of these products, such as plastic bags and food wrappers, have a lifespan of mere minutes to hours, yet they may persist in the environment for hundreds of years.”

Take the time to look around your house—the kitchen and bathroom, in particular.  How many of the items you use every day are packaged in plastic?  The alternative, of course, is paper.  Paper and cardboard are renewable materials that are easy to source. They are also inexpensive and can be used for a variety of different  packaging elements.

Can we live without single use plastics?  Decades from now, our descendants may wish that we had.