My name is Katherine Wisniewski, and I care about our environment and it’s health. I have been researching single-use plastic and I would like for people to agree to a one-week pledge to decrease the amount of plastic bottles we use. 

In the morning when you wake up, you might grab a granola bar. You unwrap the plastic and throw it away. You pack your lunch for school. You include plastic bags to hold your snacks. Before leaving, you grab two plastic water bottles for the day. You are one of the billions of people contributing to the 1.2 million plastic bottles used per day, or the 8 million pieces of plastic finding their way into our environment every day. 

I want people to join a one-week challenge agreeing to lessen the amount of single use plastic they use- specifically tgargeting plastic bottles. I am challenging people to bring a reusable water bottle to school, work, practice, or just around the house for one week. In my survey, I found that 75% of people use between 1 and 4 plastic bottles per day. That could be as much as 28 bottles per week, or 1456 plastic bottles per year! For one person! 

I have found that 40% of plastic produced is single-use, which means it is used once then discarded. This plastic winds up in our oceans, streets, forests and lakes. Creating the plastic takes energy, exporting, and effort, which does not equal to the short time it is used. Plastic production contributes to the 850 million tonnes of greenhouse gases coming into the atmosphere per year. This number is growing larger by the year, and by 2050, the total emissions could rise to 2.8 billion tonnes.