Test Your Knowledge
Too Treasured To Toss!
Extending the life cycle of plastics will help address a global pollution problem. Test your knowledge of plastics by taking our quiz.
Representatives of 175 nations endorsed a historic resolution at the United Nations Environment Assembly held in Nigeria in March 2022. They vowed to end plastic pollution and to develop an international legally binding agreement by 2024. To be sure, plastic products offer many advantages with their lightweight construction, durability and affordable convenience. But single-use plastic, used once and then discarded, has produced an environmental crisis for our planet. University of Delaware researchers and collaborators are working toward a “circular” life cycle for plastics that leads not to a landfill or an ocean or a roadside, but to a long life of near-infinite use and reuse of the valuable resources and applications they represent.
10 Ways to Part with Single-Use Plastic
- Find reusable water bottles and coffee cups you like and reuse them, reuse them, reuse them!
- Decline plastic straws, coffee stirrers and plastic cutlery. Ask proprietors for reusable alternatives or carry your own.
- Make the switch to reusable shopping bags.
- Store leftovers in reusable containers that have reusable lids. Avoid plastic wrap.
- Avoid single-serving-sized products. Instead, opt for larger containers and use them to refill small, reusable containers.
- Instead of buying products that come in plastic bottles, consider those that come in bars (shampoo, soap, laundry detergent) or are packaged in recyclable materials.
- Avoid all products with microbeads, tiny bits of plastic that end up in the ocean, in our foods, in our bodies, throughout our environment. These include facial scrubs, body washes, toothpaste.
- If you must use plastic for a single use, choose items that can be recycled — and then be sure to recycle them.
- Find out what is recyclable and what is not. Don’t “wish-cycle” by tossing things into recycling bins because you hope they are recyclable. That only jams the system.
- Let companies know you prefer to patronize businesses that use recyclable materials and less packaging.
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