A Day Without Plastic? Seemingly Impossible.

Kristin Kern, discussion section 304 (TA: Vanessa)

As I went into this challenge, I knew that there was absolutely no way I could live a day completely without plastic. So instead, I decided to use it as an opportunity to help myself realize how much plastic I actually use.

In the morning, I woke up to my alarm, set on my phone, and realized that I had already encountered plastic, as my phone is made of plastic. I got out of bed and grabbed my contact case (also plastic,) realizing that I was not going to come anywhere near close to living a day without plastic in it.

I turned on my laptop and got dressed, noting that my laptop and even my clothes had parts of plastic on them.

After I ate breakfast - where I encountered countless amounts of plastic in the tray, cup, and containers storing the food, not to mention my wiscard, which I used to purchase my meal - I went to brush my teeth with my plastic toothbrush and toothpaste tube made of plastic. (Lunch and dinner later were very similar experiences in terms of plastic use.)

My use of plastic continued as I used my mechanical plastic pencils, binders, and my plastic pens in my classes.

After my classes were done for the day, I went to work out at, and found that all of the machines contained at least some plastic. Even my ipod, which I always use while I run, had plastic in it.

When I returned home, I got ready for a shower and saw that my shower tote, as well as my bottles of shampoo and conditioner were all plastic, furthering my total count of plastic use for the day.

Later, as I sat at my desk doing homework, I noticed even my lamp was made mostly of plastic as were many random items on my desk such as a stapler, calculator, and tape dispenser (just to name a few).

What I concluded as I got ready for bed, was that it would be nearly impossible for me to live a day without plastic. I never realized how prominent plastic really is in our everyday lives. It is everywhere. Most of the time it goes unnoticed, I don’t even realize, or think about the fact that I am using plastic at all. This is not to say that I would be against making changes that involve a reduced use of plastic. I just know that for me especially, the change would be very difficult and take a while to adjust to.