Talking to kids about plastic (and turning it into a game) – A greener life, a greener world

By Bridget Shirvell

In the ninth instalment of our series, Advice and ideas on raising kids in the climate crisis,the author of Parenting in a Climate Crisis, Bridget Shirvell, offers advice and guidance on how to talk to your child about plastic .

Imagine the room your kid(s) are in right now. There’s a good chance plastic is everywhere, and I don’t just mean the toys they’ve likely spilt all over the floor. 

There’s plastic in their clothes, the carpet under their feet, the stuffed animals they sleep with every night.

As a parent who has spent most of my career thinking about how families live in a warming world, I know that plastic can go from something you’re aware of to something that overwhelms you. 

I once spent hours trying to find a fishing net for my kid that wasn’t made of plastic. I could find wooden handles, metal handles, but the net itself? Impossible, it turned out.

What is plastic?

Feeling guilty about plastic isn’t particularly useful, but what can be is talking to kids about plastic in a way that is focused on discovery rather than doom and gloom. 

First, some context.

Plastic is a byproduct of fossil fuel production—the same industry driving climate change—and it’s now woven into nearly every corner of our lives, quite literally. 

Take clothing, for instance, the majority of clothing made today—especially fast fashion—is made from polyester, nylon, acrylic, and spandex. These are plastics we are wearing, and which, every time we wash, release hundreds of thousands of microscopic fibres that pass straight through washing machines and wastewater treatment systems, ending up in rivers, soil, and eventually in us. And it’s not just clothing. Vinyl flooring, synthetic rugs, plastic toys, plastic food containers, flame-retardant-treated furniture. 

My daughter got a Squishmallow for a gift. She absolutely loves it, but every time I see her squeeze it, I wince a little bit. I know that it releases tiny plastic particles. I haven’t taken it away. Maybe I should, but going on a rampage and throwing out all plastic doesn’t seem practical. Not to mention, it would just add to our climate problem. Plastic buried in a landfill today will still be there when our grandchildren’s grandchildren are alive, slowly fragmenting into microplastics and releasing greenhouse gases as it does.

How much plastic does the world consume?

Global plastic production has increased nearly 230-fold since the 1950s, and more than half of all plastic ever made was produced after 2004. The plastic world your kids are growing up in looks nothing like the one you grew up in. And because plastic is a fossil fuel product, that explosion in production has a direct climate cost — plastic production and incineration alone could account for 10–13% of our remaining carbon budget for limiting warming to 1.5 degrees.

Be honest with your kid about plastic

Instead of taking away the Squishmallow, I talk often with my kid about plastic and why I think it’s bad. I try to keep it simple and honest: plastic is made from oil, the same stuff that’s warming our planet, and once it’s made, it never really goes away. I don’t frame it as scary — I frame it as something we can be smart about together. 

What does she want to look for on labels? What would she choose differently next time? She might only be 7, but kids, even young ones, can handle more truth than we adults often give them credit for, as long as we give them agency alongside the information. 

The goal of parenting, in my opinion, shouldn’t be to eliminate everything scary, but to teach and model to our kids how to handle scary and challenging things. Like the fact that plastic is everywhere. Which brings me to a scavenger hunt.

The Plastic Detective Scavenger Hunt

This works for kids ages five and up and takes about 20 minutes. All you need is paper, a pencil, and your home.

The goal: find plastic hiding in places you might not expect it.

Round 1 — Your clothes. Have your child check the tags on three things they’re wearing. Read the fabric content together. Polyester? Nylon? Acrylic? Spandex? Those are all plastics. Write them down. Natural fibres to look for instead: cotton, wool, linen, hemp.

Round 2 — The kitchen. How many plastic food containers can you find? Check the microwave — is there plastic in there? Look at the wrap in the drawer. 

Round 3 — The living room. Check under the couch cushions or look at the bottom of a rug — does it say “100% polypropylene” or “polyester”? Look at the tag on a stuffed animal. Check one piece of furniture for a tag that says “flame retardant” or “FR treated.”

Round 4 — The fix-it round. For every piece of plastic you found, come up with one idea — however small — for doing it differently. A beeswax wrap instead of plastic wrap. A secondhand fleece instead of a new one. A cotton stuffed animal next time. 

At the end, tally your discoveries and talk about what surprised you most. 

The point isn’t to make your home plastic-free overnight — that’s genuinely impossible right now, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. 

What is possible is raising kids who notice. Who reads labels? Who asks questions in stores? Who understand that their choices connect to something larger, and that those choices matter.

That fishing net I was looking for? I eventually bought a used one, because “no new plastic” has become my working motto when I can’t find a non-plastic solution.

Bridget Shirvell is a freelance journalist and the author of Parenting in a Climate Crisis. A handbook that explores the challenges and opportunities of raising children in an era of climate change. Her work has been featured in various publications, including The New York Times, Grist, and Fast Company, where she combines personal insights with expert perspectives to inspire and inform readers. Bridget is passionate about raising awareness and sparking meaningful conversations around climate action and the future of the next generation. You can follow her Substack here.