There are now more microplastics in the ocean than stars in the galaxy
and it’s all connected back to our insane consumption of plastic.
That's why this month I’m giving up single-use plastics.
I got my sandwiches, no plastic involved.
Getting ice cream and I tried a flavor and they gave me this.
So I did my grocery shopping without using any plastic.
I'm Lucy Biggers and this is One Small Step.
Since the 1950s plastic waste has grown dramatically, from virtually nothing 60 years ago,
to 300 million tons in 2015.
And 50% of that waste is single-use.
Lots of it ends up - here.
With millions of tons polluting our environment and oceans each year.
Rebecca Prince-Ruiz started Plastic Free July in 2011,
This month I’m challenging myself to avoid and find alternatives to single-use plastic.
I understand that skipping plastic may not be an option for differently-abled people,
or for people with children.
I also know that I’m privileged to be able to try this in the first place.
Still - I’m gonna do the best I can for what works with my lifestyle.
This is my first day at work with this new commitment.
So I'm going to go get some breakfast.
Normally I would get, like, a granola bar but granola bars are in plastic.
So I'm going to get a croissant.
Cause I know that the bakery is gonna give it to me in paper.
Thank you so much.
Wooh, I got it!
So it’s the end of the day and I'm about to catch my train home and I'm really hungry
and I'm realizing one of the hardest parts of this challenge is going to be snacking.
Because all snacks are in plastic.
Almost every snack package, chip bag, candy wrapper, all of those flexible multi-layer
plastic pouches, trash. They are not widely recyclable.
So for us the rigid plastics move through our system really smoothly.
Once you get that flexibility now maybe it's blowing around might be more difficult to collect.
Could get stuck in a lot of machinery that otherwise three dimensional rigid things
pass through with no problem.
The U.S. is the largest producer of plastic packaging waste per person.
And our plastic recycling rate has stayed around 9% since 2012.
That’s low compared to the EU’s plastic recycling rate of 30% and China’s 25%.
Got my bagel, oh sh*t, oh no, that’s tinfoil.
Ok, so the bagel’s in tinfoil which isn’t paper but not plastic.
Lunch time!
I’ve avoided plastic but I’m using a lot of paper
or I go for an aluminum can or glass bottle, why are those materials any better than plastic?
Spotted on the street, this is probably not sanitary but I’m going to pick this up.
Because this is future ocean plastic, stuff like this gets washed down drains and into
the ocean and then it gets eaten by fishies.
Found another one, you guys these are everywhere.
I’ve now got five [straws] and I’m definitely going to wash my hands.
Bye, good bye.
After cigarette butts, plastic food wrappers, bottles, caps, straws, and bags are the
top 5 most found items in beach cleanups.
One recent study estimated that 140,000 plastic straws are in NYC’s waterways alone.
We just went on a shoot, we were filming, I’m so thirsty because I left my reusable water bottle.
Can’t drink any of that.
A million plastic bottles are bought around the world every minute.
That number is expected to increase by another 20% by 2021.
I obviously can't take a coffee to go cup so I've got this nifty reusable cup
and I'm going to go get some ice tea inside of it.
Even paper coffee cups are lined with plastic so that they can hold hot temperatures
but that means in most cases they can’t be recycled.
Can I get iced tea?
Sorry I’m doing no plastic for the whole month.
Yes are you doing it to?
Cheers to our reusable containers, I love that.
So today to avoid plastic, instead of taking a to-go container, I’ve asked for my lunch
to stay and and I’m using a real plate and real silverware,
what an idea.
So why is small pieces of plastic so hard to recycle?
Because of their size or how thin they are — a lot of facilities like ours
will use a lot of screening mechanisms when they're receiving glass and other things that
you want to break up and filter out first.
So really small items less than two, two and a half inches.
Will usually, kind of, be included in what gets filtered out initially which can make it hard
to recover down the line.
So that's one of the main reasons why straws or caps can be really challenging for us
to recover.
So would it be better if you were using a straw or a cap or cutlery, to put it in
the recycling bin or just put it in the trash?
First of all, I would always encourage you using less of those kinds of tricky items,
so using a durable metal straw that you can bring with you
or having your own cutlery, of course, but if you are using a straw, if you are using
single-use cutlery, in New York City it’s ok to still put in with your plastics, but honestly in most
places, probably a better bet to put it in the trash if it’s not getting recovered well.
In 2016, France became the first country to announce a total ban on plastic cups, plates,
and cutlery, to go into effect by 2020.
Costa Rica has gone further with plans to replace single-use plastics with renewable
and compostable alternatives by 2021
One of the easiest ways I’ve realized to cut out plastic is to just say no to the plastic bag.
Right now my purse is acting as a bag for my sandwich.
Shoppers in the United States use almost one plastic bag per resident per day.
Compare that to shoppers in Denmark who on average use only four plastic bags a year.
There’s 40 countries around the world that have banned, restricted, and taxed plastic bags—
here, California is the only state to do so.
It’s actually more common for states to ban plastic bag bans than plastic bags.
So far 9 states including Idaho, Arizona, Michigan, Missouri, and Florida have done this.
I’ve saved so much money because I really don't get to-go coffee cups, to-go
teas, this is only the 2nd one I’ve gotten all month and that’s because I can’t use
those to-go containers.
Definitely one perk is saving money because you’re more thoughtful about what you consume.
So this is something I’m calling second-hand plastic where basically I didn’t buy the plastic but
I’m definitely benefitting from the use of plastic.
This happens all the time.
And just something that’s a real reality of this challenge.
So this stuff all came in plastic, my sister bought it for me because she’s cooking me
dinner, and I’m still going to eat it because I think it would be wasteful and stupid not to,
as well as kind of rude.
Plastic packaging does have some environmental advantages - it can decrease food waste
by increasing shelf life.
Take cucumbers - it can keep them on the shelves for two weeks rather than three days.
But research has also found that the packaging might increase food waste, by forcing you
to buy more than you need.
Some customers have taken the plastic packaging issue to their grocery stores, by staging
‘plastic attacks’ and leaving all of their plastic packaging for the retailer to deal with.
Now I’m going to go grocery shopping without using any plastic, I’ve got these
nifty reusable bags, I’m going to fill them up at the bulk bins and make some delicious dinner
I’m lucky that I can go to a store with a bulk food section, although bulk stores are increasing
across the U.S. they're not very common.
Some states only have 2 bulk stores, while others have dozens.
This only has a tiny rubber band so I’m going to take it.
I’ll wash it really well later.
These have little stickers but I’m gonna take them anyway.
So I made this whole meal and this is the only plastic that I used.
By 2050, there will be around 12 billion tons of plastic litter in landfills and the environment.
By then the plastics industry could account for 20% of the world’s total oil consumption.
This trend is not slowing down.
In the U.S. alone, producers of the common form of plastic, polyethylene, are expecting
to increase production capacity by as much as 75% by 2022.
The UN estimates the cost of plastic packaging in our environment is $40 billion.
After spending an entire month trying to avoid single-use plastic, I realize how much it's a part
of our disposable culture.
Experts that I spoke to told me that in order to solve this plastic pollution problem we have to move
toward a circular economy, where all of our waste is reusable or recyclable.
And where the responsibility of recycling our waste falls not just on the consumer,
but also on the manufacturer who creates the plastic in the first place.
What is your One Small Step that you take to avoid single-use plastic?
Let us know in the comments and share this if you liked it.