EPIC FAIL

Only A Caveman Could Pass This Challenge --- Zana Sijan TA: Emma Sec: 303

Trying to live a day without plastic is near impossible. It’s as same as trying to not drown when you don’t know how to swim. I failed from the start, and the sad part is that I really tried to put in effort and give it my best shot. Pretty much, in today’s world, a caveman is the only person that is able to go a day without plastic.

Wright from the start I failed. As my alarm went off to wake me up I reached for my phone to turn it off. BAM! The phone casing is completely made out of plastic. Then as I was walking around my room trying to get ready I realized that I failed even before the alarm woke me up. My bed and my bed sheets contain a type of plastic material mixed in with other compounds. The clothes that I wore that day had plastic in them as well. We could just make a UW a nudist campus and we might actually pass this challenge. Then came the daily routine of hygiene. Brushing my teeth was impossible because both the tooth paste and the tooth brush contained plastic. I am pretty sure that my classmates would prefer me without my morning doggy breath so I ended up brushing my teeth. Putting deodorant would be a no –no because it is in a plastic case. Again, if I was a caveman this might have worked out. Who needs perfume when you sleep on bear hides. Breakfast went well because I ate jelly out of a jar and break that was in a paper bag. Trying to drink milk for breakfast or orange juice was could not be done if I wanted to at least attempt to not use some plastic items. I stuck to water out of a glass that morning.

Putting on my backpack also solidified how fast I lost the challenge. I had plastic materials in the backpack as well as the fabric that the backpack was made of consisted of some sort of plastic ingredients. Trying to get on a bus to be able to get to class meant that I had to swipe my bus pass which is plastic. I am positive that the bus consists of a hundred plastic parts so maybe I should have just walked the 4 miles to campus.

During my research that I do on campus, I realized how much we use and waste plastic materials from experiment to experiment. We go through so many vials, gloves, bags, pipette tips and caps. There is no real way to go around that because it makes the experimental results easier to obtain and without having to spend too much time on sterilizing some of the materials.

Going to the gym was an epic fail. I had to use my ID to get in. All of the machines have some sort of plastic attached to them. The only workout that I could do was probably crunches but I’m positive that the carpet/floors have a type of plastic compound in them.

Only a caveman could pass this challenge! This was more of a lesson that opened my eyes to how much plastic we use and that we truly are dependent on plastic. How it became so wide spread in our daily lives goes way beyond comprehension. To me, it seems that plastic has just been around for centuries.