Here we are again, discussing one of the multitude of facets whereby capitalism is the enemy of the people - plain and simple. Most deal with economics, and how the stratified structure of our American caste system keeps itself afloat – at least for those at the upper-most strata. An overwhelming majority of rest of us deal with constant pressure to work harder, produce more, while giving our innovations, ideas, and inventions to the current master – be it a business owner, governmental organization, or a pool of investors. Instead, today we will take a step in a different direction, where, although we brush against economics, it is not the main point of the diary. Today we dive into our guaranteed extinction, or how our economic system is killing us and how we can stop from becoming plastic people!
As the late great Frank Zappa so famously authored to the tune of “Louie Louie” (with one extra note): “Plastic people, you gotta go (yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah)....” He was referring to a different group of plastic people, like those who saturated his environment around Laurel Canyon (California) with their fake superficial lifestyles and public facades. They have now blossomed into their full regalia, with such thoughtful and enriching shows like “Real Housewives of <does it matter?>”. As much as I would love to spend time with Frank’s voluminous opinions on politics, or the plasticity of many people infecting the environments of us all, we instead cast this dire warning: Supporting capitalism will likely lead to your slow transformation into a plastic being.
The food we eat, the water we drink, and the air we breathe are all contaminated with so many micro plastics it is impossible to avoid them completely. We have capitalism to ‘thank’ for the situation more than anything else. It is capitalism which produces goods, then convinces their consumer audience to consume said goods. The fidget spinner ‘craze’ is a great example of a crazy idea gone pollution. How many tons of them have already accumulated in landfills? Apparently they are also currently great swag for tradeshows or other promo needs. But why do people buy them? ‘They must be really good, they look really cool, and boy that will sure do a good job of handling my fidgety self because I can’t be bothered to get off my ass and move, or stop drinking coffee all day, or...’ They are a blatantly obvious example of crap nobody really needs, solves nothing, creates wealth for a very few, and pollution for the entire world. We can NOT, as a society, keep consuming plastics and plastic-made products because the advertisement got the best of your reason. They are all responsible for more plastic in your organic vegetables, filtered (plastic) bottled water, and the air sucked into your lungs. Every breath you take. Obviously many if not most plastics are produced to fill a valuable need. Fortunately we are innovative, have historical records to find out how we made do ‘pre-plastics’, and can invent substitute products for all applications. In the meantime, we must tackle one of the largest segments of plastic garbage: single-use. Plastic bags, cups, and product packaging are the main culprits here. Plastic packaging has really gotten out of hand over the past couple decades, as wood pulp packaging is replaced by hard plastic shells, often covered / wrapped in a ‘protective layer’ of plastic. I am constantly amazed at how many things are plastic-wrapped now. A single 6-volt battery, a tin of mints, a case of canned goods, a computer, a new car, even cases of plastic bottled water?!? There an endless supply of examples, but few if any examples of an end to this insanity.
If we all work together to end production and use of plastics can we come full-stop overnight? Not by a long decade. But, we can MUST make changes to how we consume plastic items. Those items not being produced in the first place is the main point where drastic change is possible. Well, except capitalism keeps enforcing its expanding (exploding?) production. If capitalism was really a benefit, new products would almost exclusively work to fill a need of the people. No, a capitalist has no empathy, compassion, nor willingness to reduce profits for the benefit of humans. It seems capitalists are just fine with flatulating over an open flame, while they pour gas on it.
As Ashita Parakh points out in her article ‘Capitalism and The Advent of Garbage’ from Unsustainable Magazine,
Plastic pollution exists because dealing with the environmental crisis means profit cuts for major corporations functioning within the model of a capitalist economy, threatening the sole foundation on which this profit-centric economy is based.
(snip)
Social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook are some of the best advertising tools of the 21st century. They enable large corporations to realize their only goal of attaining unprecedented profit and surplus value by targeting individuals with specific advertisements tailored just for them. They toy with consumers’ deepest insecurities and desires, compelling them to over-consume, allowing large corporations to engage in environmentally exploitative behavior by masking environmental deterioration as “obligatory measures for economic growth”.
Ah, so it must be OK then. It is an obligatory measure for economic growth, and we certainly don’t want those commie liberal treehuggers hurting our businesses! Just think of ALL THE JOBS lost! OK, unavoidable sarcasm aside, this seems such an extremely obvious position to many, but it really deserves more support from other voices.
Way back in 2017, an article titled ‘Plastic and Capitalism Are Killing Ocean Life’ by Yves Engler appeared in the Dissident Voice. OK, this isn’t Times magazine, but he a relevant author, and does reference some heavy hitters on the topic. A few of my favorites follow.
According to a recent Ellen MacArthur Foundation study, the world’s oceans are set to have more plastic than fish by 2050.
(snip)
In 2014 Mother Jones published an expose titled “Are any plastics safe?” It noted, “almost all commercially available plastics that were tested leached synthetic estrogens—even when they weren’t exposed to conditions known to unlock potentially harmful chemicals, such as the heat of a microwave, the steam of a dishwasher, or the sun’s ultraviolet rays.”
I guess lavender isn’t the only thing giving me moobs. Yves sums his concerns perfectly at the end:
Based on externalizing costs and privatizing profits, 21st-century capitalism is turning our seas into a plastic blob.
A call to action is described in a 2018 article by Amy Leather in the Socialist Review titled “Why capitalism loves plastic”
Far from being driven by “consumer demand” — and therefore the fault of individual consumers — plastic production is locked into the fossil fuel-based economy of modern industrial capitalism. That is where we must look for the root of the climate crisis.
(snip)
Today half of all plastics produced go into single use applications, and at the heart of this is packaging, which accounts for 26 percent of all production.
Perhaps nothing sums up the irrationality of capitalism more — materials that can last practically forever are used to make products designed to be thrown away.
(snip)
So what do we do? Firstly, rather than take a moralistic approach to each other we need to push the blame upwards, to direct our anger at the producers of plastic and the oil and gas companies, at the governments that let them frack, and demand they be made responsible for what happens to waste plastic.
And finally, with apologies for pushing fair use boundaries:
If we broke from fossil fuels we could develop plant based plastics to replace synthetic ones and rational decisions could be made about how to use such strong and durable substances.
But this will require fundamental change. We must fight now to prevent further expansion of the fossil fuel landscape and to stop more plastic entering our environment. But we must link this to wider demands and a movement that can challenge all the priorities of capitalism.
The entire article is definitely worth a read. THAT is a very sound investment.
Apparently even National Geographic is sounding the alarm. From the June 5, 2019 article “You eat thousands of bits of plastic every year” Sarah Gibbons point out
… a new study in the journal Environmental Science and Technology says it's possible that humans may be consuming anywhere from 39,000 to 52,000 microplastic particles a year. With added estimates of how much microplastic might be inhaled, that number is more than 74,000.
Oh, I hope you don’t still fall for the “bottled water is better for you than tap” myth.
People who meet their recommended water intake through tap water ingest an additional 4,000 plastic particles annually, while those who drink only bottled water ingest an additional 90,000, the study found.
There seems to be increasing plastics in our environment. (Yeah, but) how does that translate to people becoming plastic? An article in Mongabay, a U.S.-based non-profit conservation and environmental science news platform guides us to the culprits. “‘Our life is plasticized’: New research shows microplastics in our food, water, air”, by Elizabeth Claire Alberts, July 15 2020 is revealing. Plastic particles seem to be everywhere. EVERYWHERE.
[Captain Charles] Moore, credited as the person who discovered what’s now known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch… found that, along with larger “macroplastics,” the seawater was swirling with tiny plastic particles: microplastics, which are defined as anything smaller than 5 millimeters but bigger than 1 micron, which is 1/1000th of a millimeter.
Describing one process by which plastics are ejected into our air, she turns to Deonie Allen, co-author of the paper “Examination of the ocean as a source for atmospheric microplastics” published in Plos One May 12, 2020. She describes how the bubbling ocean (especially at shorelines) grab hold of “like velcro” little bits of microplastics on their way to the surface. When the bubbles burst, these microplastics are ejected with force into the air.
…Microplastics are really good at picking up the contaminants in the surrounding environment — phthalates, flame retardants, heavy metals,’ Deonie Allen said. ‘That will get released into the body, relatively effectively.’
…Drinking water, including tap and bottled water, is the largest source of plastic in our diet, with the average person consuming about 1,769 tiny microplastic particles each week, according to a 2019 report supported by WWF.Other primary sources of microplastics include shellfish, beer and salt.”
(snip)
Another study, published in 2020, indicates that plastic accumulates in the muscle tissue of fish.
“If you look at what happens, for example, in fish — it [plastic] stays in their muscles,” [Enrique] Ortiz said. “It’s scary. If you look at the numbers, you’re eating something in the order of one kilo of plastic every three years. I wonder, in our lifetime … if a percentage of our weight will be plastic that is still in our muscles.”
(Enrique Ortiz is a Washington, D.C.-based ecologist and journalist who writes on the plastic pollution issue)
A parting bit of salience can be found when she quotes Captain Charles Moore near the end of the article.
“There’s no change that corporations can make under the current system that will successfully combat plastic pollution,’ Moore said. ‘… The idea that [corporations] can be convinced to reduce their production and sale of the products that they make is a fantasy.”
It appears capitalism is not just a passive player in the plastics industry, but the driving force.
So, based on just the assertions above, it is as easy as 1-2-3 to see:
- Capitalism not only drives plastics production, but is THE driving force and the point where pressure will achieve a more robust outcome.
- Plastic products are getting in to all of our environment, including the ocean, the atmosphere, and soil.
- We are now direct consumers of plastic, and not just with our pocketbook. Fish and shellfish, grass-fed beef, organic juice, eggs, energy / vitamin water, oh, and that belly laugh at the absurdity of this situation (if you really thought it was funny) are all ways you can (and can’t avoid) consuming plastic micro-particles.
It is time to move past the age of ‘consumerism’ and begin the age of ‘save our environment’ before we come to the pinnacle of the ‘sixth great extinction event’ in earth’s known history we have created. Getting out of this divisive, segregated, age of inequality from capitalism (and other forces) will and must be the first step. It is truly time for our Schopenhauer moment.
All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
Can we all please just move to self-evident? We don’t have time for lengthy debates and proposals for these capitalists to ‘just change.’ They won’t. We MUST! Never underestimate our ability to adapt, invent, and solve some of society’s plastic problems. There are already countless solutions for plastic pollution in addition to those two great examples. Unfortunately, we also should never underestimate the greed of those who put wealth above health. For glorious dialogue, assertions, discussions and objections see the comments*
*sure, that is pure speculation, but it is likely the ONLY speculation in the article I could find (that should help the dialogue!)