You don't have to eliminate and not do you have to do it all in a single step. Everyone is different and in different situations. Just start doing where you can as best you can. Stop consumerism for the hell of it if you can. Stop following fashion trends and wear clothing until it falls from your body. Don't replace your 5ech equipment because it doesn't have the latest feature etc etc. The statement wasn't meant to be taken so literally and fully.

You're right, and funnily enough, that's the same sort of advice that the article's author got. Start slow, focus on avoiding single-use waste, you can't do it all at once.

But plastics are just one small part of the problem. Production of energy, metals, wood, food, etc. Disposal of the toxic byproducts. Nothing we do at a large scale is clean or sustainable, and there's almost no accountability for any of it. Individuals don't have the ability to meaningfully influence all of that, outside of large-scale political action.

> eliminate

The better is not the enemy of the best.

I'm going to push back on this, largely because it assumes an all or nothing mentality which is discouraging at best.

If you look at the meat industry, and we all agree it's environmentally impactful to absurd degrees, one might apply that same all or nothing mentality here - which is incorrect. You don't need to become a vegan to have dramatic impact, but what if it became a norm to go a day without meat? We already have some religious expectations about that, we even have cultural norms that have altered what we eat and when (breakfast = sugary carbs in the West), why can we not do the same here? But this cannot happen magically, it involves individuals making the choice to encourage themselves and then their families. Everyone can do this.

I bring up a day without meat (per week) because it's a great example of how little change is actually required to have tremendous results. But we cannot get to those results if we expect some gigantic overnight change.

So going back to your article, you don't have to leave civilization entirely, and going plastic free overnight is silly. But, you can buy shampoo that comes in recyclable cardboard instead of those tacky bottles. You can eat delicious veggie meals for an entire day once a week. You can buy reusable utensils that you carry with you instead of demanding they be offered. You can use refillable containers to buy your groceries with and store them. List is truly endless.

You, yes you, can have a great impact. We as humans just struggle understanding long term impact. In the exact same way that we see someone like Michael Jordan and think he's naturally gifted, and ignore him spending 8+ hours a day practicing for years and how those choices have compounded for him.

I listened to a podcast that posed the question "is it better to pressure industry to stop polluting, or focus on minimizing your own footprint" and the dialogue that sparked, as well as the conclusions, were very informing. In a nutshell, it's incontrovertible that as a single person, most of us can only hope to achieve climate change, there are, after all, 8 billion of us, so on average each of us can only achieve 1/8e9 * 100% change in pollution.

However, behaviour is learned by sharing. In that mind set, the best course of action is, in addition to one's own virtue, to encourage others to also recognize the situation and to change their own ways. In this way, one multiplies their own impact. People need to be the first movers of any social change, regardless of their own insignificant impact, because behaviour spreads and eventually industry will have no choice but to change.

Simply sitting at the sidelines complaining of industrial pollution is about as helpful as watching your own house burn.