How It Started
I do not exactly remember when I developed an intense apathy towards plastic and when I first started to understand the immense environmental impact it causes.
My childhood, some 50 years back, was almost plastic free. While I try to recall, I can only remember possessing a very cheap plastic doll with paints that faded in time.
I think as a child I did not much think of the material and I only carried it here and there, nothing more. I was more interested in toy cars, trucks and buses, all made from metal or wood, and the feel was surely different. Many years later, the tactile feeling I get from the plastic toys the children now play with repels me much more than it did before. I doubt if the children these days feel like that.
Having said this, I have spent many years observing and documenting children’s play with plastic building blocks, trying to understand their 
conception of three-dimensional space and time. The designs they created often dealt with the wellbeing of the earth and the environment, nature and wildlife, people and other earthlings, all expressed through the plastic blocks.
It was fifteen years back that I realized timber blocks…that I myself played with when I was a child…would indeed be a better alternative, as it would be more abstract to boost up a child’s mental imagery, the feel and texture would connect the child with the earth and it would be biodegradable and eco-friendly.
Twenty years back, I had already started discarding plastic carry bags and always carried one or two folding bags with me that made things easy. My frequent trips to Bangladesh during that time opened my eyes…that a whole country can ban plastic bags and the implementation can be a success too.
From that time, I have tried to reduce plastic usage but it took 60 long years to reject one time use of plastic and apart from refusing use of plastic carry bags,
I started using bamboo tooth brush, refused plastic straws, carried my own cutleries (metal straw, steel spoon and fork and steel chopsticks), started using conventional blade and razor and the like.
This was all after I turned vegan two years back, diverting all my love towards other earthlings after I developed an intense disgust towards us…humans…and this is never to change.
When I felt that no other species have ever hurt me but the humans, I extend my thought and feel this is applicable to our Earth too! So, it was really two years back that I sincerely changed my lifestyle as much as I can for the benefit of our planet by reducing/rejecting one time use of plastic, leading a compassionate life by being a vegan, reducing my individual carbon footprint, being an antinatalist, trying my best to avoid products that are not cruelty free/contain palm oil/involve child labour and the like… this being an ongoing process…and I know I have a long way to go and learn and unlearn a lot. Also, I am trying to free myself from buying online…involving cardboard, paper and plastic wastes…but still searching for feasible options, alternatives and practices. I know I can.
I have come across many children around the world working to make this much abused Earth heal, and I try to share and discuss things I know and practice with the children around myself. The response, unlike most of the adults, are overwhelming and reassuring.
All I can say is that even as I continue to live in this thoroughly bruised and tortured Earth, I am happy that as an individual, I (along with many others) am contributing a little that I can. If we all come together, each individual, concerned and caring, our future may extend a little more.
About The Author:
I am an architect practicing in Kolkata, also working with children and 
young adults for the last 35 years. I turned vegan two years back and am trying to live plastic free for the last 20 years.
Presently, I have almost got rid of one time plastic use. An antinatalist myself, I am forced to think of voluntary extinction of the humankind if we do not change ourselves and actively participate to save the only planet the we have.