Plastic. It’s so convenient for wrapping food and everything else in our consumer universe. But it is also a substance that never goes away. Every year about 9 million tons of plastic end up in our oceans. A giant island of plastic waste swirls in the northern Pacific Ocean and in all waters tiny pieces of plastic masquerade as food for baby fish, not good for their newborn stomachs.

Plastic is everywhere but I wondered if I could reduce my own consumption of plastic, especially the “single use” plastics that can’t be reused or recycled. My husband, Tom, joined me in our No Plastic Challenge—one week of avoiding all single use plastic, and as much other plastic and packaging as we could.

Here’s what we couldn’t buy—Chobani mango yoghurt (my favorite), iced tea in a plastic cup or bottle, packs of Planter’s trail mix (a mini-mart staple for me) and almost all single serving and take-out food.

Here’s what we did buy—bulk food at the Potsdam Food Coop. I brought in glass jars from home and filled up on flour, oats, rice and dried beans. Olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Sugar and chocolate chips. Peanuts, party mix and trail mix. (Yes, I know, lots of snacks, but how else would I get them? Most snacks are wrapped in at least one layer of plastic). We bought Byrne Dairy milk in a large, returnable glass jar.

Getting unwrapped veggies and fruits at the Potsdam Coop was easy and some of the veggies were from local farmers. Tom and I don’t usually eat meat and for No Plastic week we would also not be eating much cheese. The disposable plastic wrappers on cheese are more than single-use but I wanted to try to eliminate all plastic waste from our garbage can. We did find a feta cheese stored in water. And we had fresh eggs from a neighbor.

So how was the No Plastic Diet? We ate very well that week. I had to spend more time than I usually do cooking and then packing leftovers for our lunches (in reusable plastic containers). Tom made his delicious sourdough bread and near the end of the week, after we’d eaten all our store-bought snacks, I made chocolate chip cookies.

We didn’t quite make it a zero-plastic week. Tom had a party with the other teachers at his school and by mistake drank punch from a plastic cup. I used a piece of plastic wrap on a bean dish I made. A friend gave Tom a Hershey’s bar, and of course he ate it.

Now that our No Plastic week is over I keenly notice when I do buy plastic-wrapped foods, which is almost every time I go shopping. Tom and I didn’t change the world by trying to be Plastic Free for a week, but we did change our awareness of the way we shop and eat. We will now try to buy more food in bulk. We will look for non-plastic packaging. (I discovered on a trip through Tupper Lake that the IGA there sells Greek yoghurt in cute little glass jars.) We will try to remember to have travel mugs and spoons in the car.

And fortunately it’s summer. The best non-plastic-wrapped snack in the North Country is for sale everywhere. We can go to an ice cream stand and enjoy an ice cream cone with a clear conscience.