When I was in the sixth grade, I began really thinking about plastic and how my plastic use affects the environment. I began to recycle, separating glass from plastic and paper. I visited the bottle drop at least once a month and joined my middle school’s environmental club called “Green Team”. I knew what to recycle, how much trash gets dumped in the ocean, and the percentage of single-use plastics versus reusable plastics. However, now that I’m in high school, I have fallen short, and recycling has become one of those “out of sight, out of mind” situations.
Recently noticing my lack of good habits making this issue, I was inspired to go a week cutting out as much single-use plastic out of my life as possible and recording the information. I decided to go to the grocery store and document what replacements exist for single-use plastics. I found out, sadly, that many of these alternatives come with a higher price due to their increased durability, so people looking to decrease their carbon footprint often have to face the difficult decision of choosing which expensive product to purchase without stretching their wallet. For example, you can get a box of standard Ziploc bags for around 2 to 4 dollars, compared to the biodegradable bags, which range from 16 to 30 dollars.
This wasn’t the only thing I happened to notice in my experiment. I began to see the plastic everywhere. In the grocery store, I wasn’t able to purchase a box of cereal because even with the cardboard box, you could argue that the cereal itself was held in a plastic bag or that the waterproof lining over the box is made of acrylics, which are another kind of plastic. Walking over to the bulk section, I had to ask myself whether or not I should buy an item on my shopping list because I can’t use plastic bags to store my purchases.
I was able to make some adjustments instead of just drowning in all of the obstacles I encountered. Rather than using the plastic bags found rolled up next to the produce, I used breathable produce bags. I keep these to this day in my bag of grocery bags I take with me whenever I go to the store and have been doing this since 7th grade. I didn’t need to worry about forgetting my fancy grocery bags, since grocery stores use paper bags now rather than plastic ones. Another adjustment I tried making was switching out my shower products. Instead of a plastic loofah, I used a washcloth; instead of shampoo and conditioner bottles, I used bars of shampoo and conditioner. 
I attempted to make a trip to a drive-through drink pickup with my reusable cup in hand, asking if I could get my drink made in the cup. They said unfortunately they couldn’t, but rather I could just pour the contents from my plastic cup into my reusable one. I told the workers I didn’t want a straw; however, I received one anyway. I drove home without accomplishing anything.
Doing this experiment didn’t change my life drastically, but it did help me consider what my role is in caring for the environment. I am trying to reduce the amount of single-use plastics I use, whether that be grabbing the wooden spoon at Yogurt Extreme or choosing to purchase a long-lasting rain jacket instead of a dozen foldable plastic ponchos. We typically don’t think hard about all the plastic we as consumers are using; the Scotch tape and glue stick bottles contain plastic if we really get down to it. Reducing 100% of daily plastic use is quite near impossible, but limiting the amount we use helps reduce our negative impact on the environment.
