Becoming Aware of Disposable Plastics -Randee Wlodek

I started counting my 2 days of plastic at an inconvenient time to really grasp the how much my family uses because I never got the chance to collect the plastics into a pile.  I started my 2 days my last day at my house for break and the second day comprised of a road trip back up to Michigan Tech.  During Thanksgiving though, I know we had more disposable plastics than usual because of the holidays and having more people over.  I was too late to take a picture of our recycling bin because there was already garbage day, so it was gone.  But that phrase does not really do justice, because technically it is not “gone”, it had to have gone somewhere.  This is something that many people do not think about and this class had made me really start paying attention to.  Americans' general idea is that when it leaves our homes, the recyclables are reused for other plastics and we are doing a good deed.  Like the video with many of the plastic bottles, it’s probably a safe bet to assume many of those plastics are not reused, but thrown out somewhere.

But during my two days of paying attention to disposable plastics, there was a large portion of the plastic that came from food.  Food gets packaged into plastic, plastic covering it, or plastic to transport it.  Even something simple like apples will come in a plastic bag with a plastic tab tie to hold it closed.  Of course there are the grocery plastic bags that are used very often and are a big source of disposable plastic.  At my house the plastic bags have a second use, being the bag for our garbage can, but all that really does is get thrown out with the garbage at the dump and sits there.  Then there are the plastic bags that are used to hold the subs when going to Subway, like when the car full of people I drove back up to the school stopped for lunch on my second day.  If they bought a drink, the lid and straw are both plastic that is thrown away. There are many small pieces of plastic that we don’t recognize as much too.  When buying new things like socks, they come in a plastic bag or held together with small pieces of plastic.  Plastic hangers for clothes can at least be reused until they break, but I’m sure there are many people who just throw them away.  Just imagining all the people who buy something simple as socks are putting all those tiny pieces of plastic out into our environment, just so socks can be held together. 

I noticed that my personal disposable plastics included mostly bottles for drinks and items that are used for a while then disposed of (milk jugs, shampoo bottle, deodorant, ect.).  I wish that there was a more efficient way to reduce the use of so many bottles to distribute drinks among other things.  It would be beneficial if there was some way that the bottles could be taken somewhere to be refilled, instead of reproducing more.  This could also be true to substitute for many items people use every day.  When I tried avoiding disposable plastics, the best that I could do would be using a reusable water bottle for water and then a canvas bag instead of plastic bags if I were to carry things.  Other than that, there are not many things that can be replaced by me.  In order to avoid these plastics I would just not eat those snacks or other food items or not buy items that have a plastic to be thrown away, which is easier said than done.  In order for there to be a real change, the industry needs to find better ways than to use plastic, such as finding a different material that can get the job done, but is biodegradable or truly reusable and able to be reshaped into different items.  This project in general opened my eyes up to everyone’s use of plastics and how much we throw away.  Sometimes it seems better to be ignorant because you can’t get get sad if you don't know about it, but if there is going to be a change, everyone should know and understand what is really going on.

-Randee Wlodek