plastics challenge

Kate McCardell

After hearing about the difficulty of my classmate’s plastic challenge experiences, I was pretty pessimistic about the whole thing. There are so many products and appliances made with plastic that I need to use in order to function, and I doubted I could last that long without using them… and I was right.

I decided to start the challenge on a Saturday. I got up on Saturday morning at 9:30. The fact that I was awake at 9:30 on a Saturday was a real feat. The ruckus my roommates were making had woken me up. Normally, I would set the alarm on my plastic phone for a few hours later, and go back to bed. That wasn’t possible, so I walked into the kitchen. As I reached for the coffee pot, I realized the handle was plastic. I forced my roommate into pouring a cup for me. I was glad to remember that our refrigerator was stainless steel, but as I opened it, I realized that our Coffeemate is in a plastic container. I started to get frustrated as I sipped my plain, bitter coffee. Next, I looked around for something to eat. Mostly everything in the refrigerator was off limits, as it is either individually wrapped or housed in a container of plastic. I had barely any food to begin with, but the only items I had that were not in plastic were my box of pasta, glass jar of sauce, eggs, glass jar of peanut butter, one banana and a box of tea. I couldn’t make pasta or eggs because the stove and pots contain plastic. I ended up eating a banana from our glass fruit bowl.

As I went to the bathroom to get ready for the day, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to use 95% of the things that I needed to- I couldn’t brush my teeth, my hair, wash my face with my face wash, put on deodorant or put in a hair tie. I couldn’t even bathe, because my shower is one big piece of plastic. The light was already left on from my roommate, so I didn’t have to touch the light switch. All of my makeup was off limits as well. Every item was either made entirely of plastic or contained some. As I went to pick up my glasses case, I remembered that my glasses were made of plastic. Oops. By this point I looked like a total hot mess. I wasn’t really sure how much longer I could go without plastics- and I had only been awake for 30 minutes. Talk about a buzz-kill.

I went to get dressed. Half of my clothes are in plastic container shelves, and so I tried to find clothes from my closet that I could wear. I pulled the metal handle to open up the doors, and saw the plastic hangers. I had to attempt to get my shirt and sweater off the hangers by simply yanking on the bottom of them. It didn’t go so well. I ended up in totally un-matching clothes. At this point, I decided that I wouldn’t be leaving the apartment. Next, I went to find my homework for the day. I had some reading to do, so I spent a few hours reading a book and a few articles, all while sitting on my wooden chair at my wooden desk. I needed to write down notes, so I went to grab a wooden pencil and my notebook. I totally forgot that all of my notebooks had plastic covers. Since my laptop is aluminum, I decided that I could type up the notes instead. Wrong. The keys on the laptop are plastic.

By this point, I was hungry again. I decided that I would give up on the challenge. It was 1 pm. My plastics challenge had lasted a whole 3.5 hours. I had so much to get done, and without using the plastic products I have, it seemed impossible. That’s not to say that I didn’t want a day without plastics to be possible, but at this point, when almost everything contains some sort of plastic, it is ridiculously hard to accomplish. I already try not to use a lot of plastic. I don’t use plastic bowls, plates, silverware, cups or Tupperware. I try to buy only those products in glass or cardboard containers. I use a cloth shopping bag, so there are barely any plastic bags in my apartment. I tend to stay away from products that are overly packaged with plastic. Still, it’s easy to understand why avoiding plastic is almost impossible. Plastics are literally everywhere.