As a concerned but not expert consumer (hmm actually I am rather an expert consumer, aren't we all, I mean of course not an expert on plastic) there are two main reasons I'm trying to give it up....
The first is what it's made from. Oil. Which is both polluting and rapidly running out.
Image from www.treehugger.com
And the second is the legacy it leaves: the pollution, the impact on wildlife and the fact that it takes for ever and ever (from hundreds to thousands of years depending on the plastic) to degrade.
It all just seems wrong to me, destroying the planet for my convenience and wallet. But I'll freely admit that this is a bit of a gut reaction, I'd like to know more about the actual science behind plastic and its impact on the world and hopefully this focus giving up plastic for Lent will also give me the impetus to do some further research. And blog about it of course.
Hmmm, so, if I'm following your argument, that would mean that it's actually OK, possibly even to be encouraged, to buy plastic things so long as
ReplyDelete- there's an obvious/significant saving in environmental impact compared to whatever-the-alternative-would-be
- it doesn't result in environmental pollution (e.g. because it's something I'm buying to keep rather than to throw away).
Is that fair, or are you actually arguing that we should completely disconnect from using plastic whatever the circumstances?
Not entirely sure I have a coherent argument yet on this one but I think that yes, that does appear to be where I'm heading. The challenge is how do you weigh up the environmental costs/benefits to eg a resuable plastic container over a reusable metal/glass/etc container to be able to make those choices.
ReplyDeleteAh sure, I didn't want to imply that the choices would be easy (are they ever?), I was just trying to establish what the principle was.
ReplyDelete