I read an article this week that talked about what the world would be like if we stopped using plastic. It seems like an obvious benefit to the planet – we use too much plastic and we should be reducing our consumption as much as possible. But, are there times and places where we have to use plastic? Should we be aiming for a zero-plastic world, or just reducing our use of it where we do not need it? 

If we look at the products we buy in supermarkets and online, a lot of the packaging is made from plastic. When I buy a drink from a convenience store, it comes in a plastic bottle which I then immediately recycle – this is what we call “single-use” plastic. They are then recycled into new bottles which means that drink companies do not need to use new plastic, which sounds like a good thing. But recycling a “single-use” plastic into another bottle still requires a lot of energy and money, so is it a good thing for the environment? Of course, it is better than if I threw the bottle into the trash or the ocean, but I do worry about how many bottles we use on a daily and weekly basis. 

It would be easy to reduce the number of bottles we use by installing more refill stations and filling up water bottles that we can buy from anywhere. Of course, this would also be good for our health because we might drink more water than soda! The same is true for plastic bags – if you take a plastic bag to the supermarket with you, instead of buying a new one every time you go shopping, you are helping to reduce the number of plastic bags that go to landfill sites or are thrown into our oceans. 

However, there are some environments where plastic is a really important material. In the construction industry, for example, using plastic as a building material is much better for the planet than concrete or some metals, and would also reduce the amount of waste that the construction industry produces. Also, plastic is a vital material in the medical industry. If you think about how your medicines are delivered, or if you have surgery in a hospital, a lot of the objects found in a hospital are plastic because they can be produced in high quantities. This helps a hospital manage its resources and finances better than a less clean or mass-produced material. 

So, while I disagree with the article and I think that we have to use plastic in our everyday lives, there are so many opportunities for us to reduce our reliance on plastics. We need to care more about the environment and the world we leave for our children, and looking at alternative materials is possibly the quickest and easiest way of doing this. Do you agree, or do you think that this is not a big problem? Let’s discuss!