Name something made with plastic that we could easily live without.

[Anonymous]

I have serious doubts about whether reusable water bottles are a net benefit. The number I have bought for my kids, and the weight of them and the manufacturing and shipping. I have one stainless steel one where the silicone straw part ripped in half and I can’t buy a replacement and now the bottle is useless. Manufacturing something like that has to be worse than X thin plastic bottles, idk how many. A ton of 5 year old stanley cups in the landfill might only be marginally better than however many plastic bottles would have been used, if at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:ziplocs, grocery bags, saran wrap. Too much avoidable plastic in grocery stores aslo (meat, vegggies).
I wish someone came up with a sustainable solution for take-out containers. Also toothbrushes.

There are compostable takeout containers and in fact we don't order a second time from places that use styrofoam or those plastic clamshells.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Plants from nurseries. The cardboard works just fine for smaller plants. Bigger pots should be recycled

+1000! It kills me how much plastic I generate each spring when I buy my plants. When there are the cardboard kind I choose those instead.

[Anonymous]

Great thread.

Since I bought reusable silicone Ziplocs on Amazon I don't buy disposable Ziplocs anymore.

Saran wrap is the worst and not needed. We have plenty of really nice containers from the Container Store, or I use foil or just a plate on top of a bowl in the fridge. The plate on a bowl method is nice and stackable too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:plastic forks spoons knives

use metal and wash

We use them to scrape cat litter out of the box, so that’s a no from me.

Why don't you get a cat litter scoop? They even make metal ones. I've had mine as long as I've had the cat and he's 15. Yes I wash it occasionally.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Plastic wrap. I hate how many recipes tell you to wrap/cover something in plastic wrap

For Good by Full Circle (that's what it says on my box) makes compostable food wrap. It works really well.

[Anonymous]

Oriental Trading’s Entire Catalog
75% of items in gift shops
Costco packaging
Glow sticks
Lint rollers
Laundry containers
Cheap giveaway water bottles
Most plastic toys, especially those LOL types
Magazines wrapped in plastic
Cosmetic and personal care packaging - most isn’t recyclable

I could go on and on. I spend too much time thinking about this stuff. I try to make better choices for my family but it’s hard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Water bottles. They became ubiquitous around mid 90s. Prior to that people just used the water fountain.
The billions of people in mainland China thankfully carry their own tea thermoses everywhere. But Americans gots to have their Fiji Water bottled and flown in from the Pacific.

Plastic water bottles are widely used in China. Major rivers in China all are heavily polluted by disposable plastic.

[Anonymous]

Plastic tampon applicators! It's become so damn hard to find cardboard applicators, and they're becoming more expensive. Just WHY?????

[Anonymous]

All the packaging. I hate how whenever I buy anything new, I throw away a ton of packaging.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You know what is really great that is plastic? This little plastic carrying loop they put on paper towel and toilet paper packages in Europe. So convenient and saves a bag to already have a handle o the package itself. Why don’t we have that in the states?

Also, garbage bags are sold in a roll. No cardboard packaging. So efficient.

We do. I've been given those at CVS before.

And target

[Anonymous]

For some plastic food containers, like our lunch box, silicone is an alternate material. Safer than phthalate ridden plastic, yet it is sturdy enough and affordable.

[Anonymous]

Pyrex.com is having a sale right now (June 2023) which includes their “Ultimate” set. Unlike all the other Pyrex storage, the “Ultimate” set has zero plastic. Lids are silicone with glass. Containers are standard Pyrex glass. Good opportunity to eliminate plastic food storage from one’s home at a good discount…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Plants from nurseries. The cardboard works just fine for smaller plants. Bigger pots should be recycled

+1000! It kills me how much plastic I generate each spring when I buy my plants. When there are the cardboard kind I choose those instead.

Annual plants in general are a massive form of waste. Do you have any idea how many chemicals and hormones they have to pour on those to get them at the perfect height, the plastic, the shipping, and then we just throw them out every fall, frequently with a nice clump of soil still attached.

[Anonymous]

Bags. There’s no reason we can’t use paper.