Is it possible to eliminate plastic in the home?

Even my laptop has plastic parts! (public domain photo)

Why would you want to eliminate plastic in your home? What is the environmental impact of plastic products? Is it enough to choose BPA free products? It's all very confusing, isn't it? Today I decided to take an inventory of all the plastics in my kitchen. How will I ever eliminate plastic in the home? I'm afraid it will have to be one piece at a time.  

Let's start with the obvious plastic food storage containers.

How many do you have in your home? I have more than I can count. What can I replace them with? Well, there's glass, of course. That could be rather expensive. Still, it's worth it, for the health of my family. OK. Let's just do it. I'll recycle all the plastic food storage containers and gradually replace them with glass. Meanwhile, I'll use foil wrap and the dishes I already have to store leftovers. I'll nix the plastic baggies and plastic wrap too.

What about the rest of the plastic dishes?

I have plastic cups for when the grand-kids come over. I don't like them drinking out of them, but I also don't like replacing glassware every few weeks. I have a plastic pitcher for making juice and the like. I also have some plastic mixing bowls. OK. My next step will be to replace those items with glass for the health of my family. I'll just have to live with the breakage. Maybe if I buy thicker glass items, it won't be so bad. I have plastic utensils too. Maybe I can switch to wood or metal?

Is there anything I can do about the appliances?

We have a coffee maker, a toaster, a mixer, a juicer, a crock pot, a waffle iron and more. Plus, there are the usual major appliances. All are made, at least partially from plastic. I don't think you can buy appliances that don't have at least a little plastic on or in them these days. Wow! I guess I have to keep some plastic in my home.

I just realized something.

We have a kitchen that needs updating. That's right. You guessed it. We have a linoleum kitchen floor. Linoleum is a form of plastic, isn't it? We also have cabinets with a small amount of vinyl coating, vinyl drawer slides and vinyl shelf holders. Oh boy. Our silverware tray is plastic too. I guess I can get a wood one. Unfortunately, replacing the floors and cabinets just isn't in the budget right now. At least we have old time white tile counter-tops. No plastic laminate. I knew there was something I liked about them.

I don't think it's possible to eliminate all the plastic in our home.

It's simply too prevalent. I've only gone through the kitchen. I'm already seeing an incredible amount of plastic that needs to be dealt with Not only that, there are many items that are no longer manufactured without plastic components. What a shame! I can, however, do my best to get it down to a reasonable level. So in this case, good enough greening will have to be good enough. However, I will do everything I can.

This post was previously published by this author on Yahoo!