Paper or Plastic? That is what they ask you at the check out counter. My boyfriend and I thought we had solved the plastic bag problem. We would bring our own bags and avoid using plastic ones. Yep, we prided ourselves on our savvy recycling habits. Then we learned we were using plastic bags way more than we could have imagined.

I was watching TV and this talk show had asked for a family to volunteer in an a trash experiment. The family would keep all their trash for two weeks and shared the results on TV. The family said that they were shocked by how much trash they had accumulated but that was it. No Suggestions No Advice, Nothing! I thought the results were lame but I was still curious about trying it myself.

I explained the idea to my boyfriend and he agreed. We compost and recycle but we still had regular trash. The new rule was to keep what could be washed out of the regular trash for two weeks. When the two weeks was up I took pictures of our trash and then we analysed it. Almost all of the trash was plastic bags. Normally it would all be thrown away but by saving it we learned that most of our food is packaged in some kind of plastic. Our cereal, cat liter, frozen veggies, frozen pizzas etc. are all wrapped in plastic. I don’t have any answers as to avoid plastic entirely, but I think consumers need to realize that they are still acquiring more plastic. We still have all this plastic trash and add to it often.

We have made the following changes in our grocery list:
1. Buy less prepared foods
2. Buy more fresh vegetables not enclosed in plastics or Styrofoam

If anyone does try this experiment I would love to hear the results. I think this is just one more way to be an environmentally responsible consumer. After we took the photos we learned that our current trash and recycle place only takes #1 & 2 plastic bottles so we need to rethink our plastic bottle purchases also.