PERSONAL ACTION ALONE WON'T SOLVE THE PLASTIC CRISIS, BUT IT CAN LEAD TO A DEEPER UNDERSTANDING OF THE PROBLEM.

• Author: Sengupta, Shebati
• Position: PART ONE: BREAKING FREE FROM PLASTIC

On the surface, Danielle Ricks is living life just like everybody else. She goes grocery shopping, cleans her house, and grabs a coffee on her way to work. She takes care of her cat, hikes when she can, and goes out to eat with her friends. If you look closer, though, you'll find Ricks making a series of intentional choices aimed at reducing her impact on the environment.

Those choices add up to living plastic free, a journey that began when Ricks learned about plastic pollution in the ocean. Like many of us, Ricks wanted to know what she could do to help address this growing problem beyond using a stainless-steel water bottle and metal straws. She started wondering what her life would be like without any plastic at all. That's when she came up with a life-changing challenge--going plastic free for 40 days.

At first, Ricks tried to give up all plastic products, but she quickly realized that would be impossible. They were in her food packaging, her cleaning supplies, her hiking gear. Even her ceramic coffee mug had a plastic lid. In the United States, plastic has become so ingrained in everyday life that you have to step back to notice it's there. "Becoming aware of the topic," Ricks advises, "is half the battle."

So she reframed her strategy, coming up with two rules for herself. First, she wouldn't throw out any plastic she already had or couldn't avoid. "I find different uses for the plastic that I don't have a lot of control over," she says, including donating or repurposing those products. After Ricks replaced her cleaning supplies with plastic-free alternatives, she gave the old ones to a local shelter. She turned her used almond milk cartons into planters and lined her cat's litter box with plastic bags.

Her second rule: Avoid single-use plastic. Despite how pervasive plastic is, as soon as Ricks began looking for alternatives, she kept finding more. When she goes out to eat, she brings her own takeout boxes so that she can avoid polystyrene. When she buys vegetables, she puts them in her own net bags instead of in...