Plastic is not good on so many levels. For starters, plastic is bulky, it is not biodegradable and it is made from oil derivatives, which come from a limited natural resource. Moreover, their production requires significant amounts of energy and emits carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change.



But that is just the beginning. The World Health Organization and Health Canada, the country's health authority, are among the institutes that have confirmed that plastics contain proven toxins that are known to be human carcinogens.

But, let's get back to the many, wonderful alternatives to plastic that you can use in your everyday life that will help keep you and your family healthy, while contributing to living a green and eco-friendly lifestyle. Here are a few ways to get started:

Eliminate plastic by using cloth bags:

Think about how many times you go to the grocery store in any given month – five, six, seven times? If you buy an average of three bags worth of groceries on each trip, that's at least fifteen plastic bags a month, or 180 a year. Sure, you may use some of those bags for household garbage, but it's likely that you've got an excess of them underneath your kitchen sink right now that have been accumulating at a rate faster than you are using them.

There are upwards of a billion plastic bags given out each and every day and a single, non-biodegradable plastic bag sits in a landfill for an average of 1000 years before it breaks itself down. That's a lot of plastic and a lot of space and time sitting in a waste site. The alternative to plastic is reusable cloth bags.

Cloth bags are lightweight and are often made from biodegradable materials. You can stash a few in the trunk of your car, a few more in the backseat, some in your bike bag and a few more underneath the kitchen sink. The trick is to have cloth bags handy so that you remember to use them. This way, you'll be doing your part for the environment while also saving a few cents every time you go to the grocery store as many are now charging customers at least 5 cents a plastic bag.

Switch from plastic to stainless steel containers:

Not only is tap water clean and free, it also comes without a plastic bottle. And not only is stainless steel environmentally friendly, it keeps your food free from plastic particles. Why not bottle water yourself in a stainless steel bottle if you want to have clean drinking water on hand? By using stainless steel food and beverage containers you can feel good about leading an eco-friendly lifestyle and avoiding bisphenol A, a chemical component that is used in hard plastic containers. Bisphenol A is so toxic – especially when it is used in reusable water and babies' bottles – that Canada was the first country to add the chemical to the nation's list of toxic substances.

Those are just a few ideas to get you started. Once you've tried those on for size and see how easy it really is to make small but important eco-friendly changes, you'll start to think of more alternatives to using plastic – it's like a domino effect!