Adventures in Plastics

For the past couple of days, I'd noticed a strong smell of melting plastic emanating from my beloved Honda Accord. The smell would get more noticeable as the car warmed up, and on the rare occasion that I ran the heater (I tend toward hot myself) it would become overpowering. I'm convinced that I even stunk up the entire parking lot at the local public library – well not me, but my car. And after driving for more than a few minutes, I would feel a strong headache coming on. It would also take an hour or two after getting out of the car to shake a general feeling of queasiness.

So I zipped over to see my favorite mechanic on Friday afternoon, not sure if they were still open. He said they're always open for a pretty girl (oh my stars!) and after I collected myself he took a look under the car with the benefit of a flashlight. Not a moment later he pulled a half-melted scrap of plastic out from under the car. At this point the smell was almost enough to make a person pass out, and I was already lightheaded from getting such a sweet compliment. And my point is thus:

Ego boost notwithstanding, all of this mayhem was caused by one plastic bag. And not even a trashcan-sized one, either. Just a garden variety grocery bag. Think of the chemicals that go into the creation of this one bag, and the side effects those chemicals caused when they came in contact with my li'l Accord's catalytic converter! And the chain reaction set off by putting a plastic bag, one of trillions and more, back into the trash or recycling. Yes, even the recycling plant has to do something with all those chemicals when the plastic bags are made into other kinds of stuff.

As a result, I am revising my stance on plastics. No more! No more plastic shopping bags, no more plastic water bottles, no more plastic lids on my to-go coffee from Wawa. For a while now I've been fairly diligent about using my cloth grocery bags, and I only need to expand this one good habit out to all of my on-the-run practices. I'm not sure yet how to proceed on the trashcan-liner front. I will keep you posted!