The changes I made were easy, and they included:

• If I had to purchase food or drink in a plastic container, I always opted for the larger version, if available
  -   For example, I brought two-liter bottles of Diet Coke to work, rather than purchasing a new 20 fl. oz. bottle every day
• I bought a reusable coffee mug to use for my daily coffee (this got me a 10 cent discount, which was a pleasant surprise)
• When grocery shopping, I tried, within reason, to buy foods with minimal plastic packaging
• I ordered less take-out food and made an effort to prepare my own more often, using grocery store ingredients

And that’s about it. Here are the results, in picture form:

The plastic I used during the first ten days of the experiment, during which I went about my standard routine.

The plastic I used during the second ten days of the experiment, during which I made a few small, easy changes to curb my plastic use.

In examining these results, I had a few thoughts. One, considering how much plastic food container waste I built up over the course of the first ten days, I’m shocked that I’m not morbidly obese. I ate all that stuff? Two, I drink way too much Diet Coke. Three, most importantly, by making some very easy behavioral changes, I was able to significantly reduce my plastic use and, even though ten days isn’t a very long time, my “plastic savvy” mindset is already relatively second-nature to me. As an added benefit, I’ve found that the changes I’ve made have forced me to adopt slightly healthier eating habits, because I eat more fruits and vegetables and less pre-packaged, processed snacks.

Obviously, no matter the routine, one should recycle as much as possible. Unfortunately, though, not all plastic can be recycled, so the best solution is to simply avoid using plastic altogether. Try your own “plastic purge” experiment and see what happens.

As I mentioned in my Purging Plastic post, I am temporarily saving all the plastic I use to, one, get an idea of how much plastic I actually go through on a regular basis and, two, identify where and how I can reduce that amount. I then intend to do the same thing while consciously making some simple changes to curb my plastic use. Let me start this update off by saying that I consider myself better than average when it comes to keeping my plastic use at a reasonable level. I don’t buy bottled water, I keep and reuse old plastic grocery bags, I use reusable canvas bags to carry my groceries, etc. However, despite these good habits, the plastic I have accumulated in the past week and a half is slowly taking over my kitchen and, therefore, I need to shorten the “status quo” stage of this experiment from the originally stated two weeks to a more manageable ten days. There, I said it. Doesn’t make me feel to good about my plastic use, but now I can finally get this crap out of my house…

For the most part, plastic claims one of the top spots on Mother Nature’s sh*t list. It’s light, cheap, durable, and incredibly useful, but it has a horrible impact on our environment. Plastic bottles, plastic bags, just about anything plastic, kills wildlife, poisons water, pollutes habitats, and/or chokes landfills. Plus, it’s made from non-renewable resources (petroleum, for example) and lasts virtually forever. No one knows exactly how long (I’ve seen estimates of a simple plastic soda bottle’s lifespan to be anywhere from 450 years to, literally, “forever’), but it’s clearly long enough to prove that our problems with plastic accumulation are just getting started.

Recently, however, while visiting Chicago Booth business school earlier this month, I stumbled across a glimmer of hope. In an attempt to avoid the obscene Chicago cold (yes, Charlotte has spoiled me), I sought refuge in a small cafeteria in one of Booth’s main buildings, the Harper Center. After deciding to grab a[nother] quick breakfast, I noticed a row of plastic water bottles featured in rows under each cashier counter. Upon further inspection, I found the bottles were sold by a company called Green Planet Bottling and were, apparently, biodegradable. I also soon discovered that the cafeteria had transitioned to biodegradable plastic utensils (not sure if these were the ones at Booth), made of natural materials like corn and potato starch, as well. Gotta give credit to Booth for their commitment to the environment.

Intrigued, I researched further, and it turns out there are quite a number of companies producing or selling biodegradable/compostable plastic materials. To name a few, Nat-Ur (check out Cereplast), Earthware Biodegradables, Biota (has a time-lapse video), and Eco-Products. A Google search will yield you many results. Most are compostable/recyclable, are made from renewable resources, will burn clean, and use less fossil fuel in production than do petroleum-based plastics. Good stuff, so far. Not surprisingly, however, although they represent an important step in the right direction, these biodegradable plastics are not a miracle cure to all our plastic problems. They all vary slightly, but one constant remains: you can’t just toss any of them out your car window and expect them to turn into a flower and a bunny rabbit a week later.

As far as I can tell, they all need to go through some form of “commercial” composting process, which exposes them to a combination of consistent high temperatures (~110-150 degrees F), micro-organisms, and moisture, a process that may not always be available. Under ideal circumstances, they take a minimum of about 80 days to decompose and much longer under imperfect conditions. There’s also apparently some controversy around the impact of clearing land that may be needed to grow the crops that will eventually be used to produce the plastics. Some even believe that, since our landfills are packed so tightly, bio-plastics that end up in the landfills, rather than in the proper recycling/composting facilities, could biodegrade anaerobically (without oxygen) and produce methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

To me, it seems the benefits far outweigh the costs, and one can only hope this trend continues to spread and the technology continues to improve, phasing out the negative trade-offs. In the meantime, though, one thing remains clear: the best way to reduce the impact of plastic on our environment is to simply minimize purchases of disposable plastic items and, if you have no choice, reuse as much as humanly possible, then recycle.