For a so-called ‘intelligent’ species we really do seem to be very capable of making a colossal mess. However, even as a self-declared environmentalist, I’m a little perplexed by the fuss made every year on April 22 for Earth Day which marks the anniversary of the birth of the modern environmental movement back in 1970.
Fifty-five Earth Days later and our planet is more polluted every day.
Little Johnny
My Eco Committee were keen to mark the occasion, nonetheless. Their energy and enthusiasm know no bounds.
They asked all classes to take part in the Big Plastic Count and suggested their peers bring in items of plastic from home to show how difficult it can be to recycle. We had great piles of yoghurt pots, crisp packets, milk cartons and biscuit wrappers.
A couple of items needed to be removed as biohazards including a (potentially) used rubber johnny. Officially condoms are usually made from a rubber material tapped from the bark of trees rather than polymer plastic, but I didn’t want to waste time splitting hairs before having to assist Mrs D on removal of the item from the RE room. Luckily, we didn’t find out which pupil brought it into school, I’m not sure I could have faced their folks at the next parent’s evening.
Named and shamed
Last week a survey published in Science Advances found that 60 firms are responsible for half of the world’s plastic pollution. The study confirmed that Philip Morris International, Danone, Nestlé, PepsiCo, and Coca-Cola are the worst offenders. The international team of volunteers collected and surveyed more than almost 2 million items of plastic waste across 84 countries over five years: the bulk of the rubbish collected was single-use packaging for food, beverage, and tobacco products.
Although all these companies take great effort to talk about their sustainability initiatives for the future, it’s the plastic producers that we really need to call to account. The UK government is apparently providing a £600m guarantee for the billionaire Jim Ratcliffe to build the biggest petrochemical plant in Europe in 30 years that will turbocharge plastic production. Rather than easing off on production, more than 350m metric tonnes of plastic waste is produced a year, and by 2060 plastic waste is set to increase to 1bn metric tonnes.
Recycling initiatives can’t handle the amount of plastic being produced already and recycling is not the answer, we need to start refusing all plastic. Between 1 and 2 million tonnes of plastic enter the oceans each year breaking down into smaller fragments that get into the food chain. My Y8s were appalled by pictures of dead fish and whales with plastic-filled stomachs when we were studying the effect of humans on ecosystems but there is no point in obfuscating the truth. Plastic might be an incredibly useful material but its properties including its resistance to biodegradation mean it poses a serious risk to the environment especially as, by 2050, plastic is expected to account for 5%-10% of greenhouse gas emissions.
Microplastic mayhem
If you ask children how they can save the planet they often say, ‘picking up litter’, this is understandable as it’s something tangible they can do themselves. Maybe it might be better to start ‘picking on polluting companies.
We could start by removing any plastic wrappings in shops and leaving the waste with them to see if it helps to promote action. Encouraging activism in young people can raise eyebrows but I really do have their wellbeing at heart. Microplastics, tiny particles of plastic less than 5 mm across, have been found in various parts of the human body.
We ingest microplastics through food and water and they are present in the air we breathe. They have been detected in lung tissue and in human blood and the impact on health is still relatively unknown, but recent research suggests they can lead to bowel cancer.
The fact that microplastics can travel throughout the body and potentially lodge in organs should raise serious concerns and promote action… oh, but what would the oil industry do if we buy electric cars and massively reduce plastic production? To be honest, I don’t really give a flying fig.
Plastic free
Hubster and I tried to do plastic-free July a couple of years ago. It was incredibly hard, impossible even, to ditch all plastic.
Quick wins were stopping using any cling film – we haven’t purchased any since and stopping buying clothing made from artificial fibres (other than socks and pants which tend to fall without fantastic elastic).
Much harder were wrapped foods such as crisps or the occasional pack of biscuits for kids or guests if I don’t have time for home baking.
We tried to make our own crisps but then we had a problem with a slightly greasy product and lots of waste oil. No crisps are probably the answer but even the idea makes Hubster miserably grumpy – even with a sprinkling of cinnamon, homemade dehydrated apple chips don’t quite cut the mustard.
We might never be plastic-free, but I’ll continue to do my damn best to reduce it significantly!
Note to self: For Earth Day next year maybe, we should pile up loads of plastic that we collect over the course of a month and invite local politicians and businesses to come and share their ideas on what to do to prevent production from skyrocketing. They probably won’t have any good ideas but I’m really at the end of my tether (however elastic it might seem).
