Kali Goldapske Section 308

When we were first assigned this challenge I thought great, this should be pretty easy to do. No plastic, no problem. However, once I started to think about how to avoid using plastics, I realized I actually had a big problem! Since there was no way I could work a day without plastics at college, I decided to wait and do the challenge once I was home over Thanksgiving break.

I tried to prepare for my plastic free day as best as I could. I stopped at the local dairy in town that still sells milk in glass bottles. Next I gathered some food such as bananas and apples that were not in plastic bags to eat. I also made sure to shower before I went to bed, as I did not have access to a plastic free shower. Luckily, I was still able to sleep in my bed as it is wooden and my sheets actually do not have plastic in them!

Morning of Plastic Free Day: I woke up and got some plastic free clothes out of my wooden dresser and ate a banana. I was feeling pretty good about my plastic free day so far. However, I had a really hard time not brushing my teeth since both of my toothbrush and toothpaste tube were made of plastic. This drove me nuts all day. I spent most of my time just enjoying the outdoors with family and also catching up on some reading. I first failed before lunch, when the phone rang and my mom asked if I could answer it. I picked it up without a thought and thus used plastic.

Lunch: I had prepared a nice lunch of mixed fruits and placed it in the fridge the night before. But, I failed to realize that the shelves within our fridge and the door handle were plastic. So I tried to hold off for as long as I could, but by 2:00 I was too hungry and opened the fridge to get my so-called plastic free lunch.

Afternoon: I really failed the challenge when my Dad asked me to help him put up the Christmas lights. I couldn’t just blow him off because I was doing the plastics challenge, and putting up the lights together has been our father-daughter tradition since as long as I can remember. I did try to keep up with the challenge using a wooden latter, but again failed since I wore my winter jacket which is made of plastic.

I spent the rest of the day trying to avoid plastics, but still broke down and used them, especially during dinner.

From this challenge I realized how plastics are integrated into our lives in just about everyway possible. They are unavoidable.

I also realized that plastics allow us to be more sanitary. I often wondered if glass bottles are really sanitized completely before being reused. Do the sanitary benefits plastics override the benefits of easily recyclable products like glass? Judging by the presence of plastics today, I would say so.