7 Days of Plastic

I thought it would be interesting to see how much plastic I accumulated in one week. So I stuffed every bit of plastic that would have otherwise been thrown away or recycled into a big (plastic) bag.

The amount of plastic you see in the picture below was for the two people living in my house. Not eating excessively, with a few other non-food purchases during the week. The result was interesting.

Let’s take a look at some of this mess, then we’ll go over the health and environmental impacts of all this plastic, and what we can do to reduce our “plastic footprint”.

From the blue bag in the upper left corner, going around clockwise…

• blue bag of potting soil
• plastic pots for seedlings
• bag for apples
• blue corn chips
• trellis for large tomato plants (the plastic pots were reused for other plants)
• used ziploc bags
• bread bags
• plastic grocery bag full of plastic grocery bags (I reuse some of these as kitchen trash bags)
• big BBandB bag (bought a new toaster after the old one kicked it)
• spinach container
• more bread bags
• soda bottles
• Columbian coffee
• Assorted plastic bags and containers
• Assorted pre-grated cheeses
• white six pack ring
• more assorted plastic bags
• blue styrofoam slab that had salmon on it
• more plastic grocery bags

Plastic and Food

Most of the plastic I accumulated was from food packaging. It seems like you can hardly buy any food these days without it coming wrapped in several layers of plastic. This plastic can leach chemicals into your food, especially when heated.

The chemicals that are leached from plastic can disrupt the system of hormones your body uses to control growth, development, sexual development and reproduction, and other endocrine systems. That’s why these compounds are known as ‘endocrine disruptors’. This effect is even more concerning for fetuses, infants and children.

The American Academy of Pediatrics wrote an excellent position statement about food additives and child health, which is relatively easy to read for a medical journal paper. From this paper, here is a summary of how plastic and other chemicals are used in food manufacture and packaging…

• bisphenols – lining of metal cans to prevent corrosion
• phthalates – used in adhesives, lubricants, and plasticizers during the manufacturing process
• pesticides – which have been addressed in a previous policy statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics
• perfluoroalkyl chemicals – used in grease-proof paper and packaging
• perchlorate – an antistatic agent used for plastic packaging in contact with dry foods with surfaces that do not contain free fat or oil and also present as a degradation product of bleach used to clean food manufacturing equipment

From the same article here is a table of the effects of some of these additives…

That’s some nasty side effects. Now just imagine drinking in whole bits of micro and nanoplastic particles.

Plastic and Water

A lot of the plastic that is thrown away ends up in waterways and then the worlds oceans. This plastic breaks down into ‘microplastic’ , which is plastic bits less than 5 mm across. Microplastic is then further broken down into nanplastic particles — down to the micron size (millionth of a meter).

Microplastic and nanoplastic particles are found in the vast majority of fresh and salt water bodies around the world. If you drink tap water you are probably ingesting some very small amount of microplastic. If you drink bottled water, you’re probably getting a bit more. Most of even this small amount probably just passes through your gut without effect, but over a long time the effect of even a minuscule amount of endocrine disrupting plastic compounds can add up.

The World Health Organization says “Although there is insufficient information to draw firm conclusions on the toxicity of plastic particles and particularly the nano size particles, no reliable information suggests it is a concern.”

So let me get this right… there is “insufficient information”, but we should not be concerned. LOL! How about being concerned until there is sufficient information not to be concerned?!?

Plastic and the Oceans

“So on the way back to our home port in Long Beach, California, we decided to take a shortcut through the gyre, which few seafarers ever cross. Fishermen shun it because its waters lack the nutrients to support an abundant catch. Sailors dodge it because it lacks the wind to propel their sailboats.

Yet as I gazed from the deck at the surface of what ought to have been a pristine ocean, I was confronted, as far as the eye could see, with the sight of plastic.

It seemed unbelievable, but I never found a clear spot. In the week it took to cross the subtropical high, no matter what time of day I looked, plastic debris was floating everywhere: bottles, bottle caps, wrappers, fragments…”

Capt. Charles Moore, discoverer of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, in an article for Natural History magazine in 2003, from NatGeo Resource Library on The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

About 100 million tons of plastic are made worldwide every year, and 8 to 10 million tons of that ends up in the ocean… EVERY year. While plastic pollution is spread across all the oceans, it eventually collects over time in the ocean gyres. There are five ocean gyres in the world, and possibly the most infamous one is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch actually consists of an eastern area between Hawaii and California, and a western area between Hawaii and Japan. The eastern patch is about the size of the state of Texas, and most of the plastic is of the microplastic variety, though it also consists of plastic netting and other larger debris.

Interestingly, it may be easier to clean up the garbage patch by intercepting plastic pollution on land and along the coasts before it gets into the water and falls apart into bits on its way to an ocean gyre. This makes legislative action even more important. More on that below.

Read more in the NatGeo Education Blog post, Wait A Minute- Don’t Clean Up The Garbage Patch?

Plastic and Climate Change

Plastic is made from of fossil fuels. More specifically it’s made from ethane gas, which is one of the many by-products of oil and gas extraction. Ethylene gas (C2H4, 2 carbons and 2 hydrogen atoms) is turned into polyethylene plastic and also into polyvinyl chloride (PVC) at big industrial plants.

Manufacturing plastic releases greenhouse gas at every stage of its creation, from extraction of ethylene gas from the ground, to making the raw polyethylene, to making the plastic product, to managing the plastic waste at the end. Right now plastic manufacture is estimated to contribute about 900 billion tons of CO2 to the atmosphere every year.

The crazy thing about it is that the demand for plastic is growing and the major oil companies are trying to cash in by building huge new industrial plants to meet the demand. The worldwide demand for plastics is expected to be more than double the current use by 2050.

Part of the demand is driven by cheap gas produced by the fracking boom in the United States. This has encouraged the oil and gas industry to promote plastic consumption… and build more plants.

From industry publication ChemWeek, there are 8 new ethylene plants built or under construction between 2019 and 2020. The interesting bit to take away from this detailed article is that these plants are highly dependent on a steady supply of ethylene gas produced by fracking.

Between the recent conflict between OPEC and Russia over oil prices, and the pandemic driving oil consumption down, the price of oil has dropped below the range where fracking is profitable for now. So it will be interesting to see all the downstream effects of low oil prices. Hopefully, this will at least delay these plants coming online, if not kill a few of them outright.

Reduce, reuse, recycle… legislate.

Now we come to what we can do about all the plastic. I’m just going to touch on some high points, and talk about some things I do, and areas where I can improve. I am by no means great at reducing my plastic, but I am trying.

Reduce

Reducing how much plastic you buy might be the most important aspect of getting plastic out of your life. For example, refusing plastic utensils for carry out food, saying no to straws when eating out, not buying water in plastic bottles, and so on. That alone would keep tons of plastic waste out of the ocean every year.

Most municipal water supplies are very good, and if not, filter jugs or under the sink filter systems (affiliate link to the one I use) are cheap, way cheaper than buying bottled water all the time anyhow. Just put it in a steel or glass water bottle. While we are at it, let’s make sure to take our own coffee tumbler to the local coffee shop.

Not accumulating plastic grocery bags is huge. I can’t tell you how many of those nasty bags I see floating in the waterways around Houston and just about anywhere I’ve travelled. It’s disgusting. Just remember to keep your cloth bags in your car when you go shopping.

Beyond something simple like reusable bags, buy products with as little plastic packaging as possible. If two items are otherwise the same, I usually go for the one with less packaging. Although, as you can see from my pile of plastic at the start of this post, I like buying pre-grated cheese. This has to stop, dang it! LOL!

Buying in bulk may also help as there is less plastic per unit of what you are buying. Then comes the problem of how to divide up bulk purchases. And often this get stored in plastic containers. Though if you are next level player, you’ll bring your own, reusable containers to buy from the bulk food bins, or paper bags even.

Reuse

Anytime you can use a plastic container for something else, you are keeping it out of a landfill or the ocean. I use heavy duty plastic zip lock bags over and over again by washing them out with a little soap and water, then setting them on the dish rack to dry. I reuse them several times for dry items like bread, things that are in another package, or I’ll reuse them once for wet or messy stuff.

I’ve also had the same set of Tupperware for over ten years. They look ratty but they work fine. I also save large glass jars from pasta sauce to store leftovers in. And I have a one-time use liquid soap dispenser that I’ve refilled about 20 times so far, and still working great.

Here’s a fun article about reusing plastic bottles… 20 Ways to Reuse and Recycle Empty Plastic Bottles

Recycle

When I’m done with a plastic item I check for the recycle code. Many common plastic items will recycle. I save them in bins in my garage and take them to the county recycling facility every few weeks. Sadly, a lot of plastic is not recyclable, and I always feel bad about putting it in the trash.

But since China has stopped accepting shipments of plastic for recycling, your best bet is just to simply get as much of it out of your life as possible. By the way, what the hell is that about? Shipping plastic back to China? Sounds like a real carbon intensive way to have an even worse environmental impact. Unfortunately, a lot of recycling plastic now goes to poor countries with lax environmental regulations.

Check this article out for the ultimate guide to going plastic free — 100 Steps To A Plastic Free Life, from the My Plastic Free Life blog. Some pretty great suggestions in there, but some I’d never do, like using baking soda and tee tree oil instead of deodorant. I’m not enough of a tree hugging hippy for that. 😉 LOL!

Plastic, Delicious but Deadly…

Again from our pals at the American Academy of Pediatrics, some great tips, not only for children, but for everyone wanting to reduce their exposure to plastic contamination…

• “Prioritize consumption of fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables when possible, and support that effort by developing a list of low-cost sources for fresh fruits and vegetables.
• Avoid processed meats, especially maternal consumption during pregnancy.
• Avoid microwaving food or beverages (including infant formula and pumped human milk) in plastic, if possible.
• Avoid placing plastics in the dishwasher.
• Use alternatives to plastic, such as glass or stainless steel, when possible.
• Look at the recycling code on the bottom of products to find the plastic type, and avoid plastics with recycling codes 3 (phthalates), 6 (styrene), and 7 (bisphenols) unless plastics are labeled as “biobased” or “greenware,” indicating that they are made from corn and do not contain bisphenols.
• Encourage hand-washing before handling foods and/or drinks, and wash all fruits and vegetables that cannot be peeled.”

Read more about plastic in food from Vox –> The problem with all the plastic that’s leaching into your food

Legislate

Corporations would like consumers to take the blame for the products that they manufacture by making them feel that it is their responsibility (or failure) to take care of the pollution generated by their products. But when every single fracking thing comes wrapped in plastic, it’s hard to avoid.

In public health the biggest positive changes to the health of entire populations is done through legislation. One of the best examples being the Tobacco Master Settlement, where US states sued tobacco companies for the medical costs incurred from caring for sick and dying smokers.

And the biggest changes to improve the environment came from similar legislative efforts. Think legislation that fixed… acid rain, the ozone hole, smog in California, and rivers that caught on fire, just to name a few examples.

There is an ever growing movement for the banning of certain plastic products, such as plastic bags and other single use plastic items. Ultimately, plastic manufacturers must be made responsible for the disposal of their products if we want to make any progress.

If you want to read more about legislative efforts to curb plastic pollution, here’s an excellent article… What Laws Work Best to Cut Plastic Pollution?, from the Revelator. And here is a great list of resources from the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators that has links to in-depth information about plastic related legislation around the US.

… Donate

I’ll add one more to the “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Legislate” mantra… Donate! Donations by concerned people like you are what helps fund public awareness and legislative action.

Here are a three highly rated, charitable organizations working to stop plastic pollution through awareness and legislation…

• Ocean Conservancy
• Surfrider Foundation
• Center for International Environmental Law

The Last Word

Well there you have it, more about plastic than you wanted to know. After writing this I am ever more determined to get as much plastic out of my life as I can. How about you?

Figure out your “plastic footprint” here and here.