Off The the Dump We Go, Tra-la

Plastics don’t rot the way organic things such as vegetables, cotton clothing, or dead humans do. Plastics just break into smaller and smaller bits. That’s why sea creatures aren’t the only life forms consuming plastic; bits of plastic are in our drinking water, our table salt, and even mothers’ milk.¹

But wait, we recycle most of our waste materials, don’t we? No, actually, only about 14 percent of solid waste is recycled. (Estimates vary from 10 percent to 17 percent.) The remainder ends up in landfills, rivers, the ocean, and beaches.

And what happens to the materials we do recycle? As an article in the New York Times explained:

“In the past, the municipalities would have shipped much of their used paper, plastics and other scrap materials to China for processing. But as part of a broad antipollution campaign, China announced last summer that it no longer wanted to import ‘foreign garbage.’ ”²

China let us down and other Asian countries have followed its lead. They are shipping tonsof trash back to the countries where it originated, including the United States, Canada, and Mexico. ³

What will we do with this trash? To get an idea of the problem, I watched an NBC story on line.⁴ The story left me even more distressed and I wish everyone would watch it. Then maybe we could take on the real problem, which an unfortunate blend of our lifestyle and the politically powerful plastic manufacturers.

1. “Plastic in Your Drinking Water, Table  Salt & Mother’s Milk,” earthdecks.com

2. “Your Recycling Gets Recycled, Right? Maybe, or Maybe Not” , May 20, 2018, New York Times.

3.“Malaysia has started returning tons of trash to the west: 'we will not be the dumping ground of the world'”, Newsweek, June 20, 2019.

4.“Recycling Breaks Down: US Struggles to Keep Plastic From the Dump”, NBC, Aug 13, 2018, Broadcast by Chanel 4, Washington.

Copyright 2019 by Shirley Domethem strongerr

Plastic Kills, but Who Cares?

Dead whales wash up on beaches. Why did they die? Could it be the 48, 67, or 88 pounds of plastic in their stomachs?*

Photo found on the internet.

Whales aren’t the only ones dying. Plastic kills millions of sea turtles, sea lions, seals, fish, and sea birds each year. Either they mistake it for food and eat it or they become helplessly entangled in large pieces of plastic such as nets, bags and fishing line.

Well, heck, who cares about dead whales, anyway? We need our conveniences. Manufacturers must enjoy the profit from low shipping costs of plastic containers.  Humans are the most important species and we can’t be expected to look out for other species. They will have to look out for themselves and deal with our plastic waste.

* Whales are also dying because their food cannot thrive in warmer ocean temperatures, so the whales starve. But that issue is for another day.

Copyright 2019 by Shirley Domer

Casing out the Condiments

In the second installment of the Grocery Plastics Tour I move on to the condiments aisle, looking particularly for mustard sold in glass jars.

Here is the mustard section. I scan the shelves.

I see twenty-nine different kinds of mustard, including each of the different flavors offered by the same company. Of these, only one kind is in a glass jar, Grey Poupon, an import from France, is, of course, the most expensive. Otherwise the shelves are filled with plastic, plastic, plastic, and more plastic.  

Next to the mustard is the array of plastic bottles of ketchup. There's no use looking here.The old glass bottle of ketchup has been extinct for years.

Moving on to mayonnaise and its kin I find no glass whatsoever.

How about the vinegar section?

Nope.  Nada.

Okay, but maybe the salad dressings will have a glass bottle or two.

Ah, at last, amongst the forest of plastic, I find four flavors of Brianna’s salad dressing in glass bottles on the top shelf, far left.

When the squeeze bottles are almost empty, I throw them away, because the last can’t be squeezed out. I used to enjoy adding a bit of water and getting the last dregs of catsup to pour out. That just doesn’t work with plastic squeeze bottles, so what can I do? I can toss the bottles in the trash or recycling, which creates more problems. Either the enormous landfill gets another plastic bottles that won’t decompose for hundreds of years, or I send the bottle to some third-world country to be made into something else. That, too, is problematic. But I’ll save the facts and my thoughts on that on another day.

For today, it’s enough to have observed the plethora of plastic in the grocery store condiments aisle.

Copyright 2019 by Shirley Domer