One of the beauties of growing older is the time to reflect on how we will leave our mark on the world—or in the case of my good friend, Michele, how to reduce the mark she’s going to leave on the world.  She’s discovered the joy in reducing, reusing, and recycling material that would normally go to the landfill. Her journey started with simple curbside recycling, but the more she educated herself, the more she challenged herself to take it a step further. Her hot topic right now is single-use plastics.  It all started with the plastic water bottle you buy in bulk at the store.  The ultimate in convenience and portability.  If you’ve seen the movie, The Graduate, Mr. McGuire only has one word of advice for Ben, the new college graduate played by Dustin Hoffman: “Plastics.”  At the time, it was a revolutionary idea—but with every positive there are negatives and the picture is becoming much clearer.  In his book, A Poison Like No Other: How Microplastics Corrupted Our Planet and Our Bodies, Wired science journalist Matt Simon explores the reality of living in a world with plastics.  Dealing with discarded plastic is bad enough, but when it starts to break down the real trouble begins. So, let’s start with a simple challenge—instead of using single-use plastic bottles, make a conscious choice to stop buying them and use a refillable water bottle.  Try it for a month and see if you can make this new choice a habit.  In addition, pay attention to how many people around you use single-use water bottles daily.