Disposable Plastics Challenge - Chad Zaleski

When I began this assignment, I did not think that I would accumulate a great amount of disposable plastic items.  I really don’t use many plastics at Michigan Tech because I usually only buy one soft drink a day in a plastic soda bottle.  

I began my project at home when I was on Thanksgiving break.  At home, my mother buys lots of drinks for my family.  She always purchases cases of water, Gatorade and bottles of soft drinks.  As I spent my first day relaxing, watching television and eating, I noticed that I was constantly either grabbing a bottle of water to drink or a soft drink.   

I have always consumed a lot of water from water bottles, mainly because it is quicker to grab a cold one of those out of the refrigerator rather than get a cup, fill it with ice and then with water.  Even though I did not use many of the items that I included in my picture, my mother did and I was at home at the time so I did help to consume the products that were in the containers.  I noticed that many items that I ate at home had foods in them that were purchased in a plastic container.  I was also surprised at how much milk my family consumed as well as orange juice in a two day period.  These large containers took up a lot of room in the garbage.       

  

After observing my pile of plastics that I photographed, I noticed that my awareness had already sunk in as I did not drink as near the amount of drinks that I normally would.  When I am at home, I normally drink five or six bottles of water a day.   

After my mother observed the amount of plastic in just a couple of days that I collected, she realized that there were some items that she had thrown out that could have been included in this picture.  She threw away more bottles that drink came in as well as a large laundry detergent bottle.  A benefit to doing this project is that my mother has decided to call a recycling plant that is only a mile from my home to see what our family can do to begin recycling our plastics and tins.  

I thought hard about what other items could be used to replace the plastics that my family and I could begin using.  I came up with only a few:  reusable shopping bags, stainless steel or BPA free plastic water bottles, containers to pack snacks and sandwiches or store leftovers, Tide pods laundry detergent, orange juice paper cartons, disposable juice boxes, refillable gallon water jugs.  

Unfortunately, it seems impossible to eliminate all of the plastic use from my life.  So many items that I need to use, especially for purchasing food in, only comes in plastic containers, even my shampoo.  

Fortunately, I have the opportunity to recycle my plastics and several other items that are not biodegradable and this option is available to most people in America.  Over the past decade, more awareness, efforts and programs on the importance of recycling to save our environment have been established.