Issue #2: All the little plastics
How do we stop putting microplastics into our air, water, soil and bodies?
Welcome back, everyone, to Our Immortal Plastics.
If you’ve been wondering about the name, that was the subject of debate. My partner thinks a better name for this newsletter would be “Meet the Plastics” à la Mean Girls.
I agree, this would be a better name. It’s wittier. People might get the reference.
However, the name “Our Immortal Plastics” gets to the heart of what I want to explore and document in this newsletter, which is that the plastics we use and throw away will easily outlive us all.
I was reminded again this week by the National Observer’s investigation into Canada’s plastic waste problem.
You should give the three-part investigation a read if you can. The first article starts off by citing just how explicit the plastic industry’s intentions were when they started selling the idea of plastics as disposable.
“The happy day has arrived when nobody any longer considers plastic packages too good to throw away,” Lloyd Stouffer said at the 1963 U.S. National Plastic Conference. Stouffer was a U.S. plastics marketing guru and the man who, in 1956, first pitched the idea that a virtually indestructible material — plastic — should be sold as disposable.
Though we dispose of plastic products freely and easily even now, they aren’t disposable in the way the plastics industry wants us to believe.
Even the flimsiest plastic products have serious staying power. Those thin “disposable” plastic bags will degrade and fall apart, yes, but they will birth microplastics that could hang around for thousands of years.
Those petroleum-based clothes you wear will be around for a long time too! The polyester, nylon, spandex and acrylic in your clothes shed plastic microfibres that float up into the air inside your home or outdoors, drain out of your washing machine or even settle on your food!
According to one preliminary estimate, we eat a credit card’s worth of plastic every week. I’d wait for a few more studies to come out before believing that dramatic figure, but we’re definitely ingesting plastic regularly.
Microplastics are even showing up in human placentas, though their effect is still unknown. It’s scary stuff.
Those insidious multi-coloured bits are also appearing in large concentrations in our waterways and the Great Lakes. Researchers are finding them in the bellies of fish-eating birds such as cormorants.
"Microplastics in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed" by chesbayprogram
So we obviously want fewer microplastics out there. Where do we start? Where in the supply chain do we cut them out?
The old industry line is that we should take on the responsibility as individuals. Install filters in our washing machines to capture those microfibers. Don’t use any natural health products that contain microbeads. Purchase natural fiber products like cotton, linen and wool (though these have their own environmental costs, an extreme case being what the Soviet Union did to the Aral Sea).
And we probably should do those things, as a bare minimum.
Municipalities can also upgrade our water and sewage treatment plants to capture microplastics, something they are currently incapable of doing.
But the most effective method for reducing plastic use is to push for and support regulations that will reduce and regulate plastic production in the first place.
Which is why the North American plastics industry is working so hard to get the Trudeau government to shift course on its plan to label plastic as “toxic” under Schedule 1 of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA). As reporter Marc Fawcett-Atkinson writes in the National Observer article above, a substance can be labelled toxic if it harms either the environment, biodiversity, health or any combination of the three. Designating plastic as “toxic” would give Canada more legal surety in its plastic ban measures, promised for the end of this year.
Our greatest hope for reducing the flow of microplastics into our environment lies in the decidedly unsexy work of pushing for stronger government regulation of the plastics industry. Praise be to bureaucracy.
On an individual note, the melting snow and climbing temperatures mean that spring cleanup initiatives are on the way! If you’re able to, you should sign up to help. Every plastic bottle, every plastic bag you pick up means that many fewer microplastics will find their way into your environment.
Long reads (5 minutes or more):
National Observer - Canada is drowning in plastic waste — and recycling won't save us
National Observer - The backroom battle between industry, Ottawa and environmentalists over plastics regulation
National Observer - On Canada's East Coast, researchers look for plastic — and a new way to do science
Short reads (under 5 minutes:
Eurekalert - It’s snowing plastic: New technique detects minute particles of plastics in snow, rain and even soil
Yahoo Finance - Plastic prices hit record high to stoke inflation concerns
Things to watch:
I recently watched the 2017 documentary Albatross, depicting the tragic impact plastic pollution has on these wondrous nomadic seabirds by documenting the events of a nesting season in the Midway Islands.
The film is set up as public art and is free to watch. It has beautiful scenery and it’s well done. However, some of the more wrenching scenes are a lot to process, so save it for when you have emotional energy to spare.
Blossoming cherry trees along the Tera River in the town of Tawaramoto, in Nara Prefecture, Japan. Photo by Cullen Bird.
Things I’ve written:
Grainswest Magazine - A Sunny Forecast: Pilot project taps Alberta’s deep well of solar power potential
In addition, here is the tale of how hard it is to try to clean up garbage (most of it plastic) in the Tera River as a foreigner in Japan.
Finally, I have set up paid subscriptions, at $7/month or $70 for a yearly subscription. There is also the option to contribute more if you want to be a Founding Member of Our Immortal Plastics (and gain the bump in social status this title will surely bring).
Sending you all good energy to get you through to the better days of spring,
Cullen
Great article Cullen. Thanks for the insight!