About half of the 300 million tons of plastic the world uses every year is single-use plastic. Think of all the plastic shopping bags, water bottles, and the film around otherwise non-plastic packaging.

Most of the time, people throw it out immediately. That plastic jug of laundry detergent gets used longer, but only until it’s empty. Reducing single-use plastics will go a long way toward reducing our plastic pollution problem.

I say reducing single-use plastic rather than eliminating it. After all, some is necessary. For example, health care workers must use new gloves, syringes, etc. for each patient. Until someone invents an alternative, we need the plastic wrapping on packages of meat. But we don’t need the vast majority of the single-use plastic we toss every year.

As it is, excluding synthetic fabrics such as nylon or polyester, half of our plastic becomes packaging. And we recycle very little of it. It’s impossible to recycle some of it. Think straws, cutlery, toothbrushes, ballpoint pens, and more that are composites or too small for sorting equipment. It is possible to recycle those plastic shopping bags, but you can’t toss it in with your cans, bottles, and newspapers. You have to take it to specially marked containers at stores.

Plastic lasts about forever. It just breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces till it becomes microplastics. But a piece of plastic less than five millimeters across is chemically the same substance it was when it was new. And now it’s everywhere from Mount Everest to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. We all have it in our bodies.

It’s easy enough to find detailed explanations of the single-use plastic problem. Let’s look at some solutions.

1. Carry reusable bags

The world uses about a million plastic shopping bags per second! And only about half a percent get recycled.

You can reduce your share of this single-use plastic by keeping a collection of reusable bags. Including reusable produce bags.

They’re not only for groceries. Use them at every kind of store you visit. And speaking of visiting stores, you get a lot more plastic when you shop online. Wait until you have a good-sized shipment before you order anything online to avoid some of that single-use plastic packaging.

The plastic industry has been hard at work trying to convince people that cloth bags are a germy health hazard. Toss them in the laundry from time to time.

It will also point out how much water is embedded in cloth bags. As if that makes them an environmental menace. True, making one plastic bag has a lower carbon footprint than making one cloth bag.  So use your cloth bag hundreds of times to offset the carbon footprint of hundreds of single-use plastic bags.

2. Buy in bulk

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in the closure of bulk bins. That’s just part of the environmental disaster it has caused. Sooner or later, they’ll have to return. Take along a reusable container and have the store weigh it. Then you can leave the store’s single-use plastic packaging alone.

In the meantime, you can still buy in bulk in the produce department. It’s easy to reduce single-use plastic there. You don’t need to put a few apples or potatoes in a plastic bag. Just put them in the cart. Green beans can’t go loose in your cart, but that’s what your reusable produce bags are for.

If you need, say, three pounds of apples at a time, they’re cheaper in the plastic package. But why buy two green peppers in a Styrofoam™ tray wrapped in plastic film? Why buy a single plastic-wrapped potato?

3. Carry a reusable water bottle

Any beverage in a plastic bottle contributes to the avalanche of single-use plastic. Water bottles, though, have become so thin they’re hardly worth recycling.

Regardless of the claims of the bottling industry, tap water is subject to more stringent regulation than bottled water. Therefore, bottled water is not safer except in very rare emergencies.

Fill your reusable water bottle from the tap and enjoy. Every time you use it, you’re reducing single-use plastic.

4. Give up straws

Some people with disabilities must use straws. Most of us don’t have to. They’re just a convenience. Picking up a cup and drinking from it is one of the first motor skills we learned as babies. We can still do it. Ice cubes may feel odd against our lips, but we can get used to them.

Now, driving down the highway in traffic is not a good time to tilt your head back for a drink. Straws do have some legitimate uses beyond habit or convenience. You can buy reusable metal or glass straws and avoid single-use plastic straws.

5. Prepare a travel kit

When you go into a fast-food restaurant for takeout, ask the clerk not to give you the single-use plastic cutlery. If you’re going home, you have plenty of regular table service.

But if you eat in a restaurant, you need to use something. When you travel, you eat in plenty of restaurants. Even when not traveling, you might want to take part of your meal home to eat later.

You can take reusable cutlery into a fast-food restaurant and refuse the plastic. You can take your own take-out containers into any restaurant and refuse the plastic. Find something reusable to store it in, keep it in your car and easily reduce single-use plastic.

6. Use reusable food containers and wraps at home

Now, if you have plastic containers for leftovers, keep using them. But eventually, they won’t be useful anymore. Keep a supply of all those glass jars and bottles you accumulate. You can even use glass in the freezer. Just leave room for food to expand and then thaw it in the refrigerator.

If you take your lunch to work, find something reusable to keep stuff in instead of single-use plastic bags.

Prefer anything to plastic wrap. Clean used foil and stuff it into an aluminum can for recycling. Compost wax paper. Reuse beeswax wraps.

7. Make your own cleaning supplies and toiletries

Not everyone will want to do this, but it’s easy to find recipes for anything that comes in a single-use plastic container. You can make your own laundry detergent or shampoo, for example.

These recipes use simple ingredients such as baking soda, borax, coconut oil, lemon juice, and all kinds of things that don’t come packaged in plastic. And if you do have to get some things in plastic, you’ve at least greatly reduced the amount of trash you buy in the form of packaging.

8. Consider bamboo toothbrushes instead of plastic

Toothbrushes are not single-use products, but you can only use them for about three months. Most of the ones you get in stores are plastic handles with nylon (that is, plastic) bristles.

They likely come in plastic packaging. Then you have to throw it all out.

On the other hand, you can compost a bamboo toothbrush with natural bristles. Not everyone likes them, but you won’t know if you do until you try.

9. Conserve trash bags

If you buy something that comes in a large bag, such as dry dogfood, use the empty bag to line your kitchen trash can.

Whether you can follow that suggestion or not, make sure your trash bag is completely full before you take it outside. That means not putting anything in it that’s likely to get smelly.

But you’ll probably accumulate smaller reusable plastic bags. Put bones, meat scraps, grease, etc. in one of those and take it outside right away. The larger bag won’t stink up your home before it’s full, and you’ll reduce your single-use plastic trash bags.

10. Do without

What if you can find no alternative to single-use plastic for something you’re thinking of buying? Don’t forget that you have the option of not getting it at all! Plastic or nothing? Nothing is a valid choice. I think we should all question how much we really need all the things we buy.

Reducing single-use plastic waste is not complicated. You can make a big deal of it, but most of these tips require little thought or sacrifice once you decide to follow them.

Do you have more ideas? Share them in the comments.