Plastic Project Part 1- Braedyn Bosilovatz

I split my "plastic awareness days" between school and home. Over Thanksgiving break I spent one day using alternatives and tracking plastic use, and once we got back from break I spent a day here in Houghton tracking and using alternatives. Overall, I discovered I don't use much disposable plastic, especially at school. At home it was obviously the aftermath of Thanksgiving dinner, so there were leftover containers (a lot of Ziplocs) filling the fridge, which isn’t typical of my house, or anyone’s I hope. That much food is definitely not necessary. I did notice though, and this probably is typical but I never thought about it much, that the garbage had to be changed really often, which accounted for most of the plastic use. The whole point of garbage bags is for them to be disposable, and that's kind of funny to me. I guess I never thought of an alternative for them. We use paper bags for groceries and other things at home, but not actually the garbage. That whole realization of throwing our plastic into more plastic proved to me that we also throw away a lot of stuff, of just everything. My mom opened a can of cranberry sauce (gross) for Thanksgiving and nobody touched it (obviously) so she threw it all away. It was a plate of perfectly edible food, plus the can it came in, all thrown away for literally no reason. I mean, the reason she thought anyone in my family would touch cranberry sauce in the first place is beyond me… Anyways, she also runs a day care at our house which goes through its fair share of disposable plastics, too. Little kids love Little Debbies, fruit snacks, Gogurt, Kid Cuisine, etc. All of those junky little snack foods are accumulated in every cupboard, so I harp on her very often about recycling. I personally don't drink pop and eat practically every meal with metal silverware, at school and at home, so those two alternatives clear a lot of trash off my record. I never buy plastic water bottles either, always have a reusable water bottle or a travel mug with me instead, and typically use my purse to carry stuff home from the store. This past week I did use a bag from home for the things I bought at Walmart, unfortunately when we went to Goodwill and the Dollar Tree I couldn’t fit those additional purchases in my nifty reusable bag, so I ended up with plastic bags. Those I use for the little garbage in my dorm, but since we’ve been back from break I stopped using them and rather started dumping the can in the dumpster whenever it’s full. ALSO, a little random but still slightly on topic, I once bought a pen with a seven year ink life. Swiss made, therefore I believed it. I always hate throwing away the amount of plastic pens I throw away, so it was exciting to find a pen I can use for SEVEN YEARS to take place of all the other pens I would be using.

Braedyn Bosilovatz