If webinars could take down an industry, the one I recently watched would be the one to do it.
“A Poison Like No Other: How Microplastics Corrupted Our Planet and Our Bodies” delivers a scathing indictment of how plastics manufacturers have created an “absurd death spiral” that is loading the environment with so much plastic that it’s even in the air we breathe.
As dire as that is, we’re not helpless, say the experts featured in this 57-minute presentation hosted by the Plastic Pollution Coalition. And while their remarks don’t exactly end on a hopeful note, they do conclude on an empowering one, with concrete recommendations on what we can do both as consumers and, more importantly, as citizens.
Those experts include Matt Simon, Wired magazine reporter and author of a new book on plastics also called A Poison Like No Other: How Microplastics Corrupted Our Planet and Our Bodies, and the husband-and-wife team of atmospheric plastics researchers Dr. Doenie Allen and Dr. Steve Allen.
Deonie (I’m using her and Steve’s first names to distinguish their comments from each other) explained that plastics are so problematic because they’re smaller than grains of sand, which makes them very easy to inhale or ingest. Plus, “they’re a little like Velcro,” she says. No matter how small they are, their unusual chemical structure means that random chemicals stick to them. These chemicals could include DDT, PCBs, antimony, cadmium, or any other dangerous pollutants lurking in the soil or water where microplastic happens to land. Shockingly, even toxins like DDT, which have long been banned, remain in the soil and become an easy hitchhiker when they encounter microplastic.
“We’ve been told a lot of lies about plastic,” Steve continues, like coating our fruits and vegetables with a thin plastic film makes them last longer. In reality, Steve says, that coating doesn’t mean the veggies will last longer once we get them home. “We haven’t actually gained anything substantial by that use of plastic. It’s just been forced upon us.”
Author Matt Simon wants people to realize how many sources of microplastic there are in the consumer items we use every day: clothing microfibers, the billions of cigarette butts that are casually tossed onto the ground, increasingly the plastic shedding going on when roads are “paved” with plastic. “We have to come to terms with the fact that the plastic industry has surrounded us with this material in sneaky ways that we just don’t see.” That’s where the bamboozling comes in, he says.
All three experts agree that we can’t recycle our way out of this problem. For one thing, recycling plastic is so challenging that only a minuscule amount of the 380 million metric tons of plastic produced each year–roughly the equivalent of the entire weight of humanity–is being recycled. For another, recycled plastic still sheds and breaks down into microplastic. The point is not to figure out how to recycle more plastic. It should be to figure out how to use as little plastic as possible.
Deonie suggests taking a moment “right now” to look around and take stock of how much plastic is in your world. You’re probably wearing at least one item of clothing made from plastic, she says, like stretchy yoga pants or underwear. Your carpet may be made from recycled polyester–which is plastic. The polyurethane coating your wood floors contains plastic. Your makeup may have plastic stabilizers in it. If not, it probably came in a plastic tube, bottle, or compact. My computer’s keys are made from plastic; so is the pen I just used to write myself a note.
While there’s not much I can do about my computer keys, I can use a pencil instead of a pen. I have started to replace the fleece and polyester in my wardrobe with cotton, wool, and hemp fabrics. I don’t heat food in plastic containers and don’t buy food that’s sold in plastic. Before washing my clothes that contain microfibers, I put them in a bag that’s supposed to trap the fibers and keep them out of the water supply. I buy mostly organic fruits and vegetables that are unwaxed, i.e., not sheathed in plastic.
But as important as individual consumer actions are, Steve points out what all of us at Moms Clean Air Force know: “We need legislation to force governments to do the right thing!” Vote, of course. But we can do more too. As he says, “Peaceful protest is your duty.”
Moms Clean Air Force has covered the plastic pollution problem extensively. For more information, visit our Resource Library on plastics and petrochemicals. And here’s a useful article on how to live plastic-free.
Steve declares don’t just ditch plastic for you, but “for your kids and their kids.”
Tell EPA: Protect Our Communities From Plastics Incineration Pollution