Plastic-free July is here, and I'm one of the 32 people in the world who celebrates this month of activism. Actually, the website https://www.plasticfreejuly.org/ claims
Our movement has inspired over 250 million participants in 177 countries.
I'm not sure I believe those numbers -- elsewhere, the site claims there are 120 million people involved -- but either way this means that I am in a group that makes up less than 32 thousandths of one percent of the entire world population. I say all that to let you know that I realize I'm little bit fringe here.
With all that's going on in the world and our nation, it might seem a strange time to obsess about plastic. But I'm going to try to write about plastic -- and avoiding plastic -- all this month anyway. After all, our use and abuse of plastic exacerbates social iniquities and public health concerns. In my eyes (okay, and in the eyes of a bunch of other really smart people), our global consumption of plastic, the Black Lives Matters movement, and human health crises are all interwoven. And, of course, there's that minor issue of environmental degradation and disruption of ecosystems and the biosphere. You know.
Most people I know kind of agree in principle that there's too much frivolous plastic waste in the world and even in their own lives, but find the whole issue daunting. My friend TL tells me that the biggest hurdle I'll face in writing about this is that the problem is so vast, it seems overwhelming to even think about where to begin. Plastic is so pervasive in our lives, and in our homes, and in our habits, that it's intimidating thinking about even starting to change this.
Since I don't want to be intimidating -- just inspiring and effective(!) -- I'm going to offer a focus. I'll focus most on single-use plastics. Even more, I'll focus on verbs, rather than nouns. I'm going to challenge myself to post about plastic every day in July (except Sundays, because that's my internet sabbath), and I think that's going to be really hard for me, but I know that I'm urging other people to do something that's uncomfortable/new/challenging for them, so it only seems fair to suffer a little in solidarity.
That's all for today: just a heads-up that more is coming.
Woo! Looking forward to it.
ReplyDeleteI know styrofoam isn't plastic (or is it?) but it's got similar problems. Now that I'm supporting my favorite restaurants by getting take-out, I'm getting a depressing amount of styrofoam. I've learned at my favorite Tex-Mex restaurant that taco salads come on a tiny piece of styrofoam in a big package of aluminum foil (which often stays clean and can be re-used), unlike my favorite things which come in huge, divided styrofoam containers. And I finally remembered that breakfast tacos usually come in tin foil, too, so I'm switching to that next time and I'll find out.
Oh, good questions! I avoid this by not ever getting take-out (or going to restaurants, or . . . well, shopping the way normal people do). But I know that's not the way other people want to live.
DeleteI'm DEFINITELY going to do a post about this. Thank you for the question!
Cool, thanks! My boyfriend loooves restaurants, so we're going once a week or so. Me, I've finally switched away from cheap-o fast food to more decent food, so that's what's going on in our household. During this pandemic, we're going only to our favorite locally owned restaurants.
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