New York City continues the global movement toward becoming a more environmentally sustainable city with a styrofoam ban going into effect by January 1, 2019, and plastic straws possibly being added to the banned list. This legislation promotes the movement toward a future free from single-use products such as plastic utensils, containers, and styrofoam products.

With more than eight million metric tons of plastic thrown into the ocean annually, and the plastic in the ocean set to increase tenfold by 2020, single-use plastic waste is becoming the biggest epidemic of our time. A whopping 91% of plastic isn't recycled at all.

New York City will be one of 15 other cities that have passed similar legislation. Banning plastic straws and styrofoam may be a step towards ending the circulation of single-use plastic, but will it be enough to recover from decades of plastic pollution? Can we live in a world without plastic?

Learn more about plastic and what it’s doing to the world and our bodies, discover more about plastic alternatives, and see how to reduce the plastic in your life with these reusable sources! 

Living plastic free

Life Without Plastic: The Practical Step-by-step Guide to Avoiding Plastic to Keep Your Family and the Planet Healthy

By Chantal Plamondon and Jay Sinha

Life Without Plastic strives to create more awareness about BPA-based products, polystyrene and other single-use plastics, and provides readers with ideas for safe, reusable, and affordable alternatives.

Plamondon and Sinha show readers how to analyze their personal plastic use, find alternatives, and create easy replacements in this step-by-step guide. Get your family healthier, spread consciousness, and radiate positive plastic-free energy by taking action to help the environment.
 

Plastic-free: How I Kicked the Plastic Habit and How You Can Too

By Beth Terry

Like many people, Beth Terry didn’t think an individual could have much impact on the environment. But while laid up after surgery, she read an article about the staggering amount of plastic polluting the oceans and decided, then and there, to kick her plastic habit.

Now she wants to teach you how you can too. In her quirky and humorous style—well known to the readers of her popular blog, My Plastic-Free Life—Terry provides personal anecdotes, stats about the environmental and health problems related to plastic, and personal solutions and tips on how to limit your plastic footprint. 
 

Give a Sh*t: Do Good. Live Better. Save the Planet: A Practical Handbook

By Ashlee Piper

This book provides instructions for making simple changes at home and at work that will improve your health, minimize your carbon footprint, and make life better for the planet.

Plastic Purge: How to Use Less Plastic, Eat Better, Keep Toxins Out of Your Body, and Help Save the Sea Turtles!

By Michael SanClements

SanClements puts together the most up-to-date and scientifically rigorous information available to explain how plastics release toxins into our bodies and the effect it has on us. Written with a casual, pop-science voice he provides easy-to-follow prescriptive advice for how to use less plastic, thereby reaping the benefits such as eating a healthier diet and living with less clutter.

 

 An ocean of plastic

A Plastic Ocean (2016)

Trashed (2014)

Jeremy Irons sets out to discover the extent and effects of the global waste problem as he travels the world to beautiful destinations tainted by pollution. This is a meticulous, brave investigative journey that takes viewers from skepticism to sorrow, and from horror to hope.

Irons showcases the individuals, activists, corporate and advocacy groups around the world who are working to affect change and reform the current model.

 

The history of plastic

American plastic: a cultural history

By Jeffrey L. Meikle