Alright ya'll I'm about to get progressive on you. Break our your inner Hippy for a moment and come on a journey with me! Today I am talking Plastics and not the Mean Girls Lindesy Lohan kind...
When I think of Hawaii, I think of palm trees, luau's and surfing....What I was not prepared for was the obscene amounts of garbage, specifically plastic, on the beach, floating in the ocean, and at every retail store on the island. Not JUST plastic, but also, a rare species I thought was extinct...the Styrofoam clam shell. Call me sheltered, call me crazy, but I really did not think that anyone used Styrofoam anymore...
Coming from California, specifically, lastly, Arcata (aka Berkeley North) I was use to recycling EVERYTHING (magazines, batteries, aluminum, glass, cardboard, plastic of all numbers, light bulbs), composting food scraps and shredded paper, bringing my own containers for take out, and NEVER asking for a plastic bag to go. Places like the Co-op don't even have plastic bags and you are given the STINK eye if you forget to bring your own: "Paper bag or cardboard box?" they almost seem to sneer. Imagine my surprise, when, moving to such an amazingly remote location, the enviromental awareness that seemes to be missing. The Safeway by my house in Kailua doesn't even offer paper bags because, "...we are too small of a location..."? I am having a hard time wrapping my mind around that one.... SHAME on you Safeway! One angry letter coming your way.
California is a giant state and yet the level of enviromental awareness there is awesome. Many cities including San Fransisco and LA have banned single use plastic bags. Why then, on such a small island, where the repercussions of your actions would seem much more close to home, would so many businesses offer single use plastic bags, Styrofoam clam shells and plastic to go forks and spoons? How is this still possible?
I pulled a plastic bag and a plastic water bottle out of the ocean yesterday at Sand Island beach park. I could have picked up trash for an hour straight and not gotten all the cigarette butts, soda and water bottle caps and other random bits of plastic that were in the sand like, well, the sand. It was like a horrible un-fun-fetti.
Plastic is BAD. That is the understatement. What sets this apart from say glass or aluminium (not my favorite either...especially when used for things acidic like tomatoes... SIDEBAR- POMI are delicious, from Italy, and NOT in cans). I advocate using what is local and in season, but if you are going to use canned tomatoes anyways, give these a try. So WHY are we still using plastic??? Why is an island paradise Like Oahu sitting idly by as their home is getting trashed? I am on a mission. I don't know how, but I am going to try and raise the level of awareness in my new home town. I have seen a few commercials ect....but I am going to try and get actively involved. It is too important a problem that affects not just me, but everyone in the world, and specifically, the ocean.
I am sure you all have heard of the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. There are others, though I live in the pacific so I am going to focus on this one. A massive soup of plastic and in the process of breaking down plastic is gathering to a conservative estimate of 1,700 miles long, though it is believed to be longer. There have been a lot of research done on this area, boats that travel and trawl and try to get a better idea of just how bad this floating landfill is and what are the affects it is having on the ocean.
If you have time, or want a first hand experience of the trawling, be here now! They take samples and test the water trying to understand the effects of having so much toxic waste floating around in the water.
Check out 5 Gyres for more info on their research.
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| Coming Soon to a Beach Near you! |
Single use plastic bags are harder to recycle than aluminium or glass; they do not biodegrade, they photodegrade. Plastic breaks down into smaller and smaller and smaller pieces and ends up in the ocean as something so small that it is absorbed by the smallest plankton on the food chain and works its way back up to us. So that plastic bottle you use once and toss, it comes back to haunt you on a molecular level. But, as in all things, our actions affect not just ourselves, but also others.
44 percent of all sea birds eat plastic mistaking it for food. When Trevor went to Midway Island for the summer three years ago, he came home with stories of dead birds skeletons, and where their stomachs were, piles of plastic. The birds eat the brightly colored plastic and then feel full. They starve to death un-able to digest or pass the plastic they are eating. Turtles, jellyfish and filter feeders eat the plastic and it kills them one way or another.
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| Chris Jordan-Midway |
I would love to present some alternatives to you and be proactive instead of just bitching...
My shit list of everyday Plastics that we all use, but could easily choose NOT to:
Plastic Single Use Bags- SO easy to avoid! It just takes a little effort to break a bad habit. Leave reusable tote in your car or purse or both. These "urban tumbleweeds" end up in the ocean and just fuck it up...between killing animals and leeching chemicals in it, it's no bueno.
Make your own T-shirt tote bag and recycle your favorite funky t-shirt, you know, the one you can't bear to get rid of but is not longer appropriate due to holes and stains and other life occurrences.
Plastic Water Bottles- Tap water, which is more highly regulated than bottled water (which, in some cases, was found to be 40% TAP WATER) comes out at about $0.002 per gallon. Bottled water comes out anywhere from $0.86 a gallon to $8.26 per gallon. Get a canteen! It doesn't have to be a Kleen canteen. Re-using plastic water bottles is also not a good idea, the plastic leaches chemicals into the water, especially if let in the sun or gotten warm. Even the simple act of washing and reusing plastic water bottles (Even NALGENE bottles are NOT ok if they have BPA in the plastic) can cause tiny tears and seepage of chemicals into your water.
Plastic Straws- Single use, again, used once and thrown away. NEVER recycled!!! And on a more vain note, ladies, sucking on straws gives you wrinkles around your mouth.
Plastic To-Go utensils- We eat at home a lot, but I have started carrying wood chop sticks in my purse in a cute fabric case (courtesy of my Cindy Lou Who) in case I do get something to go and have to eat on the run...Just make sure to wash when you get home!! Wooden chopsticks are easy enough to find, and look, you can make your own case! EXCELLENT Christmas idea for your token republican friend (BIG winks La La ;)!
| Swamp Yankees from Outer Space! |
Everyday Plastic Packaging- When I go to farmers market, EVERYTHING is in plastic. I literally have to ask them to take the veggies out of the plastic bag for me...it is for convenience. Packaging at the store is a little harder. SOME things are in plastic and can not be helped. BUT some things are not. I try to buy in bulk a much as possible and store it in a glass jar or paper bag, if it can survive... flour, sugar, pasta, cereal, rice, grains, chips, cookies, spices, beans, salt, tea, soup mix, trail mix, nuts, chocolates...almost all of my sundries I can find in bulk. It is also a lot cheaper to buy this way...honestly, who needs 1 pound of poultry seasoning? Just buy a little!!! That shiz goes bad before you have the time to use it all anyways. It is so much cheaper to buy $0.66 worth of pasta and NOT pay for the packaging. You don't have to spend a ton on super cute jars (like my fantasy cupboard below) reuse glass jars you buy everyday and remove the labels. These can be used indefinitely.
Plastic Lighters-
There were literally thousands of these on Midway. Again, a disposable limited use item that there are alternatives for like matches or zippo lighter that are re-fillable.
I am guilty of using plastic packaging in many every day things that I buy though I make a seriously pointed effort not to. I am nagging because the aforementioned are EASY to use once and throw away, but even EASIER to change to something more sustainable and cheaper!
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| Because this is our home... |
****this is article is dedicated to the fabulous plastic bag purse knitter Alissa Morey for showing me the light and jumping in front of me at every store we went to and screaming, "NO SHE DOESN'T NEED A PLASTIC BAG THANKS!!!"****
Resources:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/08/090820-plastic-decomposes-oceans-seas.html
http://www.saveourgroundwater.org/TakeBackTheTap_web.pdf
2 “Bottled Water: Pure Drink or Pure Hype?” Natural Resources Defense Council, March 1999. Available at: http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/ bw/bwinx.asp
5 Franklin, Pat, “Down the drain: Plastic water bottles should no longer be a wasted resource” Waste Management World, May-June 2006. Avail- able at: “http://container-recycling.org/mediafold/newsarticles/plas- tic/2006/5-WMW-DownDrain.htm”
photo: eflon flickr
http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/oceanography/great-pacific-garbage-patch.htm
http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/oceanography/great-pacific-garbage-patch.htm
Love the t-shirt tote bags!
ReplyDeletethanks Julie!
ReplyDelete