How to Cut Plastic After Watching The Plastic Detox

We'll start in the kitchen

Fertility worldwide is going down, and it is tightly linked to chemicals commonly used in plastic. — Dr. Shanna Swan, The Plastic Detox

This past weekend, I watched the excellent new documentary The Plastic Detox. It follows Dr. Shanna Swan, a leading environmental and reproductive epidemiologist, other researchers, activists and six couples experiencing unexplained infertility. Dr Swan prescribes the couples a three-month plastic detox. Plastic is implicated in many other health consequences and the documentary notes some of those as well (stroke, heart attack, obesity, cancer).

After watching this documentary, if you’d like to reduce your exposure to plastic and don’t know where to start, this post is for you. I’ll start with the kitchen today—most of the plastic lurks there—and move on to other rooms in future posts.

Don’t cut everything all at once

If you try to eliminate overnight all the plastic in your kitchen, you will set yourself up for failure. No doubt you have noticed plastic everywhere—in the coffee pods you start the day with, the plastic bag inside the box of your favorite cereal, the lining of the milk container you open to pour onto your cereal—and it’s only 7am. You’ll need time to adjust. Instead of quitting plastic cold turkey, I would suggest:

1. Adopting five swaps listed below that you find easy to make. If you drink bottled water, swapping that for tap water will be simple whereas taking up cheesemaking to avoid plastic-wrapped cheese will require some skill and effort.

2. Aiming to reduce plastic. Perfect is not an option. Consider any reduction in plastic a win—because it is!

3. Buying less stuff you don’t need. When you feel tempted to buy stuff, remember that it’s likely made of plastic or wrapped in plastic (and likey both) and you don’t want to bring more plastic into your home. You want to purge the stuff.

Shopping

Reducing the plastic that infiltrates your home begins with shopping. As much as you can, buy unpackaged food or food packaged in glass or paper.

• Shop with reusable bags made of natural textiles. Most of these are made of cotton. You can find them all over the place. Or you can sew yourself some denim shopping bags out of old 100 percent cotton jeans.

• Bring your own reusable produce bags made of natural textiles. I make very simple produce bags out of cotton. Occasionally I’ll score a piece of linen. Go here for the simple sewing instructions. Or just buy the bags. You can buy them all over the place these days. Store the bags in your reusable shopping bags. And remember, a bunch of bananas and other produce don’t require a produce bag.

• Bring your own metal or glass containers to fill up where you can. Fill containers rather than plastic bags at bulk bins. Some delis and butchers will fill your clean metal or glass containers with your order, skipping the plastic.

• Buy plastic-free produce at farmers’ markets. You’ll likely find fresh, seasonal, local, organic produce that has not been wrapped in plastic and instead, sits loose in bins. Use your reusable produce bags to fill up. Most grocery stores sell at least some produce free of plastic. Choose naked.

• Fill up on food staples and kitchen cleaning supplies at bulk stores. If you have access to a bulk store, bring your own metal and glass containers or reusable bags to fill up and bring your haul home without plastic packaging.

• Say no thank you to cash register receipts. Most of these paper receipts contain the endocrine disruptor BPS (bisphenol-S). Holding one of these receipts for 10 seconds causes the skin to absorb a level of BPS that surpasses California’s safety limit.

Preparing food

• Chop food on wooden cutting boards. Every time you chop food on a plastic cutting board, you release microplastics that attach themselves to your food.

• Replace plastic cooking utensils with wood and metal. You likely heard about a flawed study on black plastic utensils back in 2024 that overestimated the level of fire retardants in black plastic by a factor of 10, taking it well above the EPA’s safe threshold. Still, you can avoid even low levels of fire retardants in your untensils—and other chemicals and microplastics—by choosing wood and metal spoons, spatulas, ladles and so on. They also simply look more appetizing.

• Prepare food in glass, metal or ceramic dishes. Mix doughs, toss salads, ferment foods, marinate meats and so on in non-plastic containers.

• Ditch the plastic wrap and baggies. Have some leftover pasta salad in a large serving bowl? Cover it with a plate. Need to pack lunches? Invest in metal lunch containers—they will pay for themselves over time because you buy them once, unlike plastic baggies that you must buy over and over and over. Oh and if you like to sew, make these very simple reusable cloth snack bags for dry snacks.

Cooking or heating food

• Avoid non-stick (e.g., Teflon) pans. Known most commonly by the brand name Teflon, polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) is a tough, slippery, synthetic (i.e., plastic) coating. These coatings release microplastics into your food and emit fumes when heated to high temperatures that, if you have pet birds, can kill them. Switch to stainless steel, carbon steel, cast iron or enameled cast iron pots and pans. Go here for more details on this swap.

• Avoid non-stick bakeware. My daughter MK bought me a cast-iron loaf pan for Christmas a couple of years ago and I absolutely love it. It was a bit expensive though. I also bake breads and quick breads in glass loaf pans. My cookie sheets are made of uncoated aluminized steel pans. All Clad makes (very expensive) stainless steel cookie sheets and OMG they look so nice.

• Skip the sous vide. Please do not cook your meals in a sealed plastic bag boiling in water. Heat, plastic and food are a toxic trinity.

• Do not heat food in plastic in the microwave. Heat food up in glass or ceramic dishes.

• Swap out your plastic electric kettle. Plastic electric kettles shed loads of microplastic. However, a study found that with frequent boiling, trace amounts of copper from pipes form a layer of copper oxide on the interior of plastic kettles, preventing microplastics from shedding. Have you boiled enough water in your plastic kettle to render this coating? Opt for a metal kettle and you won’t have to guess. In the meantime, boil water in a pot on the stove (but not in a Teflon pot).

Glass and cast-iron loaf pans

Storing food

• Hoard glass jars. Often free, glass jars not only eliminate plastic but will also likely reduce the amount of food going to waste in your kitchen because you’ll see what’s on hand at a glance. With opaque containers, you can easily forget about their contents until the smell of rot alerts you. I store food in glass in the cupboards, refrigerator and, yes, the freezer. (Go here for removing labels and smells from jars.)

• Store greens in cloth made of natural textiles. Washed greens last a long time in the refrigerator’s crisper when stored in a cotton produce bag; that little bit of moisture prevents them from wilting. Washed greens rolled up in a clean cotton or linen dishtowel also stay fresh for many days.

• Always bring containers to restaurants for leftovers. When you bring your own glass or metal containers for leftovers, you won’t have to choose between leaving food on your plate and wasting it or wasting a container. Most take-out containers contain either plastic in some form or PFAS (aka forever chemicals). Read more about the problems with take-out containers here.

The menu

Almost all prepared foods are packaged in plastic and most take-out arrives at your door packed in plastic, often toxic black plastic, made from recycled TV and computer monitor casings. Again, hot food does not belong in plastic. This all means you’ll cook more on your quest. But don’t worry. You need not prepare elaborate meals in order to eat well.

• Rethink breakfast. If you ordinarily eat cereal consider switching to oatmeal (steel-cut oats are especially delicious), granola or toast. Most bulk stores carry oats and granola. You may be able to buy bread in a paper bag or the bakery may put its bread in a clean reusable cotton cloth bag you provide. Look for yogurt and kefir in glass jars and bottles. Fresh fruit comes in its own packaging.

• Cook lunch and dinner. You can likely buy at least some whole foods without plastic packaging—vegetables and fruit, dried beans and legumes, whole grains, nuts and seeds. Start there.

• Snack differently. Practically every snack food is packaged in plastic. When you need a snack, enjoy a piece of fruit. Most of us do not eat enough produce so this easy snack not only reduces your exposure to plastic but also improves your diet. Stovetop popcorn cost less than most store-bought snacks and eliminates microwave popcorn bags, which usually contain PFAS. (PFAS renders paper grease- and water-proof.) I pop popcorn in a Whirly-Pop but a pot on the stove also works. Air poppers are another great option.

• Avoid (most) bottled beverages. Almost every beverage sold in the US is packaged in plastic. Plastic bottles are obviously made of plastic but aluminum cans contain a plastic lining. Look for beverages packaged in glass and skip the bottled water. One liter of bottled water contains, on average, a quarter of a million pieces of microplastic.

• Brew tea and coffee at home. A plastic lining in to-go paper cups at the café prevents your hot hit of caffeine from leaking all over you. So bring your own ceramic cup or thermos to the café or consider brewing more of your drinks at home—you’ll save money.

  Buy loose-leaf tea and you won’t waste hours and hours researching which tea bags contain plastic and which do not. (Go here for a post all about that.) Fill a tea infuser or drop the leaves into a teapot and strain them out as you pour. Replace plastic coffee pods with a plastic-free brewer: a French press, percolator or pour over coffee dripper. We have so many solutions to these plastic dilemmas!

• Make plastic-free staples at home. To kick plastic doesn’t require you to become a trad wife. But if you enjoy cooking staples from scratch, you’ll find recipes on my blog for breads, sodas, pickles, vinegar, yogurt—all kinds of food that typically is sold packaged in plastic. Go here for my recipe index.

Kitchen cleaning

I wrote a newsletter last year on low-waste, less toxic kitchen cleaning. (Go here to read the full post.) Here is the condensed version:

• Avoid scented cleaning products. The word “fragrance” in the ingredient list of a cleaner means it likely contains phthalates. With chronic exposure, these endocrine disruptors negatively impact the success of pregnancy, child growth and development and reproductive systems in children, according to this study.

• Find an alternative to plastic bottles of dish soap. My family loves these dish soap blocks. They are expensive but last a long time. Blueland sells powdered dish soap. If you have access to a refillery, fill your own containers with cleaning supplies. Economical baking soda cuts through grease better than anything else.

• Replace plastic kitchen sponges. Most sponges are made of synthetic (i.e., plastic). Loofahs, cellulose sponges and Swedish dish cloths do not contain plastic.

• Dry dishes with natural textiles. Cotton dish towels are very common and easy to find. Linen costs more but looks and feels great.

• Run the dishwasher, plastic-free. You may be able to find dishwasher powder in a box at a grocery store or in bulk at a refillery. I’ve used Blueland and Nellie’s dishwasher tabs and both leave dishes sparklingly clean. Neither are wrapped in plastic film. Those films contain PVA, a type of plastic which, when it dissolves in water, sends microplastics down the drain. My homemade scouring powder works fairly well in the dishwasher in a pinch. I wouldn’t use it regularly.

• Mop and vacuum often. You’ll clean up microplastics that accumulate on your floor. Look for a cotton mop.

• Swap out plastic trash bags. One of the most common questions I hear when I give talks is “How will I throw out my trash without plastic garbage bags?” If you compost, your trash will likely be dry and you can line your bin with paper. Read a longer post about surviving without plastic trash bags here.

Suspend dish soap blocks on a dish to make them last

Choose your first five swaps!

Everyone’s list will differ. After you have adjusted to your new habits, adopt some more. I broke up with plastic in 2011 and have the routine down well. But if I were to start today, the following five steps would cause me zero pain:

1. Say no thank you to cash register receipts.

2. Pack reusable shopping bags and produce bags made of natural textiles for food shopping.

3. Drink tap water instead of buying bottled water.

4. Always bring containers to restaurants for leftovers.

5. Chop food on a wooden cutting board.

While I found breaking up with plastic difficult initially, I did enjoy the journey. Most people do. I hope you enjoy yours.