JULES HOEPTING
Managing Editor
“Do you ever feel like a plastic bag drifting through the wind wanting to start again?” asks Katy Perry in the opening line of her megahit song “Firework.”
The idea of plastic bags ending up in places they were never intended to be is all too familiar to people all around the world. Hence, the instant relatability most people feel when listening to the song. But why is the man-made sight of plastic bags drifting through the wind as familiar as the natural sight of dandelion spores soaring on the wind? How has plastic waste become woven into natural landscapes?
Citizens of first-world countries are taught to continuously use and depend on plastic of all kinds. They are taught that most of this plastic can be recycled and that because plastic can be used over and over again and because plastic is cheap to produce, plastic is a material that is good to depend on. Again, this was taught.
According to Rebecca Altman’s article “American Beauties” published by the magazine Topic, the plastic bag now commonly seen in many grocery stores was initially difficult for people to support. Paper bags served their general grocery-carrying purpose and plastic bags broke easily when carrying too many jars. Furthermore, in the 1950s, support of plastic bags suffered due to their connection to suicides and child suffocation.
Altman said what initially sold people on the paper to plastic conversion was the idea that plastic bags could be reused in a cornucopia of ways. The Los Angeles Times reported in 1986 “The Plastic Grocery Council says plastic bags can be reused in more than 17 different ways.”
In addition to plastic’s marketability from its reusability, plastic has been laced with the idea of convenience for decades. Ironically, plastic, a product birthed during wartime — a time of wasting as little as possible — created a cycle of mindless waste. Lloyd Stouffer, the editor of Modern Packaging, argued in the 1950’s that “the future of plastics is in the trash can” and that the plastic industry should “stop thinking about ‘reuse’ packages and concentrate on single use.” Stouffer relayed in order for the plastic industry to bloom, it must teach the consumers how to waste.
The idea of single-use packaging — the idea of buying something spontaneously because the item is pre-packaged — created a culture of convenience and hills formed of plastic. The idea an item is kept cleaner and is therefore more hygienic when wrapped in plastic further built those hills. Some of those hills were covered in grass with hook-shaped pipes sticking out of them not too far from the polluter’s trash can. Some of those hills formed in families of third-world countries’ backyards.
When garbage is thrown away, it is thrown out of mind. But “away” is a place and that place reflects colonialism, as argued in Max Liboiron’s article “How plastic is a function of colonialism” published in Teen Vogue. Liboiron argued initiatives like recycling and treating sewage focus on what to do once plastic pollution is already created instead of focusing on ways to generate less plastic. He argued these systems already depend on distant land for the garbage to go: “Without this infrastructure and access to land, Indigenous land, there is no disposability.”
To make matters worse, many recycling plants, such as those depicted in the documentary “Plastic China” by Jiu-liang Wang, expose poverty-stricken people with no ready access to education to a lifetime in piles of plastic. Spending their days sorting through European and North American garbage, the recycling processors see images of white people lying on resort beaches surrounded by luxurious items, knowing they will never curl up in the lap of luxury and be petted by materialism’s hand. The people are shown singing songs glorifying Mao Zedong, the former president of the Peoples’ Republic of China. Zedong is considered a dictator by westerners, a perpetrator of propaganda that allowed his people to be bound living amongst piles of plastic. But who is to say us westerners aren’t surrounded by propaganda? Our world is saturated in marketing, making us believe a variety of plastic wrapped purchases are tied with freedom of choice.
But what if “away” no longer accepts the garbage it’s been fed?
“China has been the place where nearly half the world’s plastic waste has been sent to go ‘away.’ This ended in January 2018 when China banned the import of scrap plastics and other materials, which will leave an estimated 111 million metric tons of plastic waste displaced,” according to Liboiron. But the garbage will continue to accumulate. And another country will take the burden of garbage colonialism.
So, how do we go about defeating the plastic monster, a beast almost impossible to fully break down and undeniably ubiquitous in one form or another. Plastic bags and single-use straws are the poster products of plastic waste, both argued about passionately. Several states have passed laws forcing the use of paper bags instead of plastic bags in grocery stores. Some major franchise restaurants no longer readily give out straws.
There is the argument that if people are not given plastic bags for groceries, they will have to buy plastic bags to put their garbage in rather than reusing the plastic grocery bags for their garbage. In my opinion, if bags are going to be used to contain garbage, people should use bags better designed to contain the garbage. It’s harder for a bag full of garbage than an empty bag to end up in the wrong place.
There is the argument that people with disabilities should have ready access to single-use straws without having to ask for the straws, according to Alice Wong in “The rise and fall of the plastic straw: Sucking in crip defiance” from the Catalyst Journal. In my opinion, if people can make the adjustment to bring reusable bags with them to stores, then people who need straws can carry straws with them; straws are inexpensive, light and small, and are easy to throw in a purse or backpack. To be clear, I am not arguing against accommodating the needs of persons with disabilities; I am suggesting we direct those conversations away from something as easy to bring to places as plastic straws.
It is important to note that plastic straws make up 0.003% of non-recyclable waste, according to Wong. Thus, banning straws alone will not draw a solution to the plastic pollution problem; straws are not the straw that broke the plastic camel’s back. But it is still worth removing their burden.
I think part of the solution lies in continuing to remove plastic clutches until we can walk freely on our own. We need to standardize stores where people are expected to bring their own containers for groceries not packaged in plastic; people can purchase containers at these stores if they forget their containers. We need to standardize shopping locally to reduce the amount of packaging put on shipping products. Although this may be more inconvenient for us as consumers, we must incorporate some aspects of how we used to do things before plastic bags “drifting through the wind” were a common sight.
Of course, the easiest way to create laws enforcing environmentally friendly policies is to voice your opinions about those policies and to choose political candidates that support those policies. Thus, voting for national candidates — and more importantly local candidates — that strive to better the environmental is essential. Plastic is already in the ground, the water and the stomachs of starving animals for decades and, in some situations, centuries to come. We cannot “start again,” but we can write the next chapter from a different perspective.