There is a Shintaido meditation workshop focused on oceans taking place this weekend at beautiful Whidbey Island in Washington State. Part of the attention is on plastic wastes and their destructiveness to ocean health and the well-being of people, ocean creatures and plants.

In honor of the intent of the meditation, these last few days, I’ve tried to stop acquiring new plastic materials. Here are the results so far.

OJ: The first challenge was getting orange juice for breakfast for the drive out of Elko, Nevada. I walked to a grocery two blocks from the motel. Lots of juice in plastic bottles. No small glass bottles. Finally, I bought a big waxed carton of juice. Not very convenient—I couldn’t drink out of the carton without contaminating the whole contents, so I needed a cup, and the carton was a tight fit in the ice chest (which BTW is plastic). There was much more juice than I wanted—and it was much more expensive-but, the juice was good. I felt pleased. Until on the road I opened the carton and realized the spigot and cap are made of plastic.

House/personal goods: I’m helping my guys with purchases before fall semester starts. I grew lax, we bought a plastic bathroom garbage can. New underwear had little plastic loops to hold price tags. To save twenty dollars, I signed up for a store credit card. It will be plastic.

Produce/groceries: I forgot, and bought strawberries in a plastic carton. Remembered, and so we are not eating fresh cookies or cake because they were all packaged in plastic. Did not buy my favorite grape tomatoes in their little plastic domes. Sliced bread comes in plastic bags. Period. I bought bread without thinking about that until just now. I do reuse bread bags for many things, but still. I paid money for plastic.

Meal: glass of water today arrived with a plastic straw already inserted. Leftovers were boxed in Styrofoam. I’m no longer up-to-date on the composition of today’s Styrofoam.

Bags: I had to wrestle check-out people to stop their automatic tossing of purchases into plastic bags.

I asked for paper at the grocery last night since my canvas bags are not available. I sat the paper sacks on the back seat of the car. This was before I knew that rain had gotten in through a crack in the window. The bottoms grew wet. When it was time to unload, the bags gave way; cans of beans and soup tumbled to the pavement in the dark. (Pavement, cans and I were being sprayed by automatic lawn sprinklers-after a three-hour rainstorm! Another topic for another day.) My son fetched his plastic laundry hamper to carry the loose cans into the apartment.

Losing the plastic habit is much more complicated than I expected.

I know. This doesn’t sound as though I’m writing about oceans. I’d rather write about the behavior of jellyfish and octopi. About sharks and coral and hermit crabs. But I’m writing about our behavior which is woven with the health of the oceans.

I could ignore the problem as one on which I have little impact. I could freakishly obsess about the plastic spigots of paper cartons. Or, I can be aware, and see where it goes from there.

The simple path is to buy the juice in its original container: the orange.