You Mean Plastic is Made from Oil??!!

I was sitting in the chair of my new hairstylist talking about why I chose to try this saloon. It is convenient to my house and I can bike or walk to it. That started a conversation about the price of gasoline and moved on to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

This triggered my normal response on how we need to become less dependent on oil products. For example, I opt for paper boxes over plastic bottles for my laundry detergent. It is a simple change to a renewable material.

To my astonishment, my hair stylist stopped putting goop in my hair and said, “you mean plastic bottles are made from oil”??!! I looked at her reflection in the mirror thinking that she was joking. Nope. She was dead serious. She had no idea that many of the plastic bottles she used where made from oil.

Wow.

If you are surprised by this too, check out this site for more info: What Plastic Is Made Of: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_plastic_made_of

It is so easy to make little adjustments in our day-to-day lives to reduce our consumption of oil products. Next time you are in the store, look for one way you can reduce the amount of plastic packaging. A couple of ideas:

• Choose paper or glass instead of plastic. For example, try paper or glass containers for your milk and juice. Paper is renewable and compostable and recycled glass has a strong demand.
On a side note, a lot of plastic is recyclable, however today the supply of recycled plastic is much higher than the demand, which means the plastic is sitting in warehouses waiting for buyers, which brings us to the next point.

• Look for post-consumer recycled materials on packaging for your cleaning supplies (this means the manufacturer used some of that stockpiled recycled plastic to make their new bottles.) This is called closed-loop recycling and is better than using new plastic.

• And… the one you have all heard before – use cloth bags instead of paper or plastic. If you forget the cloth bags at home, make sure to ask the cashier for paper bags, since that is a compostable, recyclable, and renewable material, and isn’t made up of oil.

My hairstylist got the goop rinsed out of my hair (my hair looks good) and she has committed to trying a few simple things to use less plastic (oil) in her household. How about you?