The amount of waste that Americans produce each year is astounding. According to the US EPA, 93 billion plastic water bottles were land-filled in the US in 2002. With these bottles stacked vertically you could:

• reach the moon & back 38 times
• circle the equator 371 times
• line Interstate 80 (NY to SF) 3,196 times
• span the length of CA 11, 556 times.

And that’s just water bottles. Much of our waste is a result of disposable lifestyles and of food packaging. The weight of plastic produced annually in the U.S. is twice the weight of our entire population (and we are an obese nation). According to the Algalita Foundation, with the exception of the plastic that has been incinerated (a destructive disposal method because of the release of toxins into the air), all the plastic ever manufactured is still with us. It matters because plastic pollution is wreaking havoc on our oceans. There’s six times as much plastic debris as plankton in parts of the North Pacific Ocean, and it has been estimated that up to 100,000 sea mammals die every year by ingesting plastic. The amount of debris around the coastline of the UK doubled between 1994 and 1998, and in parts of the Southern Ocean it increased 100-fold (Barnes 2002). One study reported plastic debris stranded on shores as far north at Spitsbergen in the Arctic (Barnes and Milner 2005).

This holocaust on sea life is preventable if we make a commitment to reduce and contain our waste in responsible ways. Growing your own food is a good place to start, as it requires no plastic containers for transport when you harvest it. You simply bring it inside and cook it.