Stop blaming consumers for our plastic crisis

My city is one of the many all across the country that are struggling to reconfigure the recycling collection, now that China has given us the much-needed kick in the rear end.  I am surprised that China took our crap--often the literal crap too--for this long, which allowed consumers in the US to waste without care.

But, it is not as if conscientiously recycling waste will clean up the air, water, and soil, and remake this the garden of Eden.

Recycling plastic is to saving the Earth what hammering a nail is to halting a falling skyscraper.

It makes us feel good, for sure.  But, if feelings alone can make wonders, then ...

Encouraging individuals to recycle more will never solve the problem of a massive production of single-use plastic that should have been avoided in the first place.

Aren't the manufacturers held accountable for this?  Right?  But we forget that over the years we people have put business and profits well ahead of anything in life.  We don't care a shit about anything else.

I want to proceed further only after reminding ourselves that the economics related to the use of plastics is highly complex.  It will boggle one's mind when we look at the different ways plastic makes our lives better.  The core problem is one of consumption; plastics is merely a symptom. But, recognizing that we are not going back to the caves, we ought to think about the downsides of plastic.

In dealing with the downside, instead of the problem being tackled at the source, the industry has successfully managed "to shift the onus of environmental responsibility onto the public."  There is "almost no responsibility on plastic manufacturers for the numerous environmental, economic and health hazards imposed by their products."

It is like with the fossil fuel industry too.  The older I get the less I understand why we call all these "progress"!

So, what does this public responsibility for the private crapping mean?

Effectively, we have accepted individual responsibility for a problem we have little control over. We can swim against this plastic stream with all our might and fail to make much headway. At some point we need to address the source.

We need to face up to the reality:

Our huge problem with plastic is the result of a permissive legal framework that has allowed the uncontrolled rise of plastic pollution, despite clear evidence of the harm it causes to local communities and the world’s oceans. Recycling is also too hard in most parts of the U.S. and lacks the proper incentives to make it work well.

This means that we need to address the problem right at the source.  Easier said than done, right?

Actually, it can be done.  Like how more and more restaurants are banning plastic straws, or provide them only upon request.

A small tweak like this can lead to huge changes in consumer behavior, by making wastefulness an active choice rather than the status quo. Such measures were recently adopted by several U.S. cities, and are under consideration in California and the U.K.

Notice that such approaches go beyond individual consumers.

A better alternative is the circular economy model, where waste is minimized by planning in advance how materials can be reused and recycled at a product’s end of life rather than trying to figure that out after the fact. To make this happen, we can support groups like the Ellen MacArthur Foundation that are partnering with industry to incorporate “cradle-to-cradle” (i.e., circular economic) design into their products.

So, think about what you want to do in this project in order to mobilize people.

Start conversations with your family members and friends. Call your local and federal representatives to support bottle bills, plastic bag taxes and increased producer responsibility for reuse and recycling. Stand up against preemptive bans on local plastic regulation. There are signs that corporations are listening to consumer opinions, too.

Imagining such possibilities in the trump era, which was made possible by 63 million, might be rather difficult.  But, the alternative is worse.