If there’s one material we can’t seem to live without, it’s plastic. And there’s a reason for that: It's cheap, durable, and lightweight, making it perfect for everything from iPhones to eyewear. But what makes plastic so useful for humans is exactly what makes it a nasty environmental contaminate—it spreads easily and takes forever to degrade, finding its way to our lands and oceans where it wreaks havoc on wildlife. To date, at least 700 species of marine animals, including shorebirds, have been entangled by plastic or mistaken it for food. The result is often suffocation or starvation. Since the 1950s, we've generated 8.3 billion metric tons of the stuff, of which a scant nine percent has been recycled. And by 2050, scientists predict the oceans will stock more plastic than fish. But as problematic and worrisome as all of this is, completely cutting plastic from our lives is impossible at this point. Reducing your plastic use, however, is surprisingly...