I actually wrote this post a few months ago. I keep putting off its posting, because it feels strange to bring up yet another important issue when we all have so many other things on our minds. But it’s beginning to weigh me down, having it sit there in queue, gathering dust. So here it is. I hope you can see through all our other stressors long enough to take it seriously. Thanks for reading. Stay safe.
I just read a very disturbing article, and it wasn’t even about COVID-19. It is in the Rolling Stone, and it’s entitled, “Planet Plastic: How Big Oil and Big Soda kept a global environmental calamity a secret for decades.”
It’s a long read, and a disturbing one. Here are just a few of the statistics it mentions.
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Each one of us ingests nearly 2,000 particles of plastic a week, from tap water, food, and the air. That’s the equivalent of swallowing 1 credit card a week.
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Worldwide, we use 1 million plastic bottles a minute and 500 billion plastic bags a year.
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A dump truck load of plastic enters our oceans every minute.
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Since 1950, the world has created 6.3 trillion kilograms of plastic waste, 91% of which has never been recycled.
It goes on to say that the fossil fuel industry is doing its best to keep us consuming plastic, because as we start to break our dependency on oil, the only way they can continue to make a profit is by selling it to us in the form of plastic.
There is one bright note. A Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act of 2020 has been introduced to Congress. This act would ban many single-use plastics, and force corporations to pay for programs to keep plastic out of the environment.
Making the front end polluter pay sounds like a really great first step, but this act faces forceful opposition from the oil and soda lobbies, and Trump is very much in favor of propping up the oil industry, so it will be interesting to see how far this gets. Ask your congressman to support this act.
We need to do something. We probably won’t. This has got to stop. It probably won’t. But at least there are people out there who are thinking about it, and they need our support.
Recently a dead whale was found with nearly 64 pounds of plastic waste inside his stomach. That’s real. The picture below is an artist’s representation of this. If this doesn’t stop you dead in your tracks, nothing will.
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The View from a Drawbridge 