Talkin' Trash

Written by Adaire Hahn | 01 August 2009

 “Clean up your own messes!” I hear my Mother’s voice echoing in my own mouth as it falls upon my selective-hearing children. The four year old has two juice boxes and an empty yogurt container, smeared into crop circles on her table. The teenager has yet to acknowledge daylight before 1:00 in the afternoon and has left his chip bag on the floor to attract four-year-olds and other scavengers.
“Throw it in the trash please” and without really thinking about it, I notice that I am guiding my four year old to a giant plastic bag, placed inside another hard plastic shell, to make its arduous journey to the landfill and our Pacific Ocean, to a paradise island known as “Trash Island”.
Trash Island is a gyre of plastic rubbish, caught in the circular currents 500 nautical miles off the coast of California and NE of Hawaii while another resides off the coast of Japan. It was discovered by accident in 1997 when American sailor Charles Moore was returning from a yacht race. Roughly the size of Texas it includes debris dated back to the 50s and 60s. Estimates place it at 100 million tons of plastic circulating in the northern pacific alone, which is about 2.5 % of all plastic items since 1950.
The trouble with this pesky plastic is that it won’t go away. Even with particle break down, it breaks into smaller particulates that are filtered to the bottom of the ocean for sea life consumption. It’s estimated that over a million sea-birds and one hundred thousand marine mammals and sea turtles are killed each year by ingestion of plastics or entanglement. In addition to consumption and entanglement, there’s the added chemical bonus of becoming a “Chemical sponge” whereby the larger pieces of plastic can concentrate and absorb many of the most damaging pollutants found the world’s oceans called POPs or persistent organic pollutants. Plastic bags, toothbrushes, disposable lighters, diapers, and soda bottles are only some of the prime suspects in the gyre. Lest I think we have been such a diligent nation of “responsible recyclers” here’s another startling stat: the Environmental Protection Agency’s latest Municipal Solid Waste in the United States report (2003 Data) states that 94.8% of plastics are thrown away and not recycled in any way.
I found myself thoroughly depressed looking around my room at all the plastic I have already acquired, not to mention the thought of that hideous 80s shoe trend “jellies” in every plastic shape and uncomfortable contour floating out there in a continual spiral with the sea turtles. Maybe I “didn’t start the fire”, but it doesn’t mean that my collusion in this plastic partisanship has to continue.
Here are a few ways to purge plastic and non-recyclables from our lives:
Cloth Bags! Cloth Bags! Cloth Bags! If you can find some that are made from already recycled clothing or material, award yourself 10 extra green points! “Training” yourself to put them back in your trunk after you put the groceries away takes repetition, but it's do able. Also, refuse a bag if it's only a couple of items you can easily carry.
?Choose wisely. I am a big fan of hummus and love to use it as a spread or a snack, but there again is that plastic tub staring at me! A can of chickpeas, some olive oil, lemon juice in the blender and “presto”! You have leftovers for a couple of days and fresh hummus!
?No water bottles! Period! It's a big scam by soda companies and chances are, the tap water is better for you, especially after leaving the plastic bottle in a hot car where the carcinogens leach into the water, where it's been linked to breast cancer.
?As for plastic garbage bags, there are now trash liner bags made from compostable and biodegradable plant matter. Ask your grocery store to support carrying biodegradable plastic liners as well as biodegradable cutler. I recommend that you check out the following web sites:
Environmental Cleanup Coalition  http://www.gyrecleanup.org/
The Algalita Marine Research Foundation http://www.algalita.org/
Adaire’s children frequently practice water and resource conservation by avoiding showers, washing dishes, or doing laundry for as long as possible.