It used to be that plastic was a miracle worker: it's cheap to produce, durable and you can mold it into almost anything. Today plastic is everywhere you look, and unfortunately most of it is also single use and disposable. From the straw in your drink at lunch, to your daily water bottle (or four), plastic bags at the grocery store, tons of toys and other everyday items, we're swimming in a sea of plastic. And that is not a metaphor. Here are some reason to start refusing plastic.

1. You're eating it.

There's so much plastic in the environment that now you're probably eating it whether you realize it or not. The animals you eat are eating it, for example when fish and other marine life eat plastic bags or other plastic items mistaking them for food, or consuming the microscopic parts that plastic gets ground into. There's even a study showing that pretty much all of our sea salt is contaminated with these tiny bits of plastic . There's no telling how deep the infiltration of plastic is into our food or how much worse it will get.

2. It's killing wildlife.

Many of the animals who either ingest or get caught in plastics die. From wild animals caught in beer bottle plastic to shrunken sea turtle shells or choking fish, plastic kills from our negligence. Beyond killing, plastics also containment habitats and can cause harmful pollution to accumulate.

3. It's killing the environment.

The ocean and beaches are littered with plastic, choking sea life and filling the ocean with stuff that just won't go away. Plastic is made up of harmful chemicals that can actually poison the bodies of humans and animals alike, not to mention the plastic micro debris covering the land and sea. Plastic sitting in landfills or the ocean leaches into groundwater, tainting that as well, and over eight millions tons of plastic are put into the ocean each year.

4. It's piling up everywhere.

From land fills to the literally island of plastic in the pacific, we now have tons upon tons of plastic and nowhere to put it. Which leads us to our next problem...

5. It can take up to 1000 years to decompose.

It depends on the type of plastic, but in general it takes hundreds of years for even the average water bottle to decompose. Now think about how many water bottles you have consumed in the last year and how many years it would take to decompose them all--and that's only the water bottles. Fact is, it simply isn't sustainable for billions of people to consume such copious amounts of plastic. We'll truly be plastic people in a plastic world by then.

6. It's unnecessary.

So many times we choose plastic simply because it's easy and familiar. It seems easy to grab a plastic water bottle rather than filling one up. It seems easier to just get the plastic bag at the grocery store instead of bringing your own or asking for paper. But in actuality these are great examples of times when its easy to refuse plastic.

No one is expecting you to tip toe around avoiding absolutely everything plastic, but you can make small changes to help the world and yourself at the same time. There are tons of easy alternative to commonplace plastic items if we all took just a little bit of time to take it into consideration. If we don't, the choice to consume so much plastic will surely come back to bite us.

Luckily, there are steps being taken to end plastic waste. Some cities such as Seattle, Washington and Boulder, Colorado have banned the use of plastic bags entirely, and more and more restaurants are opting for cardboard to-go's instead of plastic and styrofoam. It's about local, small changes that start with you!