The challenge isn't really over...

Today, I encountered many opportunities to go back to the way I'd been living before the challenge: grab a paper towel (or two...or three); get coffee in a throw-away container with a plastic lid and a cardboard sleeve; eat plastic-packaged food, with a plastic fork (it's just one fork, after all); put it all in a plastic bag to go....

  
Initially, I felt relief: the challenge is over. I can lighten up! 

Relief is short-lived.   

In no other period of human history have we had access to fossil fuels like we do today -- and in no other period have we created so much waste. According to Archeology: The International History Project:

Many of the objects left behind by past human societies are not present in the archaeological record because they have disintegrated over time. For the most part, the only things that survive are durable items such as potsherds (small fragments of pottery), tools or buildings of stone, bones, and teeth (which survive because they are covered with hard enamel).
 
...Garbage is the modern equivalent of the remains found in the archaeological record.

We now have plastiglomerate (see day #10) because it has no where else to go. Someone at work joked today about shipping our garbage to outer space. The only reason we haven't already done this is cost. (And, in fact, we've already littered the atmosphere with our space travel.)

This waste habit is a giant experiment. 

No one knows how it will end, but I bet it will smell badly if we don't course-correct.

What would our modern world look like in which everything we consume has a sustained purpose?

Can you imagine a world in which using disposables - especially plastic disposables - is as socially unacceptable as smoking is in many places today?

Quitting disposables is hard. Engaging in this challenge is definitely a lifestyle change, not a 20-day tour. 

Going forward, I won't post every day, although I'll keep sharing here. Thanks for reading, and for sharing your own ideas with others.