Plastic, plastic, everywhere, and not a drop to drink.
Ever wonder why water in bottles has an expiration date? It’s the plastic. It does bad things as it dissolves. Heard John and Ken talking about it this afternoon, while discussing emergency earthquake supplies. Not only do you have to keep checking the batteries and canned goods – should you go the nervous ant-like way of even having earthquake supplies – and I’m not saying which way I roll, cause maybe I’m a selfish ant – you gotta keep changing the water, too.
Of course, this doesn’t concern the DWP, or the City of LA, or H. David Nahai, or Mayor V., as proven by the tons of HDPE plastic bird balls they keep dumping in our Ivanhoe Reservoir drinking water. DWP has promised they will only stay in the water for 4 years. Okay, for 5 years, in some reports. Plastic for all!
From treehugger.com. Sad.
I just checked the water I’m drinking now. All my water is bottled, and although I enjoy trying different brands of water, I can taste very very well, and prefer distilled water most of the time. (I can even taste differences in that!) I enjoy Whole Foods 365 Brand in a lot of foods, including their water. My bottle of distilled water – with no minerals, as pure as you can get- has an expiration date of June 9, 2010. (my birthday!) So the bird balls baking in the sun in a reservoir for several hundred thousand people, today and every other day, – which is apparently, SUNNY. Again.- are supposed to last at least 2 years longer than my distilled water bottle?
As I reported here several times, these plastic bird balls have NOT been tested by the only water-approved lab in the country, NSF, for anything besides 17 days in water at a temperature of 73.4 degrees. What does the LA County Health Department have to say about this? We shall find out.
Speaking of plastic, a subject I never get tired of, very happy to see LA has banned plastic bags. Treehugger says:
This new vote by the LA City Council is likely to engender vigorous opposition from the plastic bag industry, represented by the creatively named Save the Plastic Bag Coalition, which has already filed a lawsuit challenging a LA County measure to lower plastic bag use 30% by 2010.
David Lazarus, in the LA Times, wrote such a pathetically ridiculous take on this important environmental issue that I think I may have cackled. Lazarus quotes Eric Gutierrez and Elicia Ortiz, whose environmental expertise and objectivity are not at all influenced by the fact that THEY WORK FOR A PLASTIC BAG FACTORY. Lazarus writes:
[Ortiz says] “I’m a single mom,” she said. “Everyone who is against plastic bags should consider all the people who depend on this for a living.”
That’s certainly one aspect of the issue that merits more attention.
Lazarus probably gives money to the homeless, too. But before I got a chance to write this, lao points out Spouting Off, by the President of Heal the Bay, who beat me to the punch:
The whole piece took the side of the plastic industry, which argues that bags are harmless and that banning them will cost the public money and cause people to lose jobs. There was little mention of impacts to the marine environment, let alone the economic impacts of disposal, recycling and clean-up.
Clearly, the article’s premise is preposterous. Personally, I’m more than a little peeved because I spent a half hour talking to the guy and I shot down every myth he trotted out. No mention of HtB, nor a direct quote from me.
David Lazarus, meet H. David Nahai. I think you guys would hit it off.
Donna Barstow
Griffith Park is the 2nd biggest park in the US, and I'm just the person to investigate it! I've lived here for over 25 years. I was part of the PROS Committee in Griffith Park Neighborhood Council and am on the Housing & Tenants Rights Committee in the Silver Lake NC. I'm in the LA Press Club, and you can find some of my articles in the LA Weekly and the Los Feliz Ledger. I'm a cartoonist for Parade Magazine, The New Yorker, LA Times, Slate, & most major media. Questions and contacts welcome.
7 Comments
BI
Recycling numbers have never been higher, especially in CA. The attention and education has helped instrumentally with the reduction of WASTE. I say waste because plastic bags is not the issue here. WASTE is, this included paper cups, paper bags, plastic bags, debris like bottles, cans and bottle tops.
It’s a behavioral change that needs to take place and we can acheive this without having our government ban or tax one product. Besides, plastic bags are such a tiny fraction of the MWS.
Also, the turtle picture is totally worn out. That is the ONLY picture on the internet for the past 10 years, I’m sure you’ve heard of photoshop. That poster child doesn’t work for the general public. It’s similar to what’s happening in politics, people are beginning to see fake politicians vs real politicians.
Written from an IP that reads Commander Packaging.~ DB.
nhb
I agree that plastic bags are not THE issue. It is, in fact, our consumption-driven society that is at issue here.
Why consumption-driven? Because there are firms/businesses that profit based on the sale of consumable items. The market never has had, and never will have, an incentive to self-correct the harm that it does to the environment or even, really, its own consumers, because by definition, a firm (corporation) has only one incentive: to seek and increase profits to its shareholders.
Since businesses only care about profits, the only way to deal with products that have a cost to society, is to force businesses to consider thoses costs as part of their production model. This rarely, if ever, happens. That’s why there’s a concept called ‘externalities’ in economics (go here for a definition: http://sg.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061124200246AAqJ4Ld).
So, if a business does not bear its true costs, that means you and I do, i.e., society at large. Because keep in mind, a corporation does not serve society, it serves its own bottom line.
So that leaves Government as the favored counterpoint and scapegoat in all ‘market-driven’ discussions.
But, in the U.S., at least philosophically, Government is supposed to be of, by and for the people…
In which case, if people deem that they are bearing the negative costs of single-use plastic bags, people can choose to advocate that their views be represented by their Government. This is how democracy works.
If enough people see single-use plastic bags as a scourge, then they can freely act to change that through any form of individual action: from self-selecting non-use of the offending consumable, to exercising their voting rights to advocate for broader actions that support their positions.
There are 19 billion bags used every year in CA…the BEST estimate says we recycle 5% (it is closer to 1 – 3%), that means 18.05 billion are WASTE every single year. How can any think that’s good enough? And where is the incentive for people to recycle single-use plastic bags?
Recycling is not the answer to this problem, recycling is the last refuge of the environmentally-minded; the saying is Reduce, Reuse, Recycle — in that order specifically.
An incentive to reduce consumption of these 19 billion (i.e., your goal of changing behavior), would be to associate the real costs of the use of those bags, in terms of the burden we already bear as taxpayers to clean them up.
We can do that to consumers, or to businesses — and since we are all about choice in the U.S., I say give consumers the ‘choice’ to buy one bag to use for years and years, or pay as they go for single-use bags each time they shop.
Sounds like market forces at work to me…
PK
>>>Also, the turtle picture is totally worn out. That is the ONLY picture on
>>>the internet for the past 10 years, I’m sure you’ve heard of photoshop.
>>>That poster child doesn’t work for the general public. It’s similar to what’s
>>>happening in politics, people are beginning to see fake politicians vs real
>>>politicians.
you want new pictures of dead fish. it’s easy really. just go to Google images and type in “dead fish plastic”. yeah there were some pictures of mosh pits and other but the vast majority of the 611,000 pictures were dead fish killed by plastic.
Donna Barstow
Thanks, PK, good to know about!
Steven Prosser
“David Lazarus, meet H. David Nahai. I think you guys would hit it off.”
No, actually Mark Gold from Heal the Bay and Mr. Nahai hit it off. At Heal the Bay’s fundraiser this year H. David Nahai, Don Corsini, and Tom Unterman were guests of honor.
“We are proud to recognize these longtime friends of Heal the Bay for their years of public service,” said Heal the Bay president Mark Gold. “They lead by example, encouraging all of us to remain steadfast and make Earth-friendly choices in our daily lives.”
http://www.palisadespost.com/content/index.cfm?Story_ID=4192
Former Plastic Man
Some plastics companies may go under, some could create new products out of what I consider to be a very nice material, silicon rubber. New jobs could be created when people have to make the same products out of what used to be made of plastic. Products are still needed, the difference is the material they are made of. We are going to have to accept the fact that it seems more environmentally sound to make products out of more natural materials. Some who are perhaps more extreme may compain about this it overall it is less toxic to the environment. Better to sanely use plants, animals, and material out of the earth than so much darned man-made material. I find all this plastic waste horrible and Bisphenol A seems to be a problem. Vinyl seems to contain poisons as well. Remember when they say trace amounts are not toxic, I can get that, but when we have so much plastic around and keep using it for years, we get more than trace amounts.
I like things made of wood and metal. In the past even speakers and sound systems were wood instead of plastic. I wouldn’t mind a sound system made of a non-conducting metal.
I used to work in a plastics place and got laid off. At first I was upset but now I realize that perhaps greater forces were at work to move me to a more desired place. I would find it more intellectually stimulating to work at a place that makes things of wood, metal, or glass than plastic. Plastic to me is boring. I usually end up breaking things I have made of plastic and if we are unlucky that it is not a recyclable plastic, it ends up in a landfull. Wood and metal are easier to repair and less likely to have to replace when you break products made of them, most metal is easy to recycle, and steel and wood break down easily in the ground.
I now work with the food industry which means greater job security and I can hold my head up high and be more proud of what I do. My starting pay is more than my ending pay at the plastics place.
Of all things that liberals, which I AM NOT, hate, WALMART is on a leading edge of sustainibility with packaging and materials its products are made of. At least paper and cardboard breaks down quickly when buried. If toxic chemicals are used in its production I am in favor of finding safer chemicals to use.
I seem to remember extreme enviromentalists pushing us to use plastic instead of paper and cardboard. The only kind of plastic I even consider acceptable for long term use would be bio-plastics. Non-toxic plastics made of oil or natural gas to get us over the hump as we do research but hopefuly more limited use.
I find silicon rubber to be very promising to replace certain items now made of plastic. I like the feel of it and the fact that it is oderless.
It is time for a paradigm shift out of what we make products and packaging out of in our modern life. No technology need be sacrificed. The core of computing is silicon, not plastic.
People who own plastics companies are not slaves to plastic. Their skill is being business men or women. That skill can be transferred to any kind of company. The man or woman who owns a plastics company need not be left out in the cold. A little sacrifice, but most have resources to absorb losses and start something new.
Some have theorized a loss of plastic would mean a loss of our technology. I strongly disagree. Regular rubber can take on many roles (a natural resource) and silicon rubber is more heat resistant and oderless.
Again, I am tired of breaking things I have to pay for so quickly that if they were wood or metal, would avoid breaking with just normal use but little but expected accidents.
I am voting with my dollars at Walmart or any other store that follows their lead. Go WALMART!
Donna Barstow
Former Plastic Man, interesting to get your insights. I like rubber, too. Thanks.