Plastic Is Everywhere. Now What?

A row of various plastic bottles lined up with a dark pink bowling ball in front of them, against a pink background.

In the first edition of our three-part plastics challenge, our sustainability editor breaks down what the science says (so far) about the plastic in our environments and how to start making thoughtful decisions about your consumption. Plus: one tip you can do today to reduce microplastic shedding.

The headlines are full of plastic these days. From black plastic kitchen utensils to microplastics, it’s all a bit alarming. Maybe you’re looking around your home, clocking all the plastic, and wondering what to do. Overwhelming? Of course. Hopeless? Not necessarily.

“Systemic change across the entire life cycle of plastics is required to eliminate plastic pollution,” Kate Whitman, a research fellow at the Revolution Plastics Institute at the University of Portsmouth, told me over email. “But individuals can also take steps to reduce both their own contribution to plastic pollution and their own exposure to microplastics.”

Over the next three weeks, we’ll walk you through some of those expert-backed steps you can personally take (the first of which is down below!). To decide what to do as individuals — and know what we can and can’t control — it helps to first understand the systemic scale of the global plastic problem and how we fit into it.



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