Plastics, Benjamin
by Barbara Lambert Hale
For Ecology & Social Action Sunday, April 13, 2014
“Plastics, Benjamin.”
It’s hard for me to believe that it has been fewer than fifty years since those immortal words were uttered in movie theaters all across this nation in the opening scene from The Graduate. The movie was released 47 years ago in 1967. Mr. McGuire was probably right at the time to advise Benjamin to get into the plastics industry. Since the sixties, plastics have exploded into our world. Plastics are everywhere. Plastics are us. Benjamin probably would have done pretty well for himself.
I mean, think about it. This morning as you were lying in your partly foam bed on your foam pillow (PLASTICS), you looked over at your plastic alarm clock and noticed it was time to get up. You showered and washed your hair with shampoo out of a plastic bottle. Actually, I would wager that all your toiletries, like mine, are enclosed in plastic. Once clean, you rushed downstairs to start the coffee in your plastic drip coffee maker and you grabbed a yogurt for breakfast and ate it out of its plastic container. Then you hopped into your car with its plastic fenders, its plastic steering wheel, its plastic air bags, and its seat covers made of microfiber….in other words plastic. And now here you sit.
After church, you may decide to go out to lunch where the wait person will bring you iced water in a plastic “glass” and hand you a plastic straw. You can’t eat everything so your leftovers are put into a foam container for you to bring home…more plastic.
You need to go to the grocery later where you grab a cucumber and some jalapenos and put them in separate plastic produce bags because who knows what might happen if they happen to mingle…the cool and the hot! You grab some chicken already sitting on foam…plastic… and wrapped in plastic wrap and put it into a plastic meat bag to make sure it doesn’t contaminate your other items. You ate your last yogurt this morning. You pick up more yogurt housed in plastic.
You get to the check out. Darn! You forgot to bring your reusable bags AGAIN…more plastic. By now, it’s 4:00 in the afternoon and you haven’t even had a minute to sit in front of your plastic television or your plastic computer keyboard or to talk to your BFF on your plastic personal communications device.
Yes, plastics are everywhere. Plastic is so ubiquitous that we seldom even really see it, much less think about it.
But when you do think about it, you might think that that car you drove to church is more fuel efficient because of the light-weight nature of plastic. It’s safer, too, because of the plastic airbags. And that’s true.
I stand here able to see you because I wear plastic glasses. For me, they have to be plastic because I’m allergic to a certain widely used metal. And as I stand here, my left knee doesn’t hurt like it did a couple years ago thanks to my knee replacement, which is partly made of plastic.
I discovered when I had my knee replaced that you don’t have to spend much time at all in a hospital to know how much the medical industry has become dependent on plastic. From plastic knees to plastic heart valves. From sphygmomanometers (or blood pressure monitors) to thermometer covers.
Plastic, plastic and more plastic. We can’t get away from it in this post-Graduate world. And, let’s face it, in some cases, plastics do have practical uses and seem to make life better.
Besides, you recycle, don’t you? And that’s a very good thing. Instead of languishing in a landfill somewhere, possibly leaching chemicals into the ground, your disposable, yet virtually indestructible plastic bottles and jugs may someday be made into hard-wearing park benches or eco-friendly paint.
But what I really want to talk to you about today is that straw that the wait person will bring to you later with your “glass” of iced water. In fact, while you are sitting there in that restaurant, he or she is bringing a plastic straw to maybe twenty or thirty other people also sitting in the restaurant. Think about it. What is going to happen to those plastic straws that you all will use for less than an hour? Will they be recycled? No, most likely those straws will be thrown away. And if we are all lucky, they will actually make it into a landfill where they may leach toxins into the ground but will not become loose trash. Because plastic straws, given their size, shape and structure, are enormously difficult to pick up except one by one and by hand. Who knows where that straw might end up if it doesn’t make it to the landfill? Perhaps, it will become part of a plastic island floating in the sea or it will be eaten by an unsuspecting animal.
Here is some rather disturbing information about disposable plastic straws. According to the website Ecocycle. org, “More than 500 million disposable plastic straws are used in the United States every day and would fill more than 127 school buses daily, or more than 46,400 school bus loads per year. This is an average of 1.6 straws per person (in the US) per day. Based on this national average, each person in the US will use approximately 38,000 or more straws between the ages of 5 and 65.” Those figures, according to the web-site, are based on estimates provided by straw manufacturers. And while this number may sound high, many environmentalists believe it is in fact a low number because it doesn’t include straws that are attached to juice boxes and milk cartons both of which containers, by the way, are made of cardboard and polyethylene (in other words, plastic) and are therefore difficult to recycle.
But I digress. I really just wonder how much any of us really need that straw that the waitperson will hand us at lunch today. Why don’t we all resolve to refuse that disposable plastic straw?
I wanted to bring this up, because just saying no to a plastic straw is something we can all do easily and though it seems like a small thing, when you think about it in terms of school buses, it becomes a bit more significant.
Today, we handed out a list of ten things that you can do without much effort to reduce your use of disposable plastics, like refusing plastic straws and remembering to take your reusable bags with you when you shop.
For the beauty and health of our earth, for our own health and the health of the earth’s wildlife, please think about making some of these into habits.
The world sure is different today than it was in 1967. We now know that plastic, while useful in our consumer culture, is also a pollutant that could take up to 1,000 years to decompose in our landfills. We now know that there are tons and tons of plastic debris floating in the oceans threatening the health and safety of marine life.
Today, if I were standing by an eerily lit pool and wanted to give Benjamin some advice, I might say to him “I just want to say three words to you, Benjamin.” He’d say, “Yes, ma’am.” I’d say, “Are you listening?” He’d say, “Yes, I am.” I would say, “Resolve to Refuse.” He’d say, “Exactly how do you mean?” I’d say, “The future health of our earth depends on us working to reduce our use of disposable plastic. When you have a choice between using disposable plastic or not, please think about refusing it. Will you think about it?”
Let’s hope Ben would say, “Yes, I will” and mean it.
by Barbara Lambert Hale
For Ecology & Social Action Sunday, April 13, 2014
“Plastics, Benjamin.”
It’s hard for me to believe that it has been fewer than fifty years since those immortal words were uttered in movie theaters all across this nation in the opening scene from The Graduate. The movie was released 47 years ago in 1967. Mr. McGuire was probably right at the time to advise Benjamin to get into the plastics industry. Since the sixties, plastics have exploded into our world. Plastics are everywhere. Plastics are us. Benjamin probably would have done pretty well for himself.
I mean, think about it. This morning as you were lying in your partly foam bed on your foam pillow (PLASTICS), you looked over at your plastic alarm clock and noticed it was time to get up. You showered and washed your hair with shampoo out of a plastic bottle. Actually, I would wager that all your toiletries, like mine, are enclosed in plastic. Once clean, you rushed downstairs to start the coffee in your plastic drip coffee maker and you grabbed a yogurt for breakfast and ate it out of its plastic container. Then you hopped into your car with its plastic fenders, its plastic steering wheel, its plastic air bags, and its seat covers made of microfiber….in other words plastic. And now here you sit.
After church, you may decide to go out to lunch where the wait person will bring you iced water in a plastic “glass” and hand you a plastic straw. You can’t eat everything so your leftovers are put into a foam container for you to bring home…more plastic.
You need to go to the grocery later where you grab a cucumber and some jalapenos and put them in separate plastic produce bags because who knows what might happen if they happen to mingle…the cool and the hot! You grab some chicken already sitting on foam…plastic… and wrapped in plastic wrap and put it into a plastic meat bag to make sure it doesn’t contaminate your other items. You ate your last yogurt this morning. You pick up more yogurt housed in plastic.
You get to the check out. Darn! You forgot to bring your reusable bags AGAIN…more plastic. By now, it’s 4:00 in the afternoon and you haven’t even had a minute to sit in front of your plastic television or your plastic computer keyboard or to talk to your BFF on your plastic personal communications device.
Yes, plastics are everywhere. Plastic is so ubiquitous that we seldom even really see it, much less think about it.
But when you do think about it, you might think that that car you drove to church is more fuel efficient because of the light-weight nature of plastic. It’s safer, too, because of the plastic airbags. And that’s true.
I stand here able to see you because I wear plastic glasses. For me, they have to be plastic because I’m allergic to a certain widely used metal. And as I stand here, my left knee doesn’t hurt like it did a couple years ago thanks to my knee replacement, which is partly made of plastic.
I discovered when I had my knee replaced that you don’t have to spend much time at all in a hospital to know how much the medical industry has become dependent on plastic. From plastic knees to plastic heart valves. From sphygmomanometers (or blood pressure monitors) to thermometer covers.
Plastic, plastic and more plastic. We can’t get away from it in this post-Graduate world. And, let’s face it, in some cases, plastics do have practical uses and seem to make life better.
Besides, you recycle, don’t you? And that’s a very good thing. Instead of languishing in a landfill somewhere, possibly leaching chemicals into the ground, your disposable, yet virtually indestructible plastic bottles and jugs may someday be made into hard-wearing park benches or eco-friendly paint.
But what I really want to talk to you about today is that straw that the wait person will bring to you later with your “glass” of iced water. In fact, while you are sitting there in that restaurant, he or she is bringing a plastic straw to maybe twenty or thirty other people also sitting in the restaurant. Think about it. What is going to happen to those plastic straws that you all will use for less than an hour? Will they be recycled? No, most likely those straws will be thrown away. And if we are all lucky, they will actually make it into a landfill where they may leach toxins into the ground but will not become loose trash. Because plastic straws, given their size, shape and structure, are enormously difficult to pick up except one by one and by hand. Who knows where that straw might end up if it doesn’t make it to the landfill? Perhaps, it will become part of a plastic island floating in the sea or it will be eaten by an unsuspecting animal.
Here is some rather disturbing information about disposable plastic straws. According to the website Ecocycle. org, “More than 500 million disposable plastic straws are used in the United States every day and would fill more than 127 school buses daily, or more than 46,400 school bus loads per year. This is an average of 1.6 straws per person (in the US) per day. Based on this national average, each person in the US will use approximately 38,000 or more straws between the ages of 5 and 65.” Those figures, according to the web-site, are based on estimates provided by straw manufacturers. And while this number may sound high, many environmentalists believe it is in fact a low number because it doesn’t include straws that are attached to juice boxes and milk cartons both of which containers, by the way, are made of cardboard and polyethylene (in other words, plastic) and are therefore difficult to recycle.
But I digress. I really just wonder how much any of us really need that straw that the waitperson will hand us at lunch today. Why don’t we all resolve to refuse that disposable plastic straw?
I wanted to bring this up, because just saying no to a plastic straw is something we can all do easily and though it seems like a small thing, when you think about it in terms of school buses, it becomes a bit more significant.
Today, we handed out a list of ten things that you can do without much effort to reduce your use of disposable plastics, like refusing plastic straws and remembering to take your reusable bags with you when you shop.
For the beauty and health of our earth, for our own health and the health of the earth’s wildlife, please think about making some of these into habits.
The world sure is different today than it was in 1967. We now know that plastic, while useful in our consumer culture, is also a pollutant that could take up to 1,000 years to decompose in our landfills. We now know that there are tons and tons of plastic debris floating in the oceans threatening the health and safety of marine life.
Today, if I were standing by an eerily lit pool and wanted to give Benjamin some advice, I might say to him “I just want to say three words to you, Benjamin.” He’d say, “Yes, ma’am.” I’d say, “Are you listening?” He’d say, “Yes, I am.” I would say, “Resolve to Refuse.” He’d say, “Exactly how do you mean?” I’d say, “The future health of our earth depends on us working to reduce our use of disposable plastic. When you have a choice between using disposable plastic or not, please think about refusing it. Will you think about it?”
Let’s hope Ben would say, “Yes, I will” and mean it.
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