We all hate plastic. We hate plastic food containers, plastic
water bottles, plastic shopping bags, plastic product packaging (I really hate
blister packaging), and all the little crappy toys and nick-knacks that we see
in every convenience store. We hate plastic in the oceans, in the landfills, anywhere in the environment and the chemicals
from plastic in the food chain.
My wife Peggy and I are eco consumers. We use reusable bags,
bottles and cups. In our household we don’t buy anything or at least resist
purchasing items with plastic packaging, and if we have to we will pay more for
something not packaged in plastic, or
at least in recycled/recyclable plastic and everything that can, does go in the
recycling bin. We use bar soap, bar shampoo, bar shaving soap & a brush and
refill glass bottles for other household products. Lately we have been relaxing
some because our city started accepting any plastic with a recycling label, numbers
1-7. Most, but not all packaging is one of those so we’ve been buying more
things in or made from plastic.
Then I discovered the Plastic Pollution Coalition website
through some tweets I’ve been receiving. This opened my eyes (again) about the serious
nature of plastic pollution. The realization that 93% of recyclable
plastic produced is NOT recycled. Even when it is recycled, it’s energy intensive,
and the new product is still many times, thrown away.
My question for the reader is should we discourage recycled/recyclable
plastic? Peggy and I have a small online store that sells some recycled plastic
items, bowls & utensils and we sell BioBags biodegradable plastic-like bags
for the kitchen. They are all great products, but are they equally bad for the
environment as virgin plastic? My thought is no, but they may not be much
better for the environment than virgin plastic.
While I still think that as a nation & society, in the
mean-time, we need to recycle all plastic that exists, but we really have to
stop making any new plastic.
We as consumers need to demand better packaging options from
wherever we buy anything. Write that letter to Costco, Target, & Wal-Mart to
stop selling items packaged in plastic or items made from virgin plastic. If
you buy durable items like benches, picnic tables or waste baskets, buy ones that
are not plastic preferably or made from recycled plastic as a second choice.
Look for the products that have recycling information on the package, if there
isn’t any, don’t buy it.
We as citizens should pass laws to limit the manufacture of
virgin plastic. Until plastic can be recycled and re-recycled like aluminum
cans, no consumer item can be made from virgin plastic. All plastic products
and packaging should have recycling information on it. More money needs to be
spent on recycling programs and more research into the health risks that
plastic in the environment creates. Existing plastics need to be recycled into
fence posts, telephone poles or something that doesn’t get thrown into a
landfill or worn down into microscopic bits that end-up in our food, water, and
us.
Chemicals from plastic are in our food chain, therefore in
us and in our children. It may be a small thing for one person to write a
letter or use a reusable cup, or recycle a yogurt cup, but when all of us do it
we become a market force and it makes the governments and corporations react in
a positive way.
