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Tiny Terrors: Microplastics' Threat to Our Health and Environment [1]
['Mia Difelice', 'Kate Schwanhausser', 'Root', '--Ppa-Color-Scheme', '--Ppa-Color-Scheme-Active']
Date: 2023-07-06
Matt Simon: Yeah, so at the end of the day, the force that we’re up against is that the fossil fuel industry understands that they — that we’re going to stop burning fossil fuels at some point, right?
Maybe not entirely, but we’re moving toward a world where we are greening up our economy.
We’re burning — not quite yet — but we’re going to be burning fewer and fewer fossil fuels, hopefully in the near future.
They see the writing on the wall. They are pumping so much investment into plastics. We are, at this moment, producing, as a species, a trillion pounds of plastic a year.
That’s like — that’s — any material, that’s a crazy number. But consider that, like, one of plastic’s charms is that it’s so lightweight, like you need a lot of plastic to equal a trillion pounds.
There is a — there was one estimation that because of this ramp-up in production from the fossil fuel industry, they’re going to triple the production of plastic by 2060.
We have less than 40 years for this to get even more out of control, and the narrative from the industry has always been, “It is your responsibility as a public that you screwed this up so badly.”
They have always pitched recycling as, “It’s the consumer’s fault that all this stuff is escaping into the environment.” Never mind that we’re producing exponentially more of this stuff to get out into the environment, and the risk here is that they’re going to do the same with microplastics.
They’re going to say, “Oh, you idiots! You don’t have filters on your washing machines, that is — that’s entirely your fault.” So when it comes to action, we need to elect politicians.
Tough in the United States, given how intertwined the fossil fuel industry is with our politicians, but we need to elect politicians that really take this seriously, in that it is the other side of the coin of climate change.
You can’t fix plastics or climate change individually, you have to do both at the same time, because if we allow them to keep producing exponentially more plastic, tripling production by 2060, that’s just emissions in a different form.
So that’s also where I’m hoping, I think, that the public is coming around to, is understanding that these are the same planetary criminals.
They’re destroying the planet with climate change, and, not content with that, they’re turning around and deciding to destroy the planet once over again with plastics.
It’s absurd. It’s astonishing that people could actually work in these C-suites in fossil fuel and plastics companies with a clear conscience. It’s just mind-boggling to me.
We are running out of time to take really big action here on plastic and climate change at the same time.
Kate Schwanhausser: Yeah, and I think you made a great point about needing to elect leaders who are going to stand with us on these issues, and put, you know, the protection of our environment, stopping plastic, above the corporate profits of fossil fuel — of the fossil fuel industry.
So for anyone who’s on this call who’s not already a volunteer with Food & Water Watch, please sign up. We can drop a link in the chat. That is exactly what we are working to do.
So, Matt, I wanted to just ask if you have any other solutions that you’ve, you know, come across in your conversations with other researchers or other policymakers about some of these, like, bigger picture solutions that we need to be fighting for.
Matt Simon: One of the things that I try to get across in the book is that it’s important to think about macroplastics, the bottles and the bags, that sort of thing, as pre-microplastic that is just going to deconstruct into a different, smaller form, out into the environment.
So there’s also a lot that we can do to keep that macroplastic from getting into the oceans in particular.
So, one of my favorite pieces of technology of all time is called Mr. Trash Wheel. That’s its actual name. It is a barge in Baltimore Harbor that just sits there, and it has big googly eyes. It’s absolutely adorable.
It sits there, kind of at the side; there’s a kind of a boom that comes out, it collects plastic that is floating down the river, and it kind of eats it up, gets put in the barge, and they go and take it and recycle it and properly dispose of it.
If you are keeping those bottles and bags from getting to the environment, you’re keeping them from deconstructing into these microplastics. So that’s another really — it’s a very simple technology.
Unfortunately, when it comes to — so like the ocean clean up, you probably heard of it, this thing where they go out into the middle of the Pacific Garbage Patch with a kind of a similar big boom and collect plastic as it’s already out there.
That is, in my opinion, and in a lot of times, it’s just too late. It’s too expensive to get out there to do that.
It’s actually much more impactful to move as upstream, as far, as soon as we can, and literally upstream. In the case of Mr. Trash Wheel if you keep it from getting out into the ocean, that’s a major preventative measure.
But, I hate to harp on this, like, I sound like a broken record, but the farthest upstream we can go is to stop producing so much plastic.
There is no sustainable circular economy for plastic. It’s a farce. This is exactly what the plastic industry wants us to think that allows them to keep producing exponentially more plastic.
So I don’t know. Volunteer for Mr. Trash Wheel, or something like it. Try to get a trash wheel in the harbor of your local city, that could actually go a long way.
Kate Schwanhausser: I live 20 minutes from Baltimore, so I have seen Mr. Trash Wheel in action. He’s great!
And I do want to add here, we’ve gotten a couple of comments and questions in the chat about — specifically about legislation. So I do want to tell people a little bit about the Break Free from Plastic Production — or, Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act.
So this is a piece of legislation that will reduce the amount of plastic produced. It has goals to reform our waste and recycling systems to make them more efficient.
But most importantly, it’s really focused on shifting the burden and responsibility for clean up and waste management onto the corporations responsible for producing this waste in the first place.
So Senator Merkley of Oregon and Representative Lowenthal from California have introduced this legislation in the past Congressional session, and they are planning on re-introducing it to the current Congress in the coming weeks.
And at that time, once it’s introduced, it will be critical that all of our elected officials hear from us, urging them to support this legislation and make sure it gets passed.
So Food & Water Watch will be mobilizing efforts around that, and we’ll send out email updates with ways that you can take action once that bill has been introduced, so please do be on the lookout for that.
And just, you know, as we’ve talked about today, if this is a really systemic problem that’s bigger than you and I recycling at home and we need that type of national policy change, this legislation will make that happen.
So I thank everyone in advance for their support and [for] taking action on that legislation when we send you information in a couple of weeks.
Matt, I don’t know if you have anything that you wanted to add on that?
Matt: Not specifically on that piece of legislation, just to mention that California is also doing some interesting work, specifically on microplastics.
They have had their water people, first of all, defining what they should consider a microplastic. So you can’t legislate something until you can quantify it, like, you have a framework for figuring out how much of it is already in the environment. You need that to figure out if what you’re doing to prevent that is actually as useful.
So they’re actually going to use that science to inform, ideally, some legislation, specific to microplastics in California. And as we all know, what goes in California typically spreads elsewhere in the United States.
But, you know, as you say, something like extended producer responsibility, that we should not foot the bill as taxpayers for this sort of thing. That [it] should be on industry to fund ways to keep microplastics out of the environment.
Kate Schwanhausser: Yeah, that’s great. I’m glad you brought that up. We — you talked [about] an example about France, this California example. Are there any other examples where you’re seeing positive solutions that could be emulated elsewhere?
Matt Simon: Yeah. The one thing that we didn’t talk about as a kind of sneaky source of microplastics is tire particles. So tires are made out of synthetic rubber now; it’s a polymer, a kind of plastic.
A lot — so I didn’t think about this until very late in life — that when you go and get your tires replaced on your car, they’ve worn down. Well, where has that tire gone? Well, it’s gone into the environment.
So they have — one of the actually earlier studies that found ecological impacts of microplastics was they discovered that in Washington state, with the first rains, washing all those tire particles off of roads and into streams, they’re having mass die-offs of salmon and actually found specific chemical[s] in tire microplastics that was killing those animals.
So there is a group called the Tyre Collective. They spell it “T-Y-R-E” because they’re in the UK. They are working on a device that actually attaches to the wheel well; it can actually collect those particles before they actually reach the road.
But another really interesting solution here are rain gardens. So these are just very simple patches of greenery next to roads that serve a whole big slew of really important benefits.
They capture rainwater, and you can grow plants in them. That rainwater is sometimes infused with those microplastics from tires, and a study found that they collect something like 90% of those particles before they’re able to wash out to a body of water.
It’s a green space. People love that for mental health. It lowers urban temperatures to have that kind of green. It’s like — that’s a no-brainer. We should have those on every street corner, if we can get them.
But another thing: that we should tax the hell out of these plastic companies to fund — It should not be on you and I as taxpayers to foot the bill, as nice as those rain gardens might seem.
Kate Schwanhausser: Awesome. Yeah, those are great suggestions. I’m going to try to squeeze in a couple of the audience questions in the couple of minutes that we have left.
So, Mary is asking if there are any international efforts to work together to eliminate this problem. And I think I saw another comment in the chat asking about the Plastics Ban Treaty at the UN.
Matt Simon: Yeah, those are two, yeah, two very much related things. So that was a couple of weeks ago, or last week? The latest — the second round negotiations for the UN Plastics Treaty.
So involved in that framework, they were actually able to get mention of microplastics, so not only are they working toward ways of regulating plastic in general — so that macroplastic that most of us are familiar with — there is now going to be language specific to microplastics, given that growing body of evidence and given the known threat that [it] has become among scientists.
So we are optimistic that in that treaty, there is going to be some sort of cap on production. That is the only thing that is going to fix this problem. It’s not more recycling. It is getting some sort of international cap on production.
Unfortunately, and probably somewhat obviously, the United States is one of the countries fighting against that, because we have so much plastic production here. Go figure that they would fight against that sort of thing.
But in an ideal world, we’d have a UN Plastics Treaty that both takes microplastics into account, but also some sort of cap on production.
It — There might be some sort of cap, but it will be non-binding. So if it’s that, it’s just like one country might ban it; it’ll just move to a different country. It’s kicking the can down the road.
It’s just — yeah. So that’s — but that’s where most scientists and plastics groups are putting their optimism, is that we need some sort of international treaty because you can’t just do it country-by-country.
Kate Schwanhausser: Right, right; it is such a globally connected issue.
Another audience question, and then I think we’ll maybe have time for one more after that: someone is asking about bioplastics. Can those be part of the solution? Maybe if you could explain for everybody what is meant by that?
Matt Simon: Yeah, great question. Bioplastics being plastics that are made — their carbon is made out of plants instead of carbon coming from fossil fuels.
There’s a couple of issues with bioplastics, unfortunately. So, to grow enough of the plants — it’s typically corn or sugar that you get that carbon from — you would need an astonishing amount of land and water.
This comes back to the issue of cotton versus polyester clothing to grow — like, to completely replace plastics in clothing, you would need so much land for that cotton.
There was a study that came out a couple of years ago that found that just the water alone to replace single-use packaging in Europe, you would need more water than Europe uses in a year.
It’s one of these solutions that the industry is going to push because they’re saying, “Oh, it’s bioplastic. It’s good for the environment.” It is, in fact, the same exact plastic, except the carbon came from plants instead of from fossil fuels.
There are still a whole bunch of chemicals that make that plastic a plastic, that were derived from fossil fuels, petrochemicals. So it’s like a little bit of greenwashing on the part of the industry to pitch that as a friendly alternative when they’re packed with the same toxic stuff as regular plastics.
But you also have the land and the water issue. We need to feed 8 billion people on this planet with a finite amount of land, and in fact, a smaller amount of land, if you consider sea level rise.
But yeah, it — I wish I could say it’s a good solution and alternative. It’s just — it’s extremely problematic.
Kate Schwanhausser: All right, we’re going to take one more question. This one is from Tina, who says, “Thank you for sharing all this really great, if sometimes scary, information. Where do you recommend people continue to learn more and educate themselves about microplastics?”
And I will, Tina, just put in a quick plug for Matt’s book. Everyone should read that if they haven’t already.
But yeah, Matt, in addition to that, do you have any other resources that you recommend to folks?
Matt Simon: Yeah, I’m not gonna make this all about me, but there’s — If you look at the stories that I’ve written for WIRED since October — the book came out in October, but even before that, the book went to print, and I was able to report on studies that had come out afterwards, some important findings.
There was one city, a couple of months ago, that came out and found that recycling facilities are actually spewing a lot of microplastics when they’re processing macroplastics.
So it’s like, there’s these studies trickling out here and there that add to this body of literature when it comes to microplastics. So, yeah, look for my stuff on WIRED.
The Guardian also covers a lot of this pretty well. But also, just keep an eye out for what is happening in California, too. I think they’re going to make the most progress toward, first of all, standardizing the science around microplastics, and then using that to inform legislation.
But I, for my part, will keep reporting on it, to keep you as informed as possible.
Kate Schwanhausser: Awesome. Thank you. We are coming up on the top of our hour, so I am going to unfortunately wrap us up on Q&A.
But thank you to everybody for sending in your great questions and being part of this discussion. And please everyone, thank me in the chat — or, join me in the chat, in thanking Matt for joining us this afternoon.
We really appreciate all the research you’ve done, and for sharing all of that with us today.
And if you haven’t already, for those watching, please go ahead and add your name to our survey, our drawing to win a copy of Matt’s book.
Keya will go ahead and put that link in the chat for you, so you can make sure that you’re entered into that drawing. If you could take a minute to do that, and I’m just gonna do a quick run-through of a couple of the other upcoming events that I invite you to join us for in the coming months.
So we always hope to continue to see you at our upcoming Livable Future LIVE events. As I mentioned earlier, over the next few months, we’ll be talking about the role of art and activism, the Colorado River and water security in the West, and reforming our food and farm policy.
So Keya will put the link in the chat where you can sign up for any of these three events in our Livable Future LIVE series.
And then I do invite you again to join us in October, for “Against All Odds.” You could join us for the virtual conference, or if you’re near New York City, please come, join us in person for our reception. It’ll be a great time.
And I do encourage you to fill out the survey to give us feedback on that conference program, so you can really help shape the content and make sure that it is going to empower you as an activist.
And don’t forget that if you register by June 30th, you can take advantage of our special presale discount on Defender tickets.
So I know that we did share a lot of links in the chat today with different ways to take action and learn more, so I will be sending out an email tomorrow morning with all of those links, along with the recording of today’s conversation.
Please feel free to share that with friends, family, colleagues. It really will take all of us to tackle the plastic crisis. So please do share this information widely.
And that’s all. So thank you all again for joining us for Livable Future LIVE. Thank you again, Matt, for being here today.
I hope that everyone has a great afternoon, and we’ll see you at the next event.
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[1] Url:
https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/2023/07/06/lfl-microplastics/
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