I talk a good talk about reducing plastic, but it's *hard*

My mother has a habit of resenting things. It is not possible to, say, accidentally take her towel without her resenting this. Well, she's getting better, but I still dislike the word immensely.

However, it is the only word appropriate for what I'm about to say. I resent (yes!) that in order to buy in bulk (as is recommended for Saving the Planet), I must therefore buy plastic. I resent that it is possible to either buy small, expensive glass jars or large, inexpensive plastic jars - but no large glass jars. I resent that if I wanted to get the glass bottle of vinegar in the supermarket, I'd have to buy the name brand, which is more than twice the price for the same amount of vinegar. I resent that if I carefully rebag all the groceries so that the single roll of toilet paper is not in its own separate double bag, the bags I removed it from are thrown into the garbage. And I really resent that it's so damn hard to find metal toothpaste tubes, especially when the plastic ones don't roll up nicely and are therefore harder to use.

Honestly, it's enough to make me want to throw in the towel now and go whole hog with my energy consumption on the theory that the sooner the end comes, the better.

With that said...

I routinely (well, when I'm in the habit of watching TV) see ads from the Plastic Counsel (or whomever) talking about how "plastics make it possible" in reference to saving peoples lives via bulletproof vests, inhalers, blood transfusions, and, of course, saran wrap. (They don't mention duct tape, oddly.)

Which leads me to this question: What is plastic actually required for? What could substitute for plastic in various items that tend to be made of plastic around here? They don't have to be crucial things - if you want to go back to wooden dice, that's terrific! They just have to be things that are commonly made of plastic, and don't have to be.

Because I honestly was surprised for a while to realize that this or that thing could be made of something, well... non-plastic. A lot of games, really.

In a not-at-all-related note, I often hear people pontificating about what "children need to know" in "today's world", usually in the context of teaching children something wildly inappropriate before they're developmentally ready (just because I could read at 3 doesn't mean most children should be reading before they even enter the first grade. Trust me, by 10, you really can't tell). I always feel like pointing out that their kids won't be living in today's world, they'll be living in the world of the future, but this alternately depresses and amuses me.

So, if you don't want to answer question A, answer question B: What skills will kids of today actually need when they're adults?