- more convenient (once I learned to cook from fresh)
- cheaper, and
- more community-based.
In other words, better by every measure I care about. The last time I emptied my garbage was June, over six months ago. Anyone can improve his or her life as I did. It doesn't solve everything, but it improves your life.
One trend I've noticed lately is that companies are using more and more packaging of goods. Some grocery stores are selling individually wrapped oranges!
Also, a lot of the plastic that ends up in the ocean is coming from heavily populated (poorer) areas of Asia. These are places where goods are sold in smaller quantities (presumably since money is more scarce and people cannot buy in bulk). So you end up with a lot of small packaging. And whether people are just sloppy about tossing trash or if there's some systemic problem in keeping trash in bins/landfills, much of it ends up in the water.
November-February each year, Bali's lovely beaches become the landing place for a lot of this plastic. This happens every year, and the photos of it are shocking. They bring out heavy equipment and teams of trash pickers to clean the beaches each day, and the next morning it looks like a landfill again.
The podcast link at the top is for my podcast, Leadership and the Environment, which is about people taking on personal challenges like this: http://joshuaspodek.com/podcast.
I feel empathetic to your goal, and moreover I want society to stand up and beat this plastic soup problem. Your solution seems more feel good / personal satisfaction that it is practical for a whole lot of people. Its less convenient at a whole, that's why people resort to packaged.
Cooking from fresh isn't always more nutritious. The amount of vitamins reduces gradually. If you use frozen food, its also reduced, but it barely degrades over time. So frozen on long term can be more healthy, and if you buy that in bulk it is also convenient. We're living in times where there is so much to do that we demand more free time, so convenience is in higher demand than ever before. With the right herbs, spices, oil, etc you can make fresh as well as frozen food delicious. As for community-based, I assume you mean local foods. Local foods don't have to travel a lot, decreasing their Co2 footprint.
There are other alternatives, or rather, additional measures. Here's a few (not a complete list): less plastic, separate plastic to make downcycling easier, more biodegradable materials being used, standardized plastic so it can be reused, or BYOD instead of using plastic such as the Dopper [1], we need to educate the youth by leading by example (see example on bottom of my post) to ensure they care for our planet (this can align with anti-diabetes campaigns, your soda example being a prime one), but most of all we need international frameworks for legislation and taxation (example: [2]) to combat this problem as a large group. If we could tax plastic bottles that'd be a huge step forward already.
A lot of work has to be done. I've tried biodegradable trash can bags. The ones I had were a tad expensive. Also, they couldn't stand water. That's when they decompose. So I cannot use it for biodegradable waste. If I use it in the bathroom, I cannot use it to dump wet things in such as paper used to clean up shaved hair. Its also not very strong; less strong than plastic for sure. My point being, it had various, unexpected negative usage effects (??? not sure I worded that correct).
I've also gathered plastic from the street via a long grab tool (don't know English word its this [3]). The problem with that is that it has a social stigma. Its seen as a punishment, as bad labor which youth have to resort after they did things not according to the law. I know someone who leads by example [4], and who made his own company to combat plastic soup, and also makes practical games such as "spot the plastic". People like him are also important to combat the problem. They help with education, and attempt to lessen/remove the stigma.
A lot of plastic is unnecessary or packaging unhealthy things, like soda bottles.
Since I decided to avoid packaged food, I dropped my landfill waste by about 90%, documented here: http://joshuaspodek.com/js_blogseries/avoiding-food-packagin.... Substituting fresh vegetables, fruit, and mushrooms has made my diet
- more delicious
- more convenient (once I learned to cook from fresh)
- cheaper, and
- more community-based.
In other words, better by every measure I care about. The last time I emptied my garbage was June, over six months ago. Anyone can improve his or her life as I did. It doesn't solve everything, but it improves your life.