"We just rolled it up in our T-shirts and carried it that way," said Terry, 54, recalling how she crab-walked back to the hotel to stay true to her principles. "If I let myself off the hook this time, it would be easier for me to take plastic next time." Beth Terry is the author of Plastic-Free: How I Kicked the Plastic Habit and How You Can Too. Credit:Twitter @PlasticfreeBeth Treating plastic like a drug habit that needs to be kicked is a lifestyle pledge being shared by more consumers, horrified by the nearly 300 million tonnes of plastic created worldwide each year, much of it in the form of single-use items such as straws, that end up in landfill or the ocean. As a marketing term, "plastic-free" is emerging as the new "no carbs". Shops that take pride in stocking zero plastics have opened in Brooklyn and London, selling items such as silicone water bottles, cardboard poop scoopers, biodegradable vibrators and iPhone cases made of flax. Designers have embraced plastic free as a new challenge, whether it's building a supermarket aisle without plastic or making eco-friendly clothing that does not involve virgin plastic. Celebrities including US actor Jeff Bridges and US singer SZA have joined the anti-plastic crusade. And there are many, many blogs and books that offer primers.

Even some Fortune 500 companies such as Procter & Gamble and PepsiCo want a piece of the action. This US summer, those companies will test selling products such as Tropicana orange juice in glass bottles, Pantene shampoo in aluminum bottles and other items in refillable nonplastic containers. "The awareness has exploded," said Susan Freinkel, a journalist in the San Francisco Bay Area and the author of Plastic: A Toxic Love Story. "The movement to get rid of trivial plastic has taken off. There is a critical mass of consciousness." Shoppers search for nonplastic goods at a farmers' market in Los Angeles. Credit:Adam Amengual/The New York Times To exist in the modern world without plastic, however noble a goal, may not actually be possible. If you gathered up all your plastic waste each week, as Terry once did, you would have a huge mound on the floor. Where to begin?

"The one thing I try to emphasise to people is to go step by step," said Terry, an accountant who lives in Greenbelt, Maryland, and who is the author of Plastic-Free: How I Kicked the Plastic Habit and How You Can Too. "Don't try to do everything at once. It's been a practice of mine to not get overwhelmed by it all." Dianna Cohen's refrigerator is filled with plastic-free packages Credit:Adam Amengual/The New York Times That's easier said than done, because once you wake up to the plastic problem, you see it everywhere: in jars of peanut butter and bags of grapes, in tubes of toothpaste and Tupperware containers, in bottles of Dawn dish soap and Tide laundry detergent, in the wrappers of Doritos chips and the lining of milk cartons. "I thought I'd be able to find a plastic-free version of all the convenient foods I was consuming," Terry said. "I didn't realise that plastic made those foods possible."

At the grocer, you find yourself staring at a three-metre shelf of yoghurt brands, with only one in a glass jar: Oui by Yoplait. But you don't like Oui by Yoplait. Also, it costs much more. What do you do? To navigate the consumer minefield, plastic purgers develop mental maps of places where they can shop. It may take months, but they learn where to get milk in a glass bottle or which health-food store lets you grind your own peanut butter. And rather than see it as a huge inconvenience, they treat living plastic free as a fun game. Dianna Cohen buys a glass jar of pickled vegetables from vendor Omen Melk at a farmers market in Los Angeles. Credit:Adam Amengual/The New York Times "I wake up and think, 'How am I going to make it through the day without using any single-use plastic?' " said Dianna Cohen, 53, an artist in Santa Monica, California, and a founder of Plastic Pollution Coalition, an advocacy group. "Right away the challenge hits you in the bathroom with the toothbrush." For her, the answer is often the farmers' markets, which exist year-round in Southern California, to which she brings her own bags. "I'm a big fan of baskets," Cohen said. "I bring baskets and canvas bags to put vegetables in. I will bring my own glass jam jars."

Like many who aim to live plastic free, Cohen never leaves home without her eco-survival kit, which includes a steel cup, a set of bamboo utensils or a metal spork (a hybrid spoon-fork), two stainless-steel straws and a cloth bag. To her, it's worth the extra minutes it takes to ready herself before leaving the house. "I have to be very thoughtful in advance," she said. Indeed, plastic purgers need to rearrange their lives to avoid the offending material. If a restaurant serves food only on plastic plates, they won't eat there. Fast food? Most wrappers contain plastic. Smoothies from a juice bar? Unless they put the smoothie in a stainless steel cup, move on or make your own at home. Bread? Buy it from a local bakery to avoid fresh-seal bags. Dianna Cohen's bamboo toothbrush and homemade toothpaste. Credit:Adam Amengual/The New York Times But there are certain situations where plastics are unavoidable. Try having a medical procedure without using a plastic syringe or an intravenous drip bag. Plastic water bottles can be indispensable after natural disasters. Despite their best efforts, the purgers all say they can't totally banish plastic from their lives. For Cohen, it's a favourite hairbrush she has had for decades. And Terry confronts the limits of her plastic ban each time she visits the pharmacy, where no pharmacist would put medicine in a Mason jar.

"It's a daily challenge," Cohen said. "But I think it's becoming easier. It's really just learning new behaviour." Going plastic free is also easier these days because there's more awareness and alternatives. Shops now sell dental floss made of silk, wooden toothbrushes with pig-hair bristles, stainless-steel ice cube trays, food wrappers made with beeswax-coated cotton and other nonplastic versions of household items. Nevertheless, it is usually more expensive to buy stainless steel or wooden items instead of plastic ones, or fresh foods instead of packaged ones. And it can be difficult to avoid plastic in poorer communities. Not everyone has access to year-round farmers' markets, or the means to shop at them. Kristal Ambrose, 29, an environmental scientist who founded the Bahamas Plastic Movement, an advocacy group, faces that challenge daily. Much of what is sold in the archipelago nation is imported and shipped in plastic. "I avoid plastic in areas where I can control," said Ambrose, who carries bamboo cutlery and a reusable bottle with her at all times. "For me, not using a plastic bag means so much more. But the mother who's juggling work, kids, other things - their priorities are different."

Part of her mission is to show that you don't need to be rich to avoid plastic. "Sometimes people can't afford a bamboo kit, but you can take a fork from home," Ambrose said. "Even an old pasta sauce jar can be made into a reusable item." The New York Times