Could you go a whole week without buying new plastic?

Transcript

A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:

The amount of plastic that we throw out really piles up. Researchers at Oxford University say Americans, on average, toss out about three-quarters of a pound of plastic every day, and most of it winds up in a landfill. So NPR's Claire Murashima decided to find out how hard it would be to not buy any new plastic for a whole week. I spoke with Claire earlier this month on the cusp of her plastic-free experiment. And she's back now to tell us how she did. Claire, did you pull it off?

CLAIRE MURASHIMA, BYLINE: You know, I think so. But I will say it was hard, and I did cheat just a little bit. It required a little bit more time, a lot more planning, and I had to lug around those reusable containers everywhere I went in my tote bag.

MARTÍNEZ: Now, when we talked last time, you said you tried to get a prescription filled in a mason jar. How did that work out? 'Cause I was a little dubious.

MURASHIMA: Yeah. You know, you were right to be dubious because it did not work at all. They don't do that. And doing some research online, it looks like most pharmacies don't either.

MARTÍNEZ: Now, OK, what other challenges did you face?

MURASHIMA: So, for one, I had to make a lot of food from scratch to avoid buying food and plastic, which was kind of a part-time job. And it was also hard for me to find bars of shampoo and conditioner, which I ran out of during this experiment. I had to go to five stores and paid more than double what I normally would have. And I also had a couple of fails, like when I tried making my own soap.

(SOUNDBITE OF WATER RUNNING)

MURASHIMA: I'm not a fan of bar soap. I prefer the liquid kind. So to avoid buying liquid soap in a plastic container, I used a soap bar packaged in recyclable paper to make a liquid version, and it didn't go so well.

It's like a gelatin. What the heck? I only used a tiny cube.

The soap hardened, and it was like trying to pump cold lumpy gravy. So that didn't work out. But in the process of removing plastic from my life, I also learned a lot about composting.

Here's my compost bin in the freezer. We've got some tomato bits, and now we're adding two tea bags.

I couldn't use plastic trash bags, so I tried to compost as much as I could - peach pits, salmon skin, unpopped popcorn kernels. So many things. But I learned there's a lot of waste that can't be composted, even if it's biodegradable, like these little biodegradable flossers that I used.

Tooth flossers. Little flossy guys.

A lot of biodegradable materials don't break down very quickly, or they leave behind microplastics. So composting them is a no-go. And it was eye opening to step back and just observe how much plastic is embedded in our daily lives. For example, so many businesses rely on single-use plastics, and they don't have the resources or processes right now to change that. That became especially clear to me at the grocery store. I held up a line of customers when I asked to use my own containers.

There are three people behind me, and I'm feeling so self-conscious.

I filled a jar with almonds from the bulk section, and it took three employees and about five minutes to figure out how to subtract the weight of the jar.

Sorry for the delay.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: No, it's OK. I'm fine.

MURASHIMA: In the end, they poured my almonds into a plastic bag, threw that away, and then put my almonds back into the jar, which kind of defeated the purpose of bringing my own jar. All the challenges I faced during the week drove home something I heard from Rebecca Prince-Ruiz. She founded the international event Plastic Free July, which inspired my week without plastic.

REBECCA PRINCE-RUIZ: Despite the name being Plastic Free, we invite people to try it for a day, try it for a week or try it for the whole month and just choose one or two items rather than trying to go completely plastic-free.

MURASHIMA: Because, as she told me, going completely plastic-free is really, really hard.

MARTÍNEZ: Now, Claire, what advice would you give to people who are contemplating going without plastic or at least maybe reducing the amount they use?

MURASHIMA: Probably the most effective thing for me was cutting out online shopping and ordering takeout. That cut most of the waste that I go through in a week. But also, like Rebecca Prince-Ruiz said, take it slow.

MARTÍNEZ: Right. And I'm trying to imagine myself, Claire. I mean, it might be really burdensome to go plastic-free. I know it would be for me.

MURASHIMA: And also, plastic is a necessity for so many things, like prescriptions, as we mentioned. And I documented my week on social media, and people were quick to point out that it would be really hard to go plastic-free for somebody who's diabetic and needs insulin. The founder of Plastic Free July told me that while individual changes are great, that's only part of the solution to reducing plastic waste. And, look, A, she says that systemic changes are needed if we're going to meaningfully move away from our dependence on plastic.

MARTÍNEZ: All right. That's NPR producer Claire Murashima coming out of a week without buying any new single-use plastics for the global Plastic Free July movement. Claire, thanks for your attempt.

MURASHIMA: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.