Plastic Use and Greenwashing… The Big Lie(s).
While I realize that I have been on an environmental kick over the last few articles, I would like to cover one more topic before I move onto other social issues of interest. My last article dealt with our trash and covered the spectrum of trash material that Solid Municipal Waste facilities have to deal with. In this article, I am going to focus on the very specific trash item of plastics. Are they really recyclable? Or have we been “greenwashed” into believing that our recycling practices can control the plethora of plastic that has been produced and dumped. Have “we, the consumers” been lied to by corporate America for the almighty dollar? Greenwashing… The Lie. For starters, lets begin with the term “greenwashing”. “Greenwashing is essentially when a company or organization spends more time and money on marketing themselves as being sustainable than on actually minimizing their environmental impact. It’s a deceitful advertising method to gain favor with consumers who choose to support businesses that care about bettering the planet.” So who would I say are the ultimate Greenwashers..? Who Started the Recycling Lie? I’m old enough to remember the now famous 1971 “Crying Indian” commercial, which was designed to draw attention to the growing issue of our waste management. It was put out by the Keep America Beautiful campaign, which was “formed in 1953 when a group of corporate and civic leaders met in New York City to bring the public and private sectors together to develop and promote a national cleanliness ethic.” They have a statement on their lead page: At Keep America Beautiful, we believe in the shared responsibility to build and maintain clean, green, and beautiful spaces.That’s why we take action every day to improve and beautify communities across America. I underlined the key words from the KAB Goal that stands out. “Shared responsibility” to maintain clean, green and beautiful spaces. The irony behind this is who actually founded KAB: the packaging companies, to divert blame from the industry and make the consumers feel responsible for the waste crisis. WHY would the plastic producers do such a thing? Greenwashing for Profits… “When states began responding to the litter problem, the packaging and beverage industry worried the message would undermine their business models. Their profits demanded disposable cans and food packaging. So they founded Keep America Beautiful, which put the litter problem back on the people and out of the hands of corporations. The packaging industry relied on convincing people they needed to buy more stuff and that these items would undergo a cycle of becoming trash almost immediately. Society had to be trained to dispose of single-use plastic. The bottle and can industry used the power of advertising to convince consumers that the things they were reusing, like glass bottles, were garbage.” Basically, by the 1960’s protesters were putting the blame of the growing waste problem onto the packaging industries. They blamed the industries for causing the proliferation of disposable items and depleting natural resources. “Keep America Beautiful practiced a sly form of propaganda. Since the corporations behind the campaign never publicized their involvement, audiences assumed that the group was a disinterested party.” A Brief History of Plastics Unfortunately for our growing global material needs, plastics have become a necessary evil. Let’s dig a little into the history of plastic so we can better understand WHY the invention of plastic was actually necessary, at the time. According to the Science History Institute: The first synthetic polymer was invented in 1869 by John Wesley Hyatt, who was inspired by a New York firm’s offer of $10,000 for anyone who could provide a substitute for ivory. The growing popularity of billiards had put a strain on the supply of natural ivory, obtained through the slaughter of wild elephants. By treating cellulose, derived from cotton fiber, with camphor, Hyatt discovered a plastic that could be crafted into a variety of shapes and made to imitate natural substances like tortoiseshell, horn, linen, and ivory. This discovery was revolutionary. For the first time human manufacturing was not constrained by the limits of nature. Nature only supplied so much wood, metal, stone, bone, tusk, and horn. But now humans could create new materials. This development helped not only people but also the environment. Advertisements praised celluloid as the savior of the elephant and the tortoise. Plastics could protect the natural world from the destructive forces of human need. The creation of new materials also helped free people from the social and economic constraints imposed by the scarcity of natural resources. Inexpensive celluloid made material wealth more widespread and obtainable. Could it be said that plastic “saved” the elephants..? Overly simplified, but somewhat truthful for the time. The limitations of natural resources were being felt, and the innovation of plastic would allow a new freedom in what was used to manufacture materials. So, yes, initially a win for all involved, both Nature and Man. Expansion of Plastic Usage The initial invention of natural plastic in 1869 lead to other innovations: -The invention of Bakelight in 1907, which was made from completely synthetic materials to help with the insulation of the newly growing electrical power lines, -To the invention of nylon in 1935 to help with the needs of WWII, which replaced silk for parachutes, and was used for body armor, etc. “During World War II plastic production in the United States increased by 300%.” The issue then became what to do with all that plastic production once the initial wartime use had faltered… So we have the advent of Tupperware in 1948, and “the example of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) invented in 1941, to show how versatile these cheap new materials could be. Today it is used to make fizzy drinks bottles, because it is strong enough to hold two atmospheres of pressure… [It is also used to make] a soft winter glove, as well as a sheet of plastic for wrapping flowers. “It’s the same material,” [says Andrea Sella]. The only
We the Consumer… Trash and Our Green Future
My last article(s) dealt with batteries and their importance as a step towards a greener future. I ended the article with this paragraph: We the Consumer… And as the simple consumer of at the end of all this battery production and technological advancements… What can we do? We can recycle. We can promote recycling locally. We can insist on buying recycled materials, not just recycled battery and technology parts, but recycled glass, metals, fabrics, wood products. A Green Future is not just in energy production, but in better waste management as well. “After a century of heavy industrial activity, we also have a wealth of human waste products full of reclaimable elements: wastewater, discarded consumer electronics and even pollution in the atmosphere. Technologies that scientists are developing to clean up these wastes can literally turn trash into treasure. “If you’re going to remove it, why not recover it?”” The Question of Trash Management The question for this article deals with just how much trash we put out and are we making the most of waste management, specifically sorting and recycling… Because if there is a finite amount of metals to be mined for our batteries, it would be a safe guess that there is a finite amount of land space for our trash. How Much Trash? The amount of trash, or municipal solid waste, generated here in the United States in 2018, per person, was 2.58 kg/day… That’s 5.7 lbs/day for those of us not comfortable with metric. That would be the equivalent of throwing away your mother’s Yorkie each day. Or 3 gallons of milk. Or a 24” TV. Just trying to put this into perspective. Even if we go with the EPA 2018 number of 4.9 lbs per person, that still adds up 35 lbs per week, or 149 lbs of trash per month FROM ONE PERSON. If you live with someone, double that. If your live in a family of four, quadruple that. Now let’s make this a visual representation… Imagine, if you would, that the trash you generate in a month is an “adult”, or better yet, an adult sized mannequin. We’ll round this up to 150 lbs. Now imagine that you lived outside of town and had no trash service. You have a busy life, and you let your mannequins pile up. That would be 12 mannequins piled up against your house, or wherever you put your trash, in just a year’s time. That is 1800 lbs of trash. Almost one ton. Now add a family of four; that’s 7200 lbs. And this is just ONE family. I won’t extend this out, but I hope I am getting my point across. According to the EPA, in 2018 the United States generated 292.4 million tons of municipal solid waste – trash. Where exactly does all that trash go? Where Does Our Trash Go? Over half of our trash goes to landfills. Land. Land that cannot be farmed. Land that is not in it’s natural state with the local flora and fauna, so it cannot be enjoyed by “getting outdoors” in a natural setting. Land that cannot have homes on it. Land. “Landfills are designed to store waste, but not to break it down. They are made up of layers lined with clay and covered in a flexible plastic skin. Drains and pipes crisscross each layer to collect the contaminated fluid created by garbage. As a layer fills, it is covered with another sheet of plastic and [finally] topped with soil and plants. Eventually, garbage will decompose in a landfill, but the process is slow in this oxygen-free environment.” So, landfills take up land space and are not “quick” in the decomposition of trash. When a landfill is “closed” and covered for the last time, the area is given time to stabilize and settle. “Upon stabilization, some landfill sites are used as parks, playgrounds, golf courses, or other facilities. Both John F. Kennedy and La Guardia Airports were built on landfills.” Please note the use of the word “some” landfills, not all. For any interested, the rules governing the environmentally safe maintenance, placement and closing of a landfill can be found here. Therefore landfills are not the best method of waste management due to slow rate of waste decomposition, land use and potential for environmental pollution from waste within the landfill. Recycle and Reuse What else do we do with our trash? “Roughly 35% of all solid waste goes to either a recycling or composting facility. The goal of both recycling and composting is to reuse waste by turning it into new products. Recycling facilities generally focus on processing aluminum, plastics, paper and glass, while composters use food and agricultural waste to create compost for municipal and consumer use.” Recycling While Traveling… From my own personal experience, there seems to be quite a bit of variance on recycling from state to state. I’ve recently been able to do a little traveling and in the last year or two, I have been across our great country. One thing stood out in my travels. Recycling, or the lack thereof. Having lived in the Pacific Northwest, recycling is big. You pay a recycle fee on bottles and cans to ensure that if you don’t recycle it, someone else will. I’m sure, if you look, you’ve seen those fees listed on your favorite drink and what states charge them. Where I was at, they even set up a neat system; where instead of a monetary exchange for your bag of recyclables, you were given a card/ID number that you could then use as cash at any participating store. Kind of easy. What I found as I traveled through the Midwest was that there was little to no recycling. My trash was dumped in a single can, no separation. Now some areas do have recycling, but even that seemed rather simplified consisting of a two can system with trash and recyclables. In the Pacific Northwest, I lived in an HOA where
