Painlessly Parting from Plastic

Plastic is everywhere in society: wrapped around food and clothes, littering the streets, in everyone's homes, and stacked up on supermarket shelves in one form or another. But plastic, laced with toxins and almost unable to decompose, presents significant problems to the environment and our health. It is a very unnatural substance derived from oil, which also means that it uses up our precious little resources, only to satisfy fleeting human desires. Here are the best ways to avoid plastic and dispose of it responsibly:

1. Recycle the plastic that you have to reduce the production of more of it.
2. When moving or sending packages in the mail, use newspaper or Papernuts instead of styrofoam peanuts.
3. Bring cloth bags--preferably organic-- to the store and always use them instead of plastic bags. Many grocery stores sell them nowadays. You can buy the pre-made cloth bags or make your own out of old T-shirts (click for my other ideas on how to re-use T-shirts)!
4. Use reusable kitchenware, avoiding plastic plates and cutlery. (Even at parties! We don't want to degrade our resources for convenience, even once in a while! If you still aren't convinced of this urgency, please read this article: http://www.theonion.com/articles/how-bad-for-the-environment-can-throwing-away-one,2892/.)
5. Keep reusable containers to keep your food in. If you already have plastic containers, they will do. But if you now need to go out and buy some, buy either metal containers or special eco-friendly snack bags. The latter can be found at many grocery and health food stores, or at http://www.greentimebags.com/,  http://www.reusies.com/, http://www.reuseit.com/store/lunchskins-sandwich-p-1883.html, and http://www.snacktaxi.com/, to name a few.                                     
6. Buy food and necessities in bulk; this requires less packaging. Individually packaged foods should be avoided!
7. Don't allow plastic to fly away into the wind! It sounds obvious, but someone is obviously dumping their plastic all over the streets. Look outside if you don't believe me. :)

Those are all my tips for reducing plastic. Of course, there are definitely more ways to avoid plastic, depending on your lifestyle. If you would like to point out anything I've missed, feel free to comment below. Thanks!