EXTRA CREDIT: The Plastic-Free Challenge: Plastic Free Challenge Day

Wow.. all I have to say. Going without plastic for a day was a lot more challenging than I thought. The fact that almost everything in my dorm was made of plastic really threw me for a loop. Instead of using a plastic water bottle that I usually get from the store, I had to use the water fountain and it got really tedious having to go back and forth from the water fountain. I had assignments due on these days so I was forced to use my laptop, sure its a lot of metal on a laptop but the surrounding parts that protect it were plastic. So after about 3 hours worth of homework I finally got done with my laptop and then I decided to watch TV for about an hour and then study for my exams but there was one little problem with my TV.... that has plastic too, I was really starting to get angry with myself because after a few hours of waking up, I had already used 2 things that had plastic in them. Since it was a weekday, I was forced to go eat in the dining halls, I passed on the food trey but I used a plastic plate because that is all that you have to eat off of in the dining halls so there wasn't exactly a choice there. It is absolutely amazing how reliant this country is on plastics, we have no idea how badly our everyday lives would suffer if we took out plastic, without plastic, you TV wouldn't exist, your computer, the things you eat off of, even some parts in your car wouldn't exist. I did a little bit of research.... yes on my laptop that has plastic.... and I came across a fact that absolutely shocked me, at least 90% of the material objects in the world have some form of plastic in them. Could you imagine 90% of the material objects in the world disappearing!?!? That would be an absolute nightmare, I don't know about you but I would never survive.

But anyway, back to my adventure with no plastic. After lunch and my little bit of screwing around looking for information, I had to do more homework except this was on my laptop and as usual, it has plastic. A lot of the things that we use on our day to days lives also keep us clean and help us to get through the day. First thing is, that thing called a toothbrush and that tube of toothpaste that you have. Yes that tube is made of plastic and your toothbrush is made of plastic as well, even if you have a motorized one, you still have plastic on it because you have to have something to put around that motor and parts that run your toothbrush to protect it. Another thing that is made of plastic is the shampoo bottles that we use. I challenge anyone to find a shampoo bottle does not have a single piece of plastic in it, I tried it and I failed miserably, I even tried looking on Google but that didn't work either.

A lot of these experiences have opened my eyes to the world that we live in. We live in a world dominated by plastic and fossil fuels and guess what... we use those fossil fuels to make plastic.... like what the hell America, we need to start getting our act together, we aren't at China standards yet but we really need to start cleaning up our act and finding more ways to introduce environmentally friendly products that can help to decrease of reliance on plastic. If we could find ways to replace plastic shampoo bottles and replace plastic soda bottles and things along those lines.

All in all, this experience was very eye opening to me and I definitely have a bit of a greener side now when it comes to being kind to the environment and not littering as well as not recycling, this class and this project really opened my eyes to what we need to fix and what problems are staring down at us that need to be resolved as soon as possible. Overall, this was a great experience and has opened me up to being a more green person!