March 2025

10 Tips to Stem the Tide of Plastic

By Sharon Smaller

Our Green Maven blog, edited by Dayenu (climate action and environmental justice) Circle members Chris Wynn and Sharon Smaller, will give you ideas, information, resources, and things you can do to make this world a better place environmentally, tikkun olam. As a community, we can learn from each other, so we welcome your ideas and questions. Please share with us your successes in your endeavors to “go green.”

Plastic is invading every aspect of our world, from rivers, lakes, and oceans to landfills, grocery store shelves, and finding its way into all living creatures, including us. In the past 30 years, plastic manufacturing has quadrupled and is poised to triple in the next 30 years. Single-use plastic, meaning plastic that is created for one-time use and then disposed of in the trash and ultimately the landfill, makes up nearly half of all plastics. In the Great Lakes alone, 22 million pounds of plastic annually enter these vital fresh waterways. 

Recycling plastic doesn’t seem to be the fix we thought it might be since worldwide only 9 percent of plastic is recycled. Plastic manufacturers deceived consumers and legislators about recycling being the solution and put the burden on individual consumers, rather than holding themselves responsible. Perhaps even more critical is that a concerning body of research is linking microplastics to detrimental impacts on human health, contributing to cancers and endocrine diseases like diabetes.  

This past December, a newly formed group in Skokie called Replace Plastics, hosted an educational program, Plastics and Human Health, featuring two physician researchers from the University of Illinois, Chicago, The program delved into some of the latest research on health and plastic. Here is a link to that presentation. The group will be offering another presentation (hybrid) at the Skokie Public Library on April 8^th. 

What steps can you take to cut down on your own use of plastic for both environmental and personal health reasons? Here are ten tips, adapted from Beyond Plastics, a nonprofit group exclusively focused on education and advocacy to address concerns about plastic. Do one action (many of you are probably doing a number of these already) or all ten, but pledge to start in 2025!

Need more motivation? We will be kicking off a challenge – Put Plastic on Pause – in May to reduce our use of plastic, especially single-use plastic. We hope to engage as many Beth Emet members as possible. In our next Green Maven, we will be offering more details about the campaign and some actions you can take to advocate on the state and federal level to reduce plastic in our world. In the meantime, these ideas will get you started on using less plastic for your day-to-day needs by swapping them out for more environmentally healthy options.

Ten Tips for Reducing Your Use of Plastic 

1. Bring your own reusable shopping bags & produce bags whenever you shop. 
2. Carry a reusable water bottle, rather than single-use plastic water bottles. 
3. Carry your own reusable cutlery and say no to plastic utensils when getting carry out.
4. Say no to plastic straws and use paper or stainless steel ones instead.
5. Buy products like flour, granola, nuts, etc. in bulk and use glass jars or cotton bags when possible.
6. Bring your own reusable mug when you go to a café.  
7. Ditch the plastic wrap and instead use alternatives like bees wrap, cloth, and silicon bowl covers, and even kitchen towels. 
8. Try using shampoo bars and bar soaps rather than products in plastic bottles. 
9. Pack lunch and meals-on-the-go in reusable containers. 
10. Bring your own reusable take-out containers (preferably glass or stainless steel) to restaurants.

Stay tuned for more details about 

Dayenu’s upcoming challenge this May: 

Put Plastic on Pause!