A day without Plastics, Kind Of

Ryan Thomsen, Section 307 (Tiffany Grade)

When looking at this assignment, I realized there was no realistic way for me to go a whole day without plastic, but I made an attempt to limit my use of it throughout the day.

I woke up Sunday morning (more like afternoon) naturally instead of setting an alarm on my cell phone since my phone contains a lot of plastic. However, I had already failed at this point, because I was wearing my plastic retainer that I'm supposed to wear every night. I poured myself a bowl (made of glass) of cereal and ate it dry with a metal spoon since the milk I would normally use would have been in its plastic gallon container.

Fortunately my roommates were already watching football so I didn't have to use the plastic remote to turn it on, although this could've been considered cheating.

Later on I was doing some homework using a wooden pencil and paper. I never noticed how much I prefer mechanical pencils over wooden ones. With wooden pencils you have to sharpen them every five minutes and my sharpener was plastic.

Initially I had decided that I wouldn't shower since the shower head, my body soap, and shampoo are all composed of some type of plastic. Unfortunately I had to meet with my bio lab group later that day and I figured it would probably be a good idea if I didn't go to this looking and smelling like a bum. After showering I had to brush my teeth also using a plastic toothbrush and toothpaste that comes in a plastic container.

At this point I wasn't wearing any plastic. I had on a long sleeve cotton shirt and jeans, however, in order to leave my apartment I had to wear my winter coat since it was freezing and snowing out, and this jacket has plastic zippers. I also realized that my backpack had plastic zippers and clips all over it. When I got to the lab I remembered that my group was looking at rats, and I was not about to dissect one with my bare hands. Thus i had to use plastic gloves. Fail.

For dinner I made pasta that was packaged in a cardboard box and marinara sauce that was in a glass one. In order to get the sauce I had to use the refrigerator, composed primarily of plastic.

Finally, that night I had online physics homework and a quiz to do. With no way around it, I had to use my computer, made of plastic. Though, I did not listen to my Ipod (made of plastic) while doing this homework, as I normally do.

In today's society, I have determined that it is nearly impossible to avoid all use of platics. If you want to be hygienic, warm, productive, and healthy, you need to use plastic throughout the day. I tried my best to limit my use of plastic on this day, but I was for the most part unsuccessful.