If you’ve seen The Graduate, you know that plastics are among the major developments of the last century. But their widespread use has a downside, too, for our health and the planet’s. As Cleveland Cleveland Wellness puts it:

The problem is that most plastic isn’t biodegradable (one single plastic bottle can take an estimated 450 or more years to decompose!), which is why there’s so much plastic waste in landfills and in our oceans today, causing life-threatening dangers for ocean animals and potential health hazards for people, too, such as plastics in our water supply and in the foods we eat (fish, sea salt, even beer).

What can you do to reduce the extraneous plastic in the world? The clinic has some tips:

• Bring your own reusable shopping bags to the supermarket.
• Use reusable bottles and cups; bring your own travel mug to get coffee.
• Replace plastic wrap with reusable covers or a non-plastic wrap, such as beeswax food storage wrap.
• Don’t buy from food suppliers that use plastic packaging.
• Refuse plastic cutlery and drinking straws; keep your own silverware in your desk drawer at work.
• Buy in bulk to avoid single-serving products packaged in plastic.
• Pick up any plastic you see the next time you go for a walk on the beach.