Try giving up single use plastics for a day

Please, give up single-use plastics, all of those plastic salad, doughnut containers, soda bottles and bags at the grocery stores for one day. Try it, and then two days and then three days, because (and according to):

• Only 10 percent of plastic produced today is recycled (Environmental Protection Agency). The rest ends up in landfills or the ocean.

• Plastic can only be recycled three or four times then it all goes to the landfill or becomes plastic pollution (National Geographic). “Recycled” plastic that doesn’t have a market goes to the landfill. China doesn’t want our garbage anymore (Forbes).

• Plastic bags take 1,000 years to degrade (Center for Biological Diversity).

• Plastic does not decompose, it degrades into small particles called microplastics (University of Nottingham). You eat or breathe in about 2,000 microplastics each week (University of Newcastle Australia). A recent study found microplastics in human blood (The Guardian).

Here is a website with “10 simple steps you can take to move closer to zero waste and reduce single-use plastic pollution.” — www.beyondplastics.org/actions/join-reuse-revolution

“’When in doubt, throw it out’ — if you don’t think a plastic item is accepted in our recycle program, it probably is not.” — Iowa City Recycling Coordinator. To view the Iowa City “Plastics Guide” an excellent poster that shows what plastics you can recycle and what not to recycle visit https://bit.ly/3xBXEPl.

Feather Lacy

Iowa City