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April is Earth Month, and it has encouraged us to dig a little bit deeper into topics and headlines that flash across our screen. A (literal) big one is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. There are many detailed articles about this topic, and we don’t aspire to recreate them, instead we’re hoping to get you a concise summary of the issue. Throughout this post, we’ll use the term “patch” to identify the area, but as we explain below, this is not an ideal description.

And before we go any further, hopefully it’s obvious to you that the existence of a garbage patch within the ocean is a problem. Sea animals mistake the plastics for food, filling their stomachs with garbage rather than nutrients, leading to premature death from starvation. Other animals die by getting caught in the plastics and discarded fishing nets.

Happy Monday! In honor of Earth month, we’re sharing 34 alternatives to disposable plastic products. I hope you had a swell Earth Day yesterday. Initially I had a little lake kayak paddle planned, but a friend called and suggested a food truck rodeo in downtown Chapel Hill. After sharing a serving of every and anything that called to us, we headed to her deck to sit in the sunshine and plan a camping adventure. Soaking up eight hours of beautiful North Carolina sun was actually epically earthy. I enjoyed it to the max and ended up passing out well before midnight, a first in weeks for me!

The food truck rodeo was a no waste event, meaning everything that could be recycled or composted was with the help of volunteers who stood by each trash can instructing consumers where to discard their plates, cups, and food scraps. It’s almost unfortunate that we need that type of vigilance to get it right, but we surely do. Besides proper waste disposal, the coffee truck was selling stainless steel straws! They don’t do lids or plastic straws, hooray!

Plastic straws and my wish to ban them forever is actually what inspired this post of 34 alternatives to disposable plastic products. There is just no reason for us to go through so many, so often. Two at once?! I want to punch that drink right out of your hand. I’m not saying I’ve never done it, but I am saying I will never do it again. I once spent an entire afternoon picking up trash on one of my favorite Thai islands and by far the most common item was plastic straws. It was heart breaking.