What Cutting Out Plastic Waste Is Like For Someone Trying It For The First Time

No matter how many adorable water bottles, Mason jars, and other reusable bottle options come out into this world, I've always found it a personal struggle to completely cut out plastic from my life.

Aside from the fact that it's not a hugely talked-about topic among my peers, my day-to-day makes committing to a zero-plastic lifestyle no easy feat. I work as a photo producer for a magazine publisher, and coincidentally a crucial part of my job is to ensure the crew is staying hydrated throughout our usually long and strenuous shoot days. Asking everyone to bring their own reusable water bottle to set is a little unrealistic—so the easiest solution is disposable water bottles.

There's no denying the terrible and detrimental effects plastic bottle use has on our Earth, and unless you live under a rock, you've seen the disturbing videos of plastic remnants flooding our oceans or have heard facts like Americans buy 50 billion plastic bottles each year, enough to circle the planet 350 times, and most of it ends up in landfills. It's a scary truth that I fully know the immediate importance of, yet I've (shamefully so) never really tried to be more cognizant of my plastic use. 

However, when I stumbled upon the 30-Day Zero Plastic Bottle Challenge by Boxed Water Is Better during my nightly feed-scrolling sesh, I had to admit I was intrigued. I think mainly because 1) The "challenge" aspect made it sound exciting and like I was doing this great thing with people also like me, and 2) 30 days seemed like a manageable amount of time to test out this new kind of lifestyle. I signed up for free pledge gear on their website and got started.

In the cafeteria in my office building, there's the option to choose reusable and non-reusable cups for drinks. Out of habit, I would always automatically grab a plastic cup without even thinking. Now, I'll only use the reusable cups that the kitchen generously cleans out every day for reuse. I'm not pointing fingers or anything, but perhaps they should only offer the reusable or something more sustainable… Food for thought. 

Nobody's perfect, and I will admit I slipped up a couple of times when plastic may have been a more convenient option at the time. But I'd say overall I kind of kicked butt at the plastic bottle challenge.

Time will tell, but the fact that it's been more than 30 days and I'm still continuing to be more cautious about my plastic use says something. As with any lifestyle change, however, there's bound to be room for improvement. I hope for the coming weeks (OK, that's a little ambitious, perhaps months) to transition this new lifestyle into other aspects of my plastic use than just bottles—things like cutlery, bags, and so on. I think the fact that this challenge has made me interested in a new lifestyle is a huge step for me.

But again, baby steps...