Plastic is everywhere – it clogs our trash cans, piles high in our landfills, and it’s also gradually taking up residence in our internal organs.

When contemplating the trash-choked future of our planet, some may — as I did for 3 years of my early twenties — commit to a “zero waste” lifestyle: no plastic-packaged groceries, making my own toothpaste and soap to avoid buying containers, taking two buses to the middle of town after work so that I could buy chocolate from a place with open-bin containers instead of getting a candy bar at the shop next to my apartment. You get the idea.

As you can imagine though, while it certainly cuts down on plastic trash output, that 100% sustainability-focused lifestyle can be pretty tough to sustain.

Fortunately, there are brilliant minds at work throughout the country developing new ways to reduce the amount of plastic that gets introduced into the world — and thankfully, none of them require me to make my own deodorant.