Nearly 9 million tons of plastic waste enter the ocean from coastlines every year, scientists say, or a truckload per minute. Marine life and birds consume it as microplastics, and in turn so do we; and they consume it whole and are killed.
On land, plastic trash litters our roads and fields and fills up landfills, while overwhelming amounts of some plastic recyclables are turned away because too few recyclers, including China, are willing to buy it.
We all can make a difference by remembering “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”:
• Avoid those one-use-and-discard products like straws, plastic cups and milkshake domes, spoons, plates and water bottles.
• At the grocery, don’t choose single-portion foods in excessive packaging like preportioned snacks or yogurt with add-ins, or K-cups for coffee.
• Bring your own bags with you and stop the cashier from putting purchases into plastic bags and double bags unnecessarily. And reuse the bags you already have.
Manufacturers can make a difference by changing back to nonplastic packaging. Straws, milk cartons, cereal box liners and yogurt cups used to be made of paper, so they could be again.
Julie Stackpole
Thomaston
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