Reducing Single-Use Plastic by Rethinking Containers

By Ruth Ann Smalley

“I take my feast bundle with me everywhere I go,” said Jenn, an indigenous woman in my book group. “People look at me funny, but I think we should normalize bringing our own cloth napkins, silverware, mug, and takeout container when we go to events and activities,” she continued. 

Feast bundle! I loved the idea, but I was also completely smitten by what she called it. For me, that  name represents a certain mindset: a combination of conscious intention, reverence, and routine. Yes to normalizing ALL of that. Jenn’s feast bundle is similar to the “car kit” I’ve already written about in the Scoop Blog.

But it also brought to mind Ursula LeGuin’s comments on “the carrier bag” and its foundational role in human society. LeGuin wrote,

If it is a human thing to do to put something you want, because it's useful, edible, or beautiful, into a bag, or a basket, or a bit of rolled bark or leaf, or a net woven of your own hair, or what have you, and then take it home with you, home being another larger kind of pouch or bag, a container for people, and then later on you take it out and eat it or share it or store it up for winter in a solider container or put it in the medicine bundle or the shrine or the museum, the holy place, the area that contains what is sacred, and then next day you probably do much the same again–if to do that is human, if that’s what it takes, then I am a human being after all.

The author was emphasizing the importance of the carrier bag as a tool, compared with the bone/ stone weapon. She used it to illustrate a theory of fiction, one that recognizes that our stories are influenced by our perceptions of our social roles–which in turn have been defined by gender constructs and values. 

But I’d also like to look at how the carrier bag carries another story. This story is about how our innovations have created a dangerous new relationship with our material world.

Some anthropologists speculate that the development of methods for carrying multiple things indicates a cognitive leap for ancient humans. In a Psychology Today article called “Got Your Bag?” Thomas Suddendorf characterizes “mobile containers–bags, slings, and boxes” as a “keystone innovation reflecting human foresight.” According to this theory, “bags introduced the idea of using a tool in the future, which further inspired our ancestors to safeguard and refine those tools.”

“What does all this have to do with plastic?” you might ask. Quite simply, the concept of a feast bundle directly connects with this notion of mobile containers. The feast bundle is a form of carrier bag: it exists because the person carrying it has exercised foresight about their future need for the tools within. For most of our history, those containers were made from flora and fauna from our direct environment. These substances were so prone to decay, that when we date their use back 100,000 years, we’re probably missing even earlier evidence. 

Contrast this with plastic carrier bags and other packaging—which may not break down for hundreds of thousands of years. It's almost as though plastic introduced the idea of not thinking about the future at all. 

Yes, states like New York have made great strides in converting to the use of cloth bags. But what do most of us find, when we look closely at the “bags” we’ve loaded into our cloth carriers? What do we pull out later, when we’ve returned to our “larger kind of pouch,” our home? Too often, it is loads and loads of plastic. Plastic that will not decompose the way our ancestors’ bags did. 

We might even say that the invention of plastic, with its allure of convenience, has clouded human foresight. We didn't foresee how this toxin-laden substance would embed itself into every level of our life support system. Nor that eventually, we ourselves would become the sacks carrying the plastic, as it entered our bodies. Scientists may argue about how much: are we actually eating a credit card per week worth of plastic? Has the equivalent of a plastic spoon of nanoparticles really accumulated in our brains? (See Martin Pletz’s article, “Ingested Microplastics” as well as this article. However, the evidence of plastic’s pervasive, and invasive, presence is undeniable. 

The grief, anger, and overwhelm we feel at witnessing the downsides of this particular human innovation are valid. We can’t just skip over those emotions. But I would also urge readers not to feel defeated. Foresight and collective action are still open to us. We can forge new tools for safeguarding the future. Becoming plastic-free is an unachievable–and probably undesirable– goal at this point. But there are many actions we can take to improve our situation. 

These fall into two types of change-making, through policy and personal behavior. Here are some suggestions that may help you get started:

Policy: Support current legislative actions: At Beyondplastics.org, you’ll find a variety of ways to get involved with single use plastic activism. An important current bill in New York is The Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act (S1464/A1749). This “polluter pays” bill would hold companies responsible for their plastic waste pollution; would set a 12-year window for companies to reduce plastic packaging by 30%; and would ban toxic substances such as PFAS, phthalates, vinyl chloride, formaldehyde, lead, mercury, cadmium and 7 other real baddies from commercial packaging use. 

This is a big deal. A link on the Beyond Plastics site makes it very easy to contact your representative to share your support for this bill. They need to hear from us. This site also offers other vital information and action links about plastic pollution and our health, as well as ways to participate in grassroots advocacy training free and online. 

Personal: Consider how you might use foresight–in the form of your own feast bundle/travel kit or other strategies, to reduce your consumption of single-use plastic. I try not to get too down on myself for the plastic that does come home with me from the store, but I also make it a kind of game to see how I can limit it on any given shopping trip. 

For example, I might succumb to the charms of those cute mandarin oranges in a plastic mesh bag. But then for the rest of my shop, I’ll try NOT to choose any other produce in plastic, such as bagged grapes, greens, mini-cucumbers, or sweet peppers. By bringing my cotton mesh produce bags, I can also avoid buying things like potatoes and onions in plastic mesh. By buying in bulk or opting for the EcoSun cardboard packages, I can pass up plastic cartons for soft items like mushrooms. 

I’ll look for condiments in jars, and dairy products in cartons or glass. Sometimes, if the cheese department helpers aren’t too busy, I’ll ask for an extra large cut of cheese, wrapped in paper only. Or I’ll look for cheese in a wax rind. Recently, I was thrilled to see a new sign on the meat counter–it said “Paper or Plastic?” My fish purchase got home wrapped in paper without any mess. And finally, if my willpower is failing by the time I get to the bakery area, I’ll still try to opt out of goodies in clam shells or swathed in plastic wrap. There are lots of great alternative choices in that department! 

We may not always have the time, energy, or money to make the optimal purchases, but there is always an action we can take to help reduce the flow of plastic waste. One call to a legislator, or one glass jar brought for a bulk purchase, is still a worthwhile choice. It starts with a shift in mindset about our chosen tools.

View all the Coop Scoop Blog posts here.