Creating a #LifeAfterPlastic

There’s this horrifying and funny scene in the movie The Graduate in which the hapless hero of the movie is stuck at a stifling party filled with his parents’ friends, trying to talk to these generationally antiquated people about what he will do with his life. One of the cheesy men takes him aside, by the pool, and says, “I have one word for you . . . Plastics. There’s a great future in plastics.” Even in 1967 when the movie came out, that line sounded smarmy, a little crazy, and like really bad advice. Time has proven that feeling to be true. Now, what we would say is “the future is plastic-free.” And it would sound a lot more hopeful. Who knows how the movie would have ended if that poor college graduate had been given the good advice to go plastic-free?

Alpine Provisions gives much better advice than your parent’s friends do - and we walk our talk. We believe deeply in the necessity of a future that is plastic-free. Whatever you’ve been told, plastic recycling is not really a thing, and while some of the plastic you use can be upcycled, that’s not a big percent. So our discarded, single-use plastics have led to overburdened, toxic landfills that poison surrounding groundwater and are cruel to marine life. Your plastic ends up in the bellies of whales, consumed by sea turtles, and ingested by dolphins and birds and all other coastal marine life, creating reproductive issues and diminishing populations.

By choosing plastic-free products, you are helping keep single-use plastics out of our landfills, rivers, oceans, and out of the bellies of all the beings who live in our waters.

So, if we were to take you aside, and give you some advice, it would be to remove as much plastic as you can from your life. It’s a lot less difficult than figuring out what you want to be when you graduate from college, we promise. Here are some easy ways to do the right thing:

- Reusable cloth shopping bags.
- Laundry sheets in a recycled paper box instead of plastic laundry soap bottles.
- Reusable glass bottles and mix your own cleaning products.
- Glass or metal reusable water bottles.
- Glass or metal food storage containers.
- Toothpaste tabs in glass and aluminum instead of a plastic tube and cap.
- Bamboo toothbrushes.
- Natural deodorant in paper and paperboard tubes instead of plastic tubes.
- Castile Body Wash, Hand Soap, Shampoo and Conditioners packaged with infinitely recyclable aluminum containers and caps.

For more information and ideas visit the Grove Collaborative who has embarked on a plastic-free mission by 2025. And of course, we have transitioned our products and packaging to be plastic-free. To read more about that, you can check out this blog.

To make the transition really easy when you go plastic-free with Alpine Provisions products, you help us to support the Conservation Alliance, partnering with other like-minded member brands. Together, we will use our collective power to further efforts to protect North America’s wild places and outdoor spaces. You also support our partnership with the Plastic Pollution Coalition to share the #LifeAfterPlastic message. So please, invest your money, body care, and creativity to helping us make the future #plasticfree.