Because we seem to be trying to turn a planet that supports life into one that does not, I’m posting a question or topic here every week to see if together we can work out some nuts and bolts of how to survive. The whole linkable list of prior questions/discussions can be found here.
This week’s question is What Do You Do About Plastic?
Can you reduce it at the source?
Some plastic is easy to cut out of your life. Straws, bags, all the usual suspects — you’ve likely eliminated these already. But what about the more difficult stuff? Do you have non-plastic toothbrushes, floss? What do you do about plastic caps on medicines and condiment bottles? What about the ubiquitous little plastic “anti-tampering” wrap on hot sauce bottles? Plastic code stickers on vegetables? Shoes, electronics packaging, mailers, expired credit/debt/ID cards, and so much more?
I can make my own hot sauce, absolutely; I can’t make soy sauce, though, and I can’t find any without the plastic cap and “anti-tampering” wrap. I can shop at farmers’ markets for fruit and veggies sans plastic tags, but I can’t make shoes that support me on concrete floors (I spend a lot of time standing and walking on concrete floors). I can’t make the various medicines I need or will need, which means more plastic caps. I have a bamboo toothbrush, but the bristles are nylon and have to be pulled out with pliers when the brush is dead. I can reduce the amount of plastic I take in, and therefore take responsibility for, but I can’t figure out how to eliminate it completely without some very noticable life changes.
I can contact the companies and request/demand/insist they change their ways re. plastic, and that might work, eventually. I can send all their plastic back to them (expensive and produces CO2 in transit). Are there other options?
Can we recycle it?
We’ve been told over and over again that plastic recycling is mostly smoke and mirrors, that very little plastic that is recyclable (already a small percentage of plastic produced) is actually ever recycled. The total amount of plastic recycled in the U.S. is only 5-6%.
Chemical recycling is apparently ready to go in terms of the science, but has not been scaled up to any practical applications yet and there’s a lot of talk about needing more and better catalysts. There’s a plastics dump in Houston demonstrating this issue in real time.
So, unless you have some safe method for artisinal plastic recycling, recycling is a nice idea but not that much of a reality.
What about burning it?
There are multiple ways to burn plastics -- incineration, gasification, and pyrolysis — all of which aim to turn plastic into energy. Incineration is already widely practiced and produces dioxins and styrene gas in addition to CO2 and toxic ash. Meanwhile, gasification and pyrolysis are areas of study, not large-scale processes ready for plant building, and may ultimately be no better than incineration in terms of toxic products, if they ever get to full scale implementation.
Composting
Plastic could be truly compostable if microorganisms could be added to eat plastics, not just break them into smaller pieces. If such organisms existed in large numbers, they’d already be eating plastic, and they aren’t. Not all plastic is tasty to the few, rare microorganisms that do eat plastic. And there are often enzymes needed for the eating process to ensure that bits of polymer broken apart this way don’t just link together again.
And, to reiterate, if something is developed that can eat plastic, it will get out of human control, proliferate, and eat all the plastic. Imagine this world suddenly without plastic. It would be… interesting.
Reusing/Repurposing
Stuff leaches from plastics (such as endocrine disruptors), is adsorbed and absorbed onto and into plastics, and plastic objects develop pits, cracks, and scratches that provide places for things to accumulate or live. Large plastic will break into smaller pieces of plastic, especially plastic that both photodegrades and is exposed to sunlight.
You can use plastic bottles filled with tamped down dirt as building materials, such as in some earthship homes, but the problem with plastic and the toxins that go with it getting into the water, air, soil, and food doesn’t go away just because the bottles are buried.
So what do we, as individuals and communities, do about plastic?
Meanwhile, meet the Plastics!
