plastic

Sasha Adkins 12-19-2019

Photo composites by Matt Chase

SOMEHOW, THE CULTURAL narrative around plastics has collapsed into a story of unfortunate sea creatures with their little bellies full of plastic. As an only child who grew up living aboard a sailboat, these sea creatures are my family and the ocean is my home. I devoted my dissertation research to studying how some types of plastic marine debris concentrate methyl mercury. I crewed on a short research trip to Baja California with Capt. Charles Moore of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, who was the first to bring attention to the Pacific “garbage patch.” I helped dissect a juvenile black-footed albatross and counted the bits of plastic in its majestic body.

I, too, feel the urgency to keep plastics out of the oceans at all costs, but I fear that there is another story that is not being told.

Disposable plastic is toxic not only to the body but also to the soul. The more we normalize short-term utility as the main criterion for evaluating the things around us, the more disconnected we become from a sense of the inherent worth of creation. The more we cultivate this habit of the heart of seeing things as disposable once they no longer serve us, the less able we are to find the beauty and value in our relationships with each other, or even the intrinsic value in ourselves once we are no longer “productive.”

Plastic’s circular economy

WHEN WE ASK, “Does this spark joy?” what if we also ask whether it “sparks joy” for the workers who make it?

Certain diseases are found almost exclusively in workers involved in the production of vinyl (polyvinyl chloride, or PVC). One is angiosarcoma (cancer) of the liver. Another is occupational acroosteolysis, a painful condition in which the bones in the fingertips break down and the minerals are reabsorbed. Thus, in a sad twist of irony, these workers are more likely to need the PVC IV tubing, PVC catheters, and PVC feeding tubes that they helped create, and they are more likely to spend time confined in hospitals, staring at vinyl walls and vinyl floors and vinyl windows.

Industry spokespeople reassure us that the levels that workers are exposed to today are much lower than they were when these links were established, but I am not sure that is true in China or in other emerging economies where much of our plastic originates.

The building blocks of PVC are derived from oil or gas. In another strange twist, tiny particles of plastic and plastic-coated sand are often used in the fracking process for extracting natural gas, some of which will then become more plastic. This is not what I mean when I advocate for a “circular economy.”

Fracking is contentious. Each pound of conventional plastic costs 22 gallons of fresh water. The amount of water required in routine fracking operations, by some estimates, is up to 9.6 million gallons per well. That does not include spills or seepage into the water table that obligates local residents to drink from yet more plastic bottles.

Sasha Adkins 3-31-2011

The April issue of Sojourners magazine takes on climate change denial. One challenge is that the truth is hard to face -- but, as scientist Sasha Adkins describes from personal experience, one strategy is to draw inspiration from the comforts of home.

The question that I am most often asked when I talk about my Ph.D. research on the impacts of pollution has nothing to do with my methodology or my data. It is, "How do you live with this knowledge? Where do you find your hope?" It's a good question. My research results on the impact of plastics on human health and the environment are often quite demoralizing to hear. More than once when I am presenting them, an audience member has literally started to cry.

I took a year off from my environmental studies program to search for the answer to that very question, to find hope -- but this time, instead of turning to peer-reviewed journals for answers, I turned to my cats. I asked them if they would be willing to try living without fossil-fuel heat for the winter.

Jeannie Choi 3-25-2011

Food Prices. Aurora Borealis. Fasting and Prayer. Here's a little round up of links from around the web you may have missed this week:

  • Food and gas prices are rising again and anti-hunger activists are calling for financial reform.
  • Artist Theo Jansen has created skeletal creatures out of plastic pipes that are able to walk on wind and subsist on their own. Watch the footage. (It's incredible!)
  • Don't have time to watch the aurora borealis in Russia for a week? Yeah, me neither.
Debra Dean Murphy 6-30-2010

It's been awhile since Woody, Buzz, Jessie, and the gang have been on the big screen, but they've lost none of their charm in the interim.

Ernesto Tinajero 6-07-2010
God calls on us to meditate on God and God's word. However, does the fast intake of information from TV, film, and especially the Internet make us less likely to experience God?
Tracey Bianchi 5-27-2010
"So what are you up to this summer?" seems to be the question du jour. With the calendar about to flip into June everyone seems antsy for a summer plan.
Watching a disaster unfold on the news is always heartbreaking, but when it occurs in your hometown and you are far away, it can be debilitating.
Tracey Bianchi 4-19-2010
This week is the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. People all over this little planet will likely take a few moments this week to thing twice about how their daily routines impact this world.
Tracey Bianchi 3-01-2010
Last week I was at the grocery store on a Sunday afternoon. I was sans children, and when that happens a trip to the grocery store can feel like spring break.
Tracey Bianchi 2-03-2010

This time of year I find myself humming the Olympic anthem throughout the day. The Vancouver games run Feb. 12-28; it is time to start dreaming of mogul runs and bobsled victories. For some reason I hum the familiar tune associated with the games on my way to and from errands. As if hauling my three children around were an Olympic event in and of itself.

Maryada Vallet 12-01-2009
As a community of faith and conscience in Southern Arizona, we have seen more than a decade of deadly border enforcement, free trade, and immigration policies destroying habitat and home for many.
Eugene Cho 11-30-2009
In every culture and in every part of the world, this injustice is present. What is the oldest injustice in the world?

Tracey Bianchi 10-01-2009
Nowadays if you slap the word "green" across any event, industry, or article of clothing it is rumored this will boost sales and recognition.
Tracey Bianchi 8-25-2009

There's this place near our home called Kiddie Land. It's sort of this epic little corner nearish to the city that, for 80 some years, has boasted good times for kiddos. Think wooden roller coasters from the '30s, a wooden carousel, and rides that make you feel somehow like you are on a boardwalk in Atlantic City or someplace like that in the '20s.