Peer pressure and plastic

Nowadays, I often write these blog posts from my front porch.   And as I type these wondrous words about using chalk instead of markers, or about taking a pyrex container to the fish market for our weekly refrigerator restocking, . . . as I write this, I see my neighbors climbing out of their cars with multiple plastic grocery bags filled with plastic-wrapped grocery items.  My own garbage can has been at the curb only twice so far in 2020, but I see my neighbors hauling giant garbage cans to the street every week, full of large plastic garbage bags containing disposable plates and cups, cheap plastic toys purchased on a whim that quickly broke, and a variety of other kind of garbage that I kind of forgot even existed because it's now so foreign to my own daily experience.

Does my own individual behavior make a meaningful difference?  A reasonable person could make an argument that we can't as a society, rely on individual people voluntarily reducing their use of plastic; the only effective way to combat the environmental/societal/health aspects of the issue is through legislative change.  Individual eco-nuts (like me) are merely a fringe distraction from the important structural changes that need to take place, the argument goes.

I'd like to argue for the eco-nuts.  The solution we're facing isn't a binary one (EITHER individuals step up, OR we get to structural change).   It has to be both.   

Peer pressure is real, and I like to think that making a plastic-free choice is a pressure in the right direction.   A recent article in ZME Science says this:

We’ve recently published research based on data collected in mid-2019 (before COVID-19). Our findings showed that not only were people avoiding single-use plastics most of the time, but one of the biggest motivators was knowing others were avoiding them too. Avoidance was becoming normal. . . . We found people’s beliefs about how often others were avoiding these items was one of the strongest predictors of their own intentions.

This blog might make you think I preach at other people a lot about this, but really, I mostly try to just do my own thing.  And yet, I've had a bunch of different times when people have watched me and then started imitating my example.  For example, I carry a small plate with me to campus events where there will be food; I've had a half-dozen other people tell me they've started to do the same at social events they attend.  

Or this story:  about three years ago, my local math society suddenly changed how it did handouts at meetings.   When I registered myself and a bunch of students, I saw an announcement saying that the program would be available electronically, and people who wanted paper versions now had to specifically request this as they registered.   I figured, cool, and signed us all up for the trash-free version, and didn't even think about what brought about this new policy.

When I got to the meeting, I found out the reason for the change: at the previous meeting, when we had arrived at the sign-in table, I had explained to the person behind the table that I didn't need a paper packet (with fancy folder, pens, flyers, etc).   That person happened to be the incoming chair of our section, and she said something "clicked" at that moment.  Maybe the section meeting didn't really need to go to the expense and waste of purchasing folders, printing out lots of paper, etc.  So she switched the section to online "handouts" only, with no complaints -- and lots of kudos -- from attendees.   I say "no, thank you" to handouts as a matter of habit, but that one particular "no, thank you" happened to lead to a reduction of hundreds and hundreds of needless registration packets.

Sometimes, being the one willing to speak up helps people who want to do the plastic-free thing actually do it.  I said above that I don't try to preach at other people, but sometimes I do make requests.   

• When I go to meetings with those clip-on name tags, I'll ask the organizers if they can have a "return box" so that people can give the tags back at the end of the meeting.  (They're usually really grateful for the request; it tends to be one of those details that gets overlooked in pulling a local meeting together).  
• When the boy scouts hung a plastic bag on my door as part of a food drive about 5 years ago, I found the local organizers and asked them (as politely as I could) to consider alternatives (see the post about that here).  It turns out, the guy in charge of the food drive wanted to get rid of the bags but had felt pressure to keep using them; my one little email was all the support he needed to discontinue the practice.  The next year we got this message from the scouts:
  
  Today, Scouts from Pack XYZ placed door hangers on neighbors doors announcing our annual non-perishable food and personal item drive. Based on lots of feedback from neighbors, we decided to do away with the awful white plastic bags that inevitably blew through the streets following our distribution.

For 5 years since, we've had paper tags instead of plastic bags.  

There's still a lot of plastic in the world, and it won't stop just because of me.  But one of the things we know is that legislation to enact change rests, in part, upon a society that is prepared for the change.  And so every little bit that I can do to make it seem easier to, say, enact a plastic bag ban or encourage merchants to adopt plastic-free packaging is a little bit in the right direction.  And sometimes, when other people see what I'm doing and figure they can do it, too, it's a little bit more in the right direction.  

I want to emphasize that.  Peer pressure is real: we know from psychological study after study that people do what they think other people are doing, whether it's reusing a towel at a hotel or taking petrified wood from national parks or watching certain videos.  So what we choose to do is a political and social act, often even more so than what we choose to say.  (Politely) saying "no" to plastic is an effect that ripples outward, and we need these ripples if we're going to avoid oceans of plastic in the centuries to come.