ORLANDO, Fla. — It comes with your morning latte, most take-out meals, and is even one of the very first things that you touch when you wake up in the morning. Plastic is intertwined in every aspect of our lives, so getting rid of it can be tough. But small steps can get you on your way.
In the U.S. 60 million plastic water bottles, 200 million plastic bags and 500 million plastic straws are thrown away every day.
“I was pretty shocked and dismayed, that I was sucked into that whole false sense of security with using plastics,” Susan Castriota said.
But you can cut out plastic starting with your morning latte. If you bring in your own coffee mug to places like Seattle’s Best, Peet’s Coffee, and Starbucks, you won’t only cut your plastic use, but you can get a discount too! Other ways you can reduce your plastic use: use metal clothes hangers instead of plastic ones, bring your own container when getting take-out or getting a doggy bag from a restaurant, and use glassware instead of plastic for leftovers, not only for the environmental concerns, but also for health concerns.
“They are considered fat-loving or lipophilic. So they naturally migrate into the fat in the food,” Jennifer Adibi PhD, University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health, said.
Helping you cut out plastic for good.
San Francisco just became the first city to ban the sale of plastic bottles. Cities like Washington, D.C., Portland, Maine, and New York City have added a five cent tax for getting a plastic grocery bag. That has made people bring reusable totes for shopping.
And for coffee drinkers, Keurig is now making recyclable K-cups because the nine-point-eight billion they produced in 2015 are all non–biodegradable for 500 years.
