How to Stop Eating so Much Plastic

Pie: Maria Hetman. Objavljeno : 03-07-2013 12:00h

Plastic. Its everywhere you look. From aisles of soft drinks and bottled water in the supermarket, to yogurt containers, to shampoo bottles, to disposable diapers, to keyboards, to the ubiquitous plastic bag. Its also lying on roadsides, and on beaches. Even the once pristine national park on the island of Mljet in Croatia has a beach with an enormous pile of washed-up bottles, which, judging from their labels, appear to have traveled from Greece. And everyone who has been in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the late winter is familiar with the phenomenon of trees and bushes brightly adorned with pink, yellow, blue and white plastic leaves (in other words, discarded bags clinging to the branches). This is just the beginning of an infinite list of the way plastic consumes our lives. The word consume was used intentionally. First, for the obvious reason: plastic fits into the ideology of consumption (and its counterpart: waste), which is something we have all been asked to swallow. Some of us are trying to resist it in various ways, but it is everywhere we look, and it takes active, conscious effort to resist participating in it at every waking moment. The second reason is that we are consuming plastic. Literally. It comes through the seafood we eat. Trashed (2012), an acclaimed environmental documentary has attempted to make the public more conscious of the way plastic is, among other things, affecting marine life and human life alike. We buy it, we bury it, we burn it, and then we ignore it. Does anyone think about what happens to all the trash we produce? We keep making things that do not break down, explains the narrator. In addition to landfills and incinerators that release plastic and its associated chemicals into the earth and the atmosphere, Trashed also exposes, in visual detail, the overwhelming amount of plastic particles floating in oceans and seasparticles which are composed of dangerous toxins such as chlorinated dioxin. These bits of plastic are eaten by fish, which absorb the chemicals. Next in the food chain are humans, who eat the fish, and likewise ingest the plastic chemicals. The long-term damage of toxins in

plastics are being researched, but we know that at least two of them upset the way hormones function in our bodies. This is just the beginning of the story the documentary tells, but in itself it is horrifying. Or, as the campaign Plastic Oceans puts it, plastic pollution has become a man-made global catastrophe, as strongly evidenced by the Pacific Garbage Patch, an enormous section of the Pacific Ocean which is thoroughly tainted with plastic debris. Some countries, Bosnia-Herzegovina not being one of them, have effective systems for recycling plastic. This is better than nothing and plays an important role in reducing the amount of new plastics produced, but it certainly does not solve the problem of where that plastic eventually goes. And because recycling programs do not ask us to buy less plastic, they may even encourage the use of it, since many recyclers may believe that they are doing their environmental duty simply by placing their plastic trash in the appropriate bin. While avoiding plastic 100% might not be feasible, it is quite possible to significantly reduce ones consumption of this ineradicable pest and to reuse the plastic which one does buy. Here are ten initial ideas (add your own): 1. Stop buying drinks bottled in plastic. Period. Most of them are unnecessary. Obtain a reusable glass or steel beverage container and carry it with you. 2. Bring your own cloth bags to the store. Even when weighing produce, you can use separate cloth bags, or weigh the fruits and vegetables on the scale and place the price sticker on the outside of your cloth bag. 3. Buy things like laundry detergent, milk, and yogurt in cartons, rather than plastic containers. Better yet, buy dairy products from a local farmer or make your own yogurt, and skip the packaging. 4. Buy cheese and meat from the deli, and have it wrapped in paper. 5. If you purchase something in a glass container, clean it and reuse it for storing and carrying leftovers, or use it as a vase, as a cup, or for a million other purposes. This will save you from buying plastic containers and cups. 6. Reduce the amount of trash you create (and, by extension, the plastic trash bags you use) by composting and recycling. 7. Never buy plastic cups or cutlery for parties. 8. Cut off the bottom of liter or two-liter plastic bottles, poke holes in it for drainage, and use as planters to grow seedlings. 9. Make a funnel: cut a liter or two-liter bottle in half. Use the top portion with the spout as a funnel for easy pouring of liquids or paint. 10. Share these ideasand the news about plasticwith your friends and family. Next time you think about buying something plastic or packaged in plastic, ask yourself about its lifecycle. How was it produced, and where does it end up? If you dont absolutely need to buy something plastic, dont. Its as simple as some basic self-restraint, and prioritization: something we are all capable of.