Adriana Chessman
Geography 125
Holifiel
Fall 2009
Our Plastic Problem
The organization I signed up with was the BE Smart organization. It works towards
the common goal of improving our environment, but unlike the other organizations who do
so with a set action such a taking x amount of time to clean the lakes every week, it does so
by asking us to make small changes in our life to better our community. For example,
someone who joined BE Smart would make an effort to not only recycle more themselves
but also get their family to recycle. That way, we hopefully start a ripple effect, which,
ideally, would move across the country and so on and so forth. It really leaves a lot of space
for personal creativity. While it is a great opportunity, it does make it rather easy to lose
track of time and keep up with what you’re supposed to be doing. Having a set time every
week to clean a park is much easier to keep up with than remembering to get a paper bag
instead of plastic, or reuse a container instead of throwing it away. When we sat down for
our orientation we heard stories about previous participants and what they had done for
their projects. One girl started a petition in her neighborhood to get a recycling program
started where there hadn’t been one before. Another started a rooftop garden at her work,
and while I wasn’t too clear on what the specifics were, it seemed to me that she somehow
created a field-like terrain on her works rooftop, which somehow saved energy. When I sat
down to think of ideas for my own project. I thought back to the examples we had been
given. I realized my neighborhood already has a recycling program, and being that I had
only been at my current employer for about a month I highly doubted they were going to
let me start planting random vegetation on their rooftop. So what I came up with was to not
only make a change in my own life, but also make a change in those around me who were
willing to help. I realized that the overuse of plastics was a huge problem affecting many
around me. Plastics are ridiculously bad for our environment and it seems we don’t take
into account the obscene amount of plastic we actually waste. For example, one of my old
roommates works at UPS and every day he buys a bottle of Gatorade to bring to work with
him. He works six days a week, and in total that’s about 312 bottles a year which he would
just end up throwing away. I found both my parents and I had a similar problem, and as a
result I thought of ways that I could not only reduce the amount of plastics I was throwing
away, but also the amount my parents and Tony were too. I figured that if the project called
for me to make a small change in my life, I would be speeding up the ripple effect if I made a
few changed in others lives as well.
I started with making a change in my own life. One of my worst habits is the amount
of plastic bags I collect when I shop. Around the world shoppers are using up to one trillion
plastic bags a year. Keep in mind that these bags are made from plastic that does not ever
completely break down. It can take anywhere from 20 to 1000 years for a plastic bag to
break down, and even then there are bits that will never actually break down completely
back into the earth. Now with just the shopping I do in one month, I discovered that on
average I collect about thirty plastic bags, making my total haul of plastic bags every year
around 360 bags. That is about double the normal amount of bags the average American
collects over the course of the year. The system I had been using was that of crumpling the
newly obtained plastic bags and storing them in another plastic bag I had hanging from one
of the cabinets in my kitchen. I would then use these for random tasks like picking up after
the dog or using them as garbage bags. I realized that I wasn’t necessarily helping anything
this way; I had just implemented a system where I extended the process of actually
throwing out these plastic bags. I knew that there were reusable bags that people could buy
once and reuse instead of taking the plastic or paper bags. While this had always seemed
like a good idea I had never actually acted on for the sole fact that I assumed I would just
forget to use them. However after receiving this project and educating myself on how
wasteful I was being, I went out and purchased two reusable bags. I made a concerted
effort to keep these bags hanging on my door so whenever I went to shop, I took them with
me. Not only did this almost completely cut out my use of plastic bags, it helped me to only
buy what I absolutely needed. Instead of taking home four or five plastic bags, I would be
taking home two reusable ones filled with only the things I had set out to buy. Over the
course of this semester I cut down my usual collection of about thirty bags to only two or
three a month.
The second person to make a change in their everyday life was one of my old
roommates, Tony. As I had mentioned before in my introduction, he bought a Gatorade
before going to work every morning, and in a year he would be buying upwards to 312
bottles of Gatorade a year. A bottle of Gatorade usually costs about $1.50. So not only was
he spending about $468.00 dollars every year on Gatorade but also he was throwing away
an obscene amount of plastic instead of recycling them. From my research I have found that
Americans throw away 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour, not recycle, but throw away.
And by just looking at Tony as an example that is really no surprise. After looking around
we realized that Gatorade actually makes a powder mix. We found a container with 90
servings for $20.00. That comes out to about the equivalent of 45 bottles that he would
normally buy. I also bought him a reusable water bottle that he could bring to work so he
could still have his bottle of Gatorade. Ideally now, instead of buying about 300 bottles of
Gatorade a year, he can instead buy around six of these containers and greatly cut back on
the plastics he is throwing away back into our environment. Plastics like the bags, which
will never actually fully decompose. Even though he probably won’t limit himself to just
one serving a day, it is still a great improvement. We also made an agreement that he would
make more of an effort to recycle, and now in his apartment he has a container for his trash
and a separate container for the recyclables.
Lastly I talked to my parents, and while they do their part to recycle and try to
conserve energy, there is one huge wasteful thing they have been doing since I was little.
They will buy the reusableglad ware and only use it once, then throw it away. I have no idea
why they don’t just wash it and reuse it but they just won’t. I’ve had conversation with
them before about how wasteful they are being but they really haven’t done anything to
change it. I realized that if they haven’t started washing a reusing these items thus far, they
probably won’t, so I started thinking of a new idea. They usually buy about two packs of
glad ware a month and only use it to package the leftovers they have from dinner. I went
online and found corning ware bowls that come with lids so you can keep your leftovers in
them, or use them as bowls to eat out of. I figured that maybe if they had something that
actually was considered a real dish they would be more apt to clean and reuse it. It turns
out I was right. I explained the BE Smart goal to them and asked them to stop buying the
glad ware and use these dishes instead. I go home about once every other week to have
dinner with them and since then I have a seen no more Tupperware dishes in the fridge
and their recycling bin has become considerately less full on account of them seeing what
they can reuse and not throw out.
I know that at a glance this doesn’t seem like a huge change in our environmental
world, but that’s the beauty of it. It doesn’t have to be. BE Smart is all about making
minimal changes in our lives to make our goal more attainable. If people don’t feel as if they
have to make a drastic change in their way of life to make a difference, they are more
accepting of the idea. With me for example, I know that by using the reusable bags I have
not only impacted my life but also my roommates. He has started to use the bags I bought
when he goes out to get grocery’s to diminish his use of plastic bags. Tony’s girlfriend has
begun to throw her plastics into the recycling bin because she now has the option to do so.
When we start making these changes at home, we also adjust the way we live outside our
homes. The habits we have gotten into carry over into our social, business, and educational
lives. Sometimes it just takes a new option being presented to you in order for you to make
the change needed.