My Month Without Plastic: I Survived

 

The plastic waste generated during my month without plastics.

I made it! I survived a month "without" plastic. I managed to mostly avoid purchasing new plastic but still left a small trail of plastic waste behind (see the photo to the right).

It’s less than I expected, which is somewhat of a relief, but I still cringe when I think about this waste still being around for decades after this challenge is over.

We forget about our trash rather quickly when we throw something “away,” but “away” is still somewhere. One of the walls in the Burke's Plastics Unwrapped exhibit is covered with 3,000 plastic bags–the number used every single second by people like me, who hadn’t thought about the consequences of common consumption. I believe as people who can make choices for ourselves, we have a duty to become more aware of our impact and to make a change.