These are three reasons why we need to stop using most plastic products in our daily lives:

• We know from scientists that a plastic pollution on a global scale causes havoc and damage to the environment. It harmfully affects human health, animal lives, life in the oceans and it pollutes air.
• We also know, that we produce more  plastic, than we can dispose of. Some plastic is not biodegradable, while some takes a very long time to biodegrade. Therefore it either does not return to the soil or its return is not compatible with our life cycle.  The law of return to the soil is somehow broken.  The law states that:  ” The nutrients removed must be returned in the quantities taken away, in order to maintain a balanced ecological state and fertile soil”(1) or” Everything cycles back to its source”
• The third reason is, that people in charge of producing and consumption of plastic are adults and adulthood comes with  levels of responsibility.

The intention of one of the first pioneers of plastic: John Wesley Hyatt in 1878 was a most noble one.(2) It was invented to replace ivory used for production of billiard balls.

Our daily consumption of plastic on a larger scale has only been for around 80 years.

It started in 1938 when polystyrene, strong plastic for practical use like cups, packaging, electrical appliances and so on, appeared.(2)

As adults we know, that however convenient a solution plastic is in our daily lives, it can not be used thoughtlessly because it cannot be adequately disposed off. The plastic produced in massive quantities accumulates and hangs around. It creates pollution and it damages life.

This friendly, colourful, convenient, sort of fun attractive material, our present practical plastic solution for daily use needs to be given up by us.

This is what we as adults know. A different, biodegradable material needs to replace plastic.

Some of the plastic products take as long as 100 years to return to the soil and another type take as long as 450 years. It is an easy conclusion: that a bottle that takes 450 years to biodegrade should be used for 450 years.

As adults we know that we need to seek a different, biodegradable material to replace plastic.

It appears to me, that nobody until now, from the inventors to the consumers even  scientists did not recognise the main property, role and function of plastic. I observe and clearly can see that the main role of plastic is: to last for many years and not, on the contrary, to be manufactured on a large scale , and then  used as single use disposable items.

By not discovering or naming a primary feature of plastic:the ability to last for many years, now we have wreaked havoc in nature.

How do we put it right? We can try to avoid buying products packed in plastic. We can choose more glass and tin packaging. We can appeal to our own local supermarkets to offer more products in environmental friendly wraps. We can limit the use of plastic in our homes, and place of work. There are a lot of daily ways that need to be changed.

Nowadays when we walk into a supermarket we are surrounded by plastic packaging.

Cleaning materials: are all packed in plastic, which creates waste and pollution at the end of the day.

Beauty care shelves are, not only full of non-organically grown products for cosmetics, but they are also mainly in plastic packaging.

Even organically grown products, that are meant for healthy eating, come to us packed in plastic.

We contradict ourselves, we talk’ health’ but we are outweighed by pollution and plastic.

To choose our Prime Minister, we need to do our research about the candidate first,then we, each individually make a decision. We vote and collectively majority wins.

With the environment, an adult individual consumer also needs to make a choice. The research has been done. We know, that plastic for a daily use is a costly mistake. The choice to avoid daily use of plastic is easy. The facts speak for themselves. It cannot be used. One needs to discipline oneself and give it up, go to the trouble to live with avoiding it or alternatively we need our last plastic bottle or plate to use for the next 450 years.

We live in a democracy, where a majority of voices make decisions. With the environmental issues, consumers can be producers and producers can be consumers and some can be just consumers, but we all are affected by pollution.

Democracy and freedom of choice does not mean freedom to slack and freedom to lose discipline that protects life , or to abandon adult’s levels of responsibility.

Plastic pollution does not mean everyone producing or using plastic is guilty, but I can see that we are all confused. Plastic is easily available, it is relatively cheap to produce and it is often pretty. It is there. We use it.

The use of plastic should be well managed. It should be reserved for special needs, like: medical and health sector or opticians.

To protect our living space, our lives and our health we need to consciously discipline ourselves and use our collective power of choice, it is needed now more than ever, in the fight to save and to live properly in the environment.

We need to be like a disciplined ballerina, like Dame Darcey Bussel, who said in her interview for Sunday Mirror about her New Year: 2018 resolution: ” I am also going to try to stop buying anything plastic.”

ref: (1) Sacred Economies, chapter 10,( Charles Eisenstein’s Homepage)

(2) Newsroom Ecology and Farm