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Related: About this forumHow Big Oil and Big Soda kept a global environmental calamity a secret for decades
Every human on Earth is ingesting nearly 2,000 particles of plastic a week. These tiny pieces enter our unwitting bodies from tap water, food, and even the air, according to an alarming academic study sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund for Nature, dosing us with five grams of plastics, many cut with chemicals linked to cancers, hormone disruption, and developmental delays. Since the papers publication last year, Sen. Tom Udall, a plain-spoken New Mexico Democrat with a fondness for white cowboy hats and turquoise bolo ties, has been trumpeting the risk: We are consuming a credit cards worth of plastic each week, Udall says. At events with constituents, he will brandish a Visa from his wallet and declare, Youre eating this, folks!
With new legislation, the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act of 2020, Udall is attempting to marshal Washington into a confrontation with the plastics industry, and to force companies that profit from plastics to take accountability for the waste they create. Unveiled in February, the bill would ban many single-use plastics and force corporations to finance end of life programs to keep plastic out of the environment. Were going back to that principle, the senator tells Rolling Stone. The polluter pays.
The battle pits Udall and his allies in Congress against some of the most powerful corporate interests on the planet, including the oil majors and chemical giants that produce the building blocks for our modern plastic world think Exxon, Dow, and Shell and consumer giants like Coca-Cola, Nestlé, and Unilever that package their products in the stuff. Big Plastic isnt a single entity. Its more like a corporate supergroup: Big Oil meets Big Soda with a puff of Big Tobacco, responsible for trillions of plastic cigarette butts in the environment every year. And it combines the lobbying and public-relations might of all three.
Americans have occasionally crusaded against problem plastics scapegoating packing peanuts, grocery bags, or drinking straws for the sins of our unsustainable consumer economy. Weve been slow to recognize that were actually in the midst of a plastic pandemic. Over the past 70 years, weve gotten hooked on disposable goods and packaging as plastics became the lifeblood of an American culture of speed, convenience, and disposability thats conquered the globe. Plastic contains our hot coffee and frozen dinners. It is the material of childhood, from Pampers to Playmobil to PlayStation 4. It cloaks our e-commerce purchases and is woven into our sneakers, fast fashion, and business fleece. Humans are now using a million plastic bottles a minute, and 500 billion plastic bags a year including those we use to bag up our plastic-laden trash.
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/plastic-problem-recycling-myth-big-oil-950957/
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How Big Oil and Big Soda kept a global environmental calamity a secret for decades (Original Post)
Newest Reality
Mar 2020
OP
Mickju
(1,805 posts)1. I don't see this ending any time soon, or ever.
Newest Reality
(12,712 posts)2. I agree.
How could it?
Excuse me while I go slide a credit card through my alimentary canal.
The_jackalope
(1,660 posts)3. I do. But...
It will happen when industrial civilization begins to fracture in earnest.
Some may say that's a high price to pay to get rid of plastic. I'm OK with it.
Mickju
(1,805 posts)4. Well yes, I agree it will happen when industrial civilization implodes.
And that is not as far off as most people think.