It’s time for thinking people to go on a single-use-plastic strike and refuse to accept it at stores. Choose products in no/or biodegradable packaging, leave plastics at the cash, write store owners (you can write Loblaws head office here), also write political representatives. This is madness.  A ban on single-use plastics is needed.  To quote Dr. Suess:

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not”

Producers will adapt quickly when they are no longer able to dump toxic packaging on the public. The motto for packaging needs to be “you make it, you own it.”

For important perspective, see some vivid graphics in Drowning in plastic:  visualizing the world’s addiction to plastic bottles.  This is the very definition of unsustainable.  When we individuals do nothing to force the change, we are complicit:

Around the world, almost 1 million plastic bottles are purchased every minute. As the environmental impact of that tide of plastic becomes a growing political issue, major packaged goods sellers and retailers are under pressure to cut the flow of the single-use bottles and containers that are clogging the world’s waterways.

Plastic production has surged in the last 50 years, leading to widespread use of inexpensive disposable products that are having a devastating effect on the environment. Images of plastic debris-strewn beaches and dead animals with stomachs full of plastic have sparked outrage.

Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles are commonly used for soft drinks and mineral water, but can also be used in other household or personal care products. Data from Euromonitor International, shows that more than 480 billion of these bottles were sold last year alone. That’s almost 1 million every minute, as shown in the animation at the top of this page. The illustrations below show what that pile of plastic would look like if it was collected over a longer period of time.