**What I plan to do:

For one year (and hopefully longer), I will drastically reduce my plastic usage. I will not purchase anything that is transported within plastic that is intended for one-time use or transportation and then discarded. If I ease into this and start making a list of acceptable and not, it's going to cause too many unnecessary brain cycles and internal arguments, so the best thing to do is go cold turkey. If it's intended for one-time use or consumption and then to be discarded, I will not buy it. Examples: bottled water, individually wrapped brownies, bags of chips, bags of tortillas, plastic silverware, styrofoam plates, take out food in styrofoam containers, plastic grocery or vegetable bags. Red solo cups. If I politely or impolitely turn down the food / beverage you offer me, please accept my apologies in advance.

Along the way, I'll make a list of the difficult decisions and look for alternatives. I'll post creative work arounds. Our ancestors lived for thousands of years without plastic, so why can't I?

Why? Because, what better time than now to start making a difference? I tell people that they need to live the lifestyle and make the choices that they hope others will make, so it's time to start doing what I preach.

And because I'm sure it's really annoying to consistently question my friends about the necessity of using plastic ("it's really not necessary to put avocados in a plastic bag", "don't we have cups we can use at home?", "do you really want that bottled water?"), doing a drastic proposal like this will let me simply say "no plastic for a year, what don't you understand?! I posted it online so it has to be followed!"

Also because there's a big heap of plastic twice the size of the continental US swirling around in the middle of the Pacific. Estimated 3.5 million tons of trash that extends 100 feet below the surface. Learn more: http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/translating-uncle-sam/stories/what-is-the-great-pacific-ocean-garbage-patch

Maybe this has inspired you. I hope it has. If you are asking yourself what you can do that's small (small = manageable.

Even a small step forward can start a…umm…walk? and will help with this ridiculous problem that humans have created for ourselves, here are some suggestions:

First of all, start a conversation with at least two people about reducing plastic usage. Another action you can take that's simple is to pledge to reduce or cut out a certain type of plastic: container, bag or styrofoam: http://www.myplastiki.com/takeaction.php. I would love some comments or emails to rkirschner1377 [at] gmail [dot] com, telling me that you read this, are greatly disturbed, or super excited, about this project. Your emotions must either be greatly disturbed or super excited.

Influenced by many people and organizations who are already making a difference, like:

http://plasticbank.org

http://www.myplastiki.com

Gorillaz' Plastic Beach https://play.spotify.com/album/2dIGnmEIy1WZIcZCFSj6i8 <– not sure if this is even about reducing plastic usage, but it's a kick ass album.

****Also,

this is a brand new blog, so it's probably appropriate to introduce myself. My name is Danny Kirschner. I am a twenty something living in the US (east coast), I have voted, both republican and democrat, am not being paid to do this, and I enjoy soccer, music and computers.