Let's face the facts, plastic has many uses in today's society, and while the majority of us know that plastic is terrible for the environment and detrimental to our health, removing it from our lives is hard to do and will take time. So, rather than bury our heads in the sand, let us look at some fundamental ways that we can reduce the risks associated with using it:

1. Avoid products containing bisphenol A (BPA):
1. Why is BPA consider unsafe? Until ~ 2010, the FDA considers BPA to be safe but reversed its position then due to research that raised concerns about compromised brain function and increased toxicity levels in the prostate glands of fetuses, infants, and children.
2. Workaround: Try and stay away from plastic containers with the recycle codes 3 or 7 on them since these numbers usually mean that BPA has been during manufacture. One exception to this rule is when the manufacturer includes a leaf adjacent to the number, showing that they haven't used BPA. Also, stop using the plastic containers manufactured before 2012 when the FDA banned BPA in baby cups and formula containers.
2. Don't heat food up in plastic containers or plastic cooking bags.  
1. Heating plastic increases the risk of its constituent chemicals seeping into the food.  
2. Workaround: Heat food up in glass or metal containers.
3. Environmentalists consider Polypropylene less detrimental to our environment but don't confuse that with advocating for it. It is a simple case of 'choosing our poison.'  
4. Do not reuse plastic bottles marked with the recycling code 1 because they are for single-use only. It is a good idea to avoid single-use bottles entirely in favor of reusable containers.
5. Breastcancer.org recommends not touching cash register receipts that are shiny because the shiny coatings often contain BPA.  
6. When in doubt, purchase glass and metal containers and reuse them indefinitely reducing our landfills and your environmental footprint.