Chitose Suzuki/AP
DCL
And when I say 'Be like Seattle', I don't mean adopt a municipal body to govern your every action, or get rained upon all the time. I mean you should take the city's progressive stance on disposal plastic goods: and get rid of them altogether, or use them sparingly.
Seattle banned bottled water in 2008 and now taxes the sale of plastic bags. Both of which are great moves to discourage the unsustainable disposable plastics industry.
But you can do Seattle one better: you can make an effort to steer clear of all disposable plastics—that means refusing the plastic bag at the grocery store (to instead use your reusable tote bag, of course) avoiding unnecessary plastic-heavy takeout containers, and opting out of bottled drinks of all kinds. Don't worry, that Vitamin Water stuff's not really good for you anyways).
While you may have eased your eco-anxiety for the time being by acting on a strict recycling regimen, you should know that unfortunately, that's not really enough. It still takes a huge amount of resources (namely oil, and electricity that's most often derived from burned coal) to undertake the recycling process.
Which is better than allowing the raw waste to litter our landfills and ecosystems—but the greenest answer to the waste problem is to simply buy less stuff. Especially less disposable plastics.
So be like Seattle. And give plastic goods the boot.
