A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

One could write pages and pages about how we need to be more environmentally conscious and produce less waste, but I think this single photograph just about says it all. This bird ate waste plastic washing up on shore or floating out in the ocean, which stopped up it's guts and leached poisonous chemicals into it's body, so it died. Even as the bird decays or is food for scavengers, the plastic remains. Plastic truly never dies, it only photo-degrades into smaller pieces of plastic which sea life mistake for food, so they die.

This whole thing has had me thinking about how my family can produce less plastic, and how I can find re-usable alternatives to cheap "disposable" plastic.

http://myplasticfreelife.com/ has great articles on how to use non-plastic substitutes for many things we use in our lives, which I've found to be very helpful as I start down my road of less plastic living. I'll probably never eliminate all the plastic in my life, nor do I think it is even desirable to do so, and I think even the author of My Plastic Free Life even admits she can't completely eliminate it either. I still want plastic helping to protect my head in a bike helmet, or creating rust-free durable products. It's the single use disposable plastic that I find objectionable. Straws, water bottles, food containers, plastic bags, etc.

Now, back to hiking. I'm planning on going as soon as I get a couple chores done around the house. I'll get back with you all with what all I experienced.