Can't We Just Let It Die Already?

In the BBC Science and Environment news this week, Jonathan Amos reported that scientists have recorded the highest levels of microplastics ever. EVER. For all time. The accumulations were so great that they almost seem to form their own geologic strata. An estimate of 4-12 million tonnes of plastic waste are discharged through human activities into our water system. Animals mistake these particles for food and die of starvation. Chemicals from plastic treatment and weathering can lead to toxic waterways. It’s a mess.

And why?

During the recent months, we’ve seen the economic impact that shutting down consumer-based economies can have on cultures. The United States is heavily dependent on consumer spending for most of its GDP. That spending relies heavily on petroleum products (including plastics) and the constant generation of cheap, disposable items. And everything has petroleum in it. Clothing, furniture, food stuffs, all the plastics that go into making our common grocery items and synthetic fabrics are based on petroleum. And they don’t degrade. The just break into smaller pieces to gum up environmental processes. And this is the foundation of our entire US culture. The consumption, trade, resale, destruction, disposal, and production of these items.

Not only do the items contaminate our water, our marine food, our ocean sediments, but the plastics are in our blood as well. High levels of them, too. This can cause hormonal disruption and fetal malformations in animals, but surprisingly little study on plastic effects on humans has been conducted. Weird, right? Almost as if the most powerful industry the world has ever known may not want it publicly studied how toxic and pervasive their materials are. And make no mistake, these plastic products and byproducts are toxic.

These materials contain heavy metals, organophosphates, PFAS, and a cornucopia of other compounds that are shown to have hugely negative effects on life. Organophosphates, for example, can be used for pesticides or nerve gas. Its very nature is to destroy living things. And they put it in shampoo. You’ve got to be kidding me.

But this is what our whole economy and way of life is based on. How ironic is it? We’ve made a living off institutionalized death for the past one hundred years. And it’s not even that profitable. We have to work menial, corporate jobs to prop up a system that exploits natural resources, destroys those same resources, poisons life, and will eventually be enshrined in the geologic record as the ‘Age of Plastics.’ I mean, we won’t be able to study it probably, since humans will probably kill themselves off in the next few hundred years, but whatever alien race or new life form that evolves from the toxic soup we leave for Planet Earth should have a good time looking at these chemicals and wondering how a conscious, intelligent species could intentionally mortgage their health and environment for short-term market gains.

Remarkable.

So, as we consider reopening our desperately failing consumerist economy to prevent further degradation of our GDP at the risk of losing 2% of our citizen base to a global pandemic, maybe we should think about whether or not the economy (as it currently runs) is worth saving.

We have all the resources we need. This could be an opportunity to reuse those plastics. Recycle clothing into paper to prevent forest loss. Switch to growing chitin from mushrooms instead of just producing plastic piece after plastic piece that gets thrown away after a single use. Here is an opportunity to develop fungal and microbial strains that can eat those microplastics, just as they evolved to consume lignin 200 million years ago…which, by the way, is the reason we have oil today. Circle of life.

Instead of going back to the way things were, why don’t we leverage the resources we already have to transition to a truly sustainable world. Rebuild cities for pedestrians and cyclists. Put resources into real waste management that can produce domestic goods out of recycled materials and not just ship recycling to China for their production line. Use our waste to create energy, new services, new infrastructure that can make up for jobs based on waste and consumption in the past. Domestic production, sustainable infrastructure, jobs all of these could be built on a holistic use cycle that minimizes waste, stops companies from getting to dose all their materials with toxic soups, and keeps our culture and economy based on something other than just mindless work and blind use.

Resources

Amos, Jonathan. “High microplastic concentration found on ocean floor.” BBC Science and Environment News. May 1 2020. Available at https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-52489126.

National Report On Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals. Available at http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/dls/report. CDC National Center for Environmental Health.