Location:  Brentwood, CA, United States

Name: Kelsey Fordahl

Week: 1

Personal Info:

For starters, I only collected the plastic throughout the week that I used!

I’m a college student that comes by a lot of plastic, but being aware that I would be participating in this plastic challenge, I found myself avoiding a lot of plastic usage. Although, I still did collect some. I already do have a reusable CamelBak water bottle so plastic bottles isn’t a problem for me. On average, a majority of my plastic consumption comes from sandwich bags, food wrappers, and coffee cups. Which you’ll see is a practically all that I collected.

List of plastic items REFUSED this week. (Yay!)
Shopping bags and extra sandwich bags for other snacks! Limited myself to one bag a day if I were to use one.

Total items collected: 11

Total weight: too light for scale to say

Items: Recyclable
Peets Coffee Cup- 5

Orange Juice bottle- 4

Water Bottle

Starbucks Cup- 83

Starbucks Cup- 82

Plastic Bag-4

Printer Paper Wrapping

Items: Nonrecyclable
Sandwich bags

What items can I easily replace with plastic free or less plastic alternatives?
Coffee Cups: I could buy one nice glass cup at their stores for them to refill.

Sandwich bags: I could buy a sandwich box.

Water bottle: I used the one I did when I took my dog to the park so I could get a special water bottle for his water traveling usage.

What items would I be willing to give up if a plastic free alternative doesn’t exist?
All. I believe I could find a way to get use to living with out the item. It would just take a lot of commitment.

What items are essential and seem to have no plastic-free alternative?
Most hygiene products!

What lifestyle change(s) might be necessary to reduce my plastic consumption?
Purchasing a cup for my coffee for when I go to Starbucks or Peets, getting my dog a personal traveling water bottle, and using tubs for my sandwich and lunch snacks instead of plastic sandwich bags!

What one plastic item am I willing to give up or replace this week?
All

What other conclusions, if any, can I draw?
This was an awesome experience and I’m stoked to continue to lessen my plastic usage!