Plastics?

 

In 1967 Dustin Hoffman’s character was The Graduate. At the party for Benjamin Braddock (Hoffman), his neighbor famously whispered to him, “Plastics.”

Indeed, many young graduates went into plastics and made the world more convenient for us. Bottled water, plastic wrap in the kitchen, wrapped useless toys, sweet tea, laundry detergent, and hundreds of other products came in or were wrapped in plastic. As time passed, we came to curse the difficulty of unwrapping batteries, etc. But only in recent years has the public become aware of the price we pay for convenience—plastic trash, tons of it.

Some numbers from the Internet:

According to the World Economic Forum, some 4-8 percent of annual global oil consumption is associated with plastics. If this reliance on plastics persists, plastics will account for 20 percent of oil consumption by 2050. (From How plastics contribute to climate change » Yale Climate Connections.

Extraction and transportation of these fossil fuels is a carbon-intensive activity. Authors of the CIEL report estimated that 12.5 to 13.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent are emitted per year while extracting and transporting natural gas to create feedstocks for plastics in the United States. Globally, carbon dioxide emissions from ethylene production are projected to expand by 34 percent between 2015 and 2030.

At Least 85 Percent of U.S. Plastic Waste Went to Landfills in 2021 … www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-us-recycled-just-5-percent-of-its… About 85 percent went to landfills, and ten percent was incinerated. The rate of plastic recycling has decreased since 2018, when it was at 8.7 percent, per the study.

Eleven million metric tons (eight million tons) of plastic waste and pollution enter the world’s oceans each year. earth.org/plastic-pollution-statistics. Search “plastic straw problems.” Remember the pictures of dolphins with straws in their nostrils? Check out National Geographics Straw Wars: The Fight to Rid the Oceans of Discarded Plastic – Adventure.

Some hopeful signs:

–A source for checking out recycled products: Recycled Plastic Products | Fast Product Comparison.

–The poster child of plastic waste is getting a makeover. That’s right, the first biodegradable water bottle is here. Created by California startup Cove, the bottle is the first fully biodegradable water bottle on the market, meaning that the packaging will — at best — break down flip.it/RkCK00.

Last week’s column on Living Green generated more reactions from readers than any other.

Things we can do:

Paper and cotton bags need to be reused three and 131 times, respectively, to ensure their global warming potential is lower than a typical plastic grocery bag. www.ul.com/recycled/plastics-per-Underwriters-Laboratory.

Last week’s column listed many ways to avoid or reduce plastics. I won’t repeat them here. Physical therapist Becky Stoner recommended HiBar solid shampoo and conditioner, available at the Coop. She also mentioned Norwex Powdered laundry detergent for HE machines.

Check out all the places we use plastics and look for alternatives. Wherever possible, substitute glass, wood, or other compostable containers for plastic. Use plastic only where needed to keep out water and water vapor and to avoid danger of glass breakage.

Ask all our local merchants to please stock non-plasticized alternatives, not just the Coop. Then, reward them with your purchases when they do. Then, if they are the smartest, they will tell us all of their efforts to help us get to a more sustainable earth.

A. McGowan reported that one of her friends uses Earth Breeze laundry soap sheets. You will recall that Consumer Reports was down on those products but said Earth Breeze was the best of the lot. I was not unhappy with the cleanliness of the laundry soapy sheet products we used. Unfortunately, there may be no solution; seek it lovingly.

If this was too preachy for you, try Conservation Tales and/or Matters of Record or?

Note: If The Graduate was being advised now, we’d whisper, “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle,” wouldn’t we?

Steve Aldrich is a retired Hennepin County lawyer, judge, and mediator, serving as judge from 1997-2010. He and his wife moved here in 2016. Steve was once a Junior NRA member. He likes to remember that he was a Minnesota Super Family Lawyer before being elected to the bench. Steve writes this column to learn more about his new home area, share his learnings with others, and indulge his curiosities. Bouquets and brickbats to the editor or stevealdrich41@gmail.com. Copyright Stephen C. Aldrich and News-Herald, 2022.