Bamboo Toothbrushes and Aluminum Straws: A Review of How to Live Plastic Free
by Tania Runyan
Several years ago, my family and I attended a screening of A Plastic Ocean (2016) at the One Earth Film Festival at our local community college. In one particularly heart-wrenching scene, scientists dissect a sea bird to reveal an abdomen crammed full of plastic. A disturbingly wide range of colors suggested this bird had encountered a world of plastic throughout its life, not just a random fragment on the beach. Some pieces were several inches long. I watched in stunned silence, vowing to never buy an item packaged in plastic again. Immediately, I ordered aluminum straws.
Within weeks, maybe even days, to be embarrassingly honest, the effects of the documentary began to wear off. Yes, I received and used my sustainable straws, but with each grocery trip I got a little less choosy about my food packaging until I eventually forgot about plastic altogether. My daughters even opted to buy face wash with microbeads, probably because they couldn’t shake the movie’s image of those shimmering, blue exfoliating particles from their minds.
When it comes to living sustainably, it’s easy to fail and even easier to want to just throw in the towel altogether. (Is that a microfiber towel? Then it will contribute plastic to the ocean, too.) Plastic is everywhere, and while it’s virtually impossible to live without it, it is possible to make some changes, especially when you’re offered practical, nonjudgmental encouragement. That’s what How to Live Plastic Free, one of Legible’s The ’22 You books, has done for me. (If you’re in Canada, find the ’22 You list here.)
How to Live Plastic Free: A day in the life of a plastic detox, written by Luca Bonaccorsi in conjunction with the Marine Conservation Society, is a quick read that helps you do “what you can, where you can, where your conscience leads you” by guiding you through a typical day. When do you encounter plastic, from the time you wake up (your alarm clock and toothbrush) to your work day (your office stationary and hydration bottle), to your evening activities (dog poop bags and sports gear)? And how much of this plastic do you really need?
Bonaccorsi gives us permission to free ourselves from black and white thinking. Plastic isn’t all good or all bad but should be integrated into a circular economy that “replicates the way nature works” rather than perpetuates a throwaway attitude that places convenience over all else. Recycled or recyclable plastic is a step up from a single-use bag, of course, and while an individually plastic-wrapped snack cake from a larger, plastic-wrapped box of snack cakes is not necessary for survival, health equipment, prosthetics, and car safety features are.
I appreciate the book’s emphasis on thinking critically about our individual, daily decisions involving plastic, and I find it a lot less overwhelming than adopting a drastically different lifestyle overnight. My bathroom features a rainbow of plastic toothbrushes, but now that I’ve been educated about bamboo toothbrushes (which, incidentally, look cool and don’t cost much more than plastic), I’d like to make the change. However, it would make poor environmental sense to toss our current toothbrushes before they wear out. The more sustainable choice, almost always, is to get the most use out of what you already own.
As for the laundry room, I’d love to replace our everyday detergent with sustainable, plastic-free laundry sheets packaged in paper boxes. However, sheets tend to clog up our washer. Replacing our washer would add another large appliance to the landfill, so I will have to wait on adopting those eco-friendly sheets.
This week, however, I bought shampoo and conditioner bars when my bottled hair products ran out. Since I prefer to knit with acrylic, I started a new project with yarn made from recycled plastic bottles. Moving forward, I will continue to ask the following questions about items as they run out: Do I need to replace it? Is this item (little bag of frosted animal cookies, cough cough) really worth the waste and energy it costs to produce? If so, can I borrow the item or purchase it second hand? Is it available in natural, recycled, or at the very least, recyclable materials?
I must offer a couple of caveats about How to Live Plastic Free. First of all, the book focuses on life in the UK, meaning references to Christmas pudding and loos are legion, and most statistics apply to the UK alone. (The book’s still ace to me.) Also, it bears repeating that recycle culture is a boon to corporations and governments that would love to continue making destructive decisions on a massive scale while passing along any perceptions of environmental responsibility to the consumer. All the household recycling in the world cannot reverse the damage done by powerful industries that place profit over the planet.
However, engaging in personal ecological responsibility opens my eyes to the reality of waste, impacts the way I spend and vote, and deepens my ties to the earth. I may not possess the resources to save the planet on my own, but I certainly want to be part of the plan to heal it.
