When you choose a food or other consumable good at the store, how often does the packaging material affect your buying decision? My colleague Laura Stanton, OSU Extension Family and Consumer Sciences educator in Warren County recently wrote a Live Healthy Live Well blog article about plastic packaging.

Stanton shares that she has made efforts to reduce her use of plastic after learning that only 5 percent of plastics were recycled in the U.S. in 2019. Around the world only 14 to 18 percent of plastic packaging production was recycled in 2018. According to Yale Environment 360, China used to accept about 70 percent of the plastics collected for recycling in the United States. Beginning in 2018 they banned the import of these materials. Therefore, much less of our plastic actually ends up being recycled than we may think.

Since this is now the case, rather than focus solely on recycling, Stanton encourages us to also focus on reducing. (Remember reduce, reuse, recycle?) In many parts of the world, this month is becoming known as Plastic-Free July. Here are some very practical tips to reduce our plastic consumption.  

The Plastic-Free July campaign suggests choosing one type of single-use plastic you typically use that you could do without. Eliminating this one type of plastic you would normally buy – whether it is from mac and cheese, fruit, pop, or detergent – can make a huge difference when we all make a change.

Today I’ll leave you with this quote from Joan Rivers: “I've had so much plastic surgery, when I die they will donate my body to Tupperware.”

Emily Marrison is an OSU Extension Family & Consumer Sciences Educator and may be reached at 740-622-2265.