Does knowing about the problem with plastic make you use it any less?

Question

Knowing that it is collecting in the Pacific Ocean, that there is a island of plastic the size of Texas out there. That plastic bags that are used as a temporary way to carry something does not go away... that they just choke our planet and everything living on it? Is it still worth it to you to use one to carry home a few things you could have just carried in your hand? Do you make an effort to buy drinks in glass bottles over one in a plastic bottle? Just wondering.

Answer 1

size of texas? why dont you exaggerate a little more

hippie

Answer 2

We recycle our plastic. But, I also make an effort not to buy anything packaged in plastic if I can help it.

Answer 3

i buy canned bottles so i could recycle them..

Answer 4

Absolutely.  I carry reusable bags in my car and use them whenever I shop.  If I forget to take a bag into the store with me and I'm just buying one or two items, I ask the cashier not to use a bag.

Answer 5

I saw the same report about the island of plastic that is trapped in a giant whirlpool out in the middle of the ocean - the wind currents take it there - beleive it! Or don't -just like the rest of the disgusting pollution that the nay sayers refuse to beleive.

I do not buy bottled water and I use canvas grocery bags - I hope more people WILL join the effort to reduce the amount of plastic in our landfills!!

About those hippies....I WISH we still had the POWER of the outspoken Hippies! They grew their hair and dressed differently as a statement to others that they were in protest of their government - not just so they could do drugs. It's funny how drug use is more prolific now and in every walk of life but people just realized that if they didn't try to look alike they won't be related to or recognized as drug induced -lawyer, doctors(pushers), senator, educators, truck drivers, cops, garbage men... It is everywhere so ya don't just have to be a hippie any more. The hippies of today are hold outs for a beautiful thing called Freethinking - too bad most of them sold out for the $$$.

Answer 6

I don't think that I use plastic less, but I do re-use it more.  I still use plastic water bottles, but I use the same bottles over and over.  I think this is better than using a glass bottle due to the durability.  If I drop the plastic bottle, no big deal.  Drop a glass one and it might break, leave shattered glass behind, and I'd need to replace it (using up resources).

BTW, it doesn't help the cause to use misleading terminology. Calling 'trash-laden water about twice the size of Texas' an island is not accurate.  'Island' implys a solid mass that could be stood on, photographed from orbit, and put on Google Earth.  It is an area of water the size of Texas that has high amounts of plastics suspended in it.  It is NOT a solid mass of plastic the size of Texas.  Saying so, by using the term 'island', does make you sound like a crackpot.