I have never been a raving fan of plastic and have been replacing plastic items in our home over the years.Recently, we had a few plastic laundry baskets break and I was thinking about with what I wanted to replace them.Then, a couple of days ago, I stumbled across an article by the National Geographic that made a big impression on me.

Did you know that
  we have produced about 8.3 billion metric tons of plastics within the last six decades – most of it in disposable products?

  it takes more than 400 years for plastic to degrade?

  it is predicted that by mid-century, the oceans will contain more plastic waste than fish?

 6.3 billion metric tons has become plastic waste? Of that, only nine percent has been recycled.

 79 percent—is accumulating in landfills or sloughing off in the natural environment as litter?

 half of all plastic manufactured becomes trash in less than a year?

I remember us driving on the turnpike in Florida when we were passing some landfills. Seeing these mounds of trash with seagulls and other birds circling over them, made me sad. Do we really want to have more and more of these around our country? In an ideal world, we would leave the earth undisturbed and I realize that this is very unrealistic.

However, there are quite a few things we can do to reduce our use of plastics.

We can…

bring our own grocery bag
suse refillable mugs
use reusable straws
replace bottled water with filtered water
replace plasticware with a silverware-on-the-go package
use reusable mesh produce bags
replace saran wrap with beeswax food wrap
and so much more…

In the end, I decided to replace my plastic laundry baskets with sustainable wicker laundry baskets from basket lady.  The baskets are great and seem much sturdier than the plastic ones I previously used. They have a fabric liner that is attached with velcro so you can use them with or without – awesome! I have been using them for a few weeks now and they’ve worked very well for us. They so pretty so it’s a win all around.Let me know how you reduce your use of plastics and which sustainable products you love most.

xoxo,

Andrea