Living Plastic Free

For the better part of my school life, I had always relied on plastic water bottles to hydrate myself both during and after classes. My parent always bought bulk cases of plastic water bottles, so for convenience's sake I always took one right before I went to school. I always felt a tad guilty for using them, so to lessen my internal sense of guilt, I convinced myself that reusing the bottles throughout the day would be a good way to reduce my plastic use. Whenever I ran out of water in the bottle, I would simply go to the nearest water fountain, fill it up, and drink it. I would repeat this process a couple of times throughout the day, till I eventually threw it away in the recycling.

I eventually discovered that my moral compromise was just delaying the process of plastic being shipped off to processing plants,…

To reduce my plastic consumption I’ve started to use reusable bags. When going to the store I often found myself having to buy a plastic bag to carry what I bought. Often these bags were not great quality as they were thin and broke with almost no force. This caused me to have to double bag my items and use multiple plastic bags to carry just a few items. I decided to switch to reusable bags to reduce my plastic consumption.  With the use of reusable bags I’ve gone from using around 6 plastic bags weekly to rarely ever using a plastic bag. When I forget my bags at home I will bring what I bought to my car with the shopping cart or basket from the store and later bag them at home for easy transportation inside. The only time I ever use a plastic bag is when I…