The World Is Made Of Plastic Dr. Lorin Swinehart.
“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” -The Lorax It should come as no surprise that micro-plastics have now been identified in 80% of human lungs and blood samples that have been tested. Plastic residue and trash have been found at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean’s Marianas Trench, six and a half miles beneath the surface, the deepest location in all the seven seas. Traces of plastic exist in every aspect of our lives. Members of older generations may suffer the illusion that we lived much of our lives basically plastics free, but that is not the case unless we are very old indeed. In 1869, John Wesley Hyatt experimented with a new type of billiard balls. Up to then, billiard balls were made of elephant ivory. Hyatt, instead, created them by converting cotton treated with camphor into celluloid, thus saving the lives of many elephants. In 1907, a chemist named Leo Baekeland produced an early form of plastic which he named after himself, Bakelite. For years, many uses for Bakelite were found, including electric insulators, radio and telephone cases, and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s famous cigarette holders. As with so many other products, uses for plastic proliferated during World War II, as it was used to replace ingredients necessary for industrial production but were in short supply, including steel, paper, glass and wood. During the postwar years, from 1950 to 2015, plastic production in the US increased by 8.4%. annually. We now produce twenty times as much plastic every year as we did twenty years ago, but it is estimated that only 10% is recycled. The rest goes into landfills or into the sea. All too much finds its way into fields, woodlots and roadsides as litter. According to the journal Science, the numerous components utilized in plastic production, include coal, salt, natural gas, cellulite, and crude oil. More and different uses for plastics continue to be found. The computer keyboard that I am typing on this very moment is made of plastic,
as are the pens I use to keep notes, the TV set in the corner, the lamp- stand on this desk, parts of picture frames, a flowerpot, the coffeemaker, clock and thermometer on the wall, my cell phone, the handle on my Swiss Army knife, water and soft drink bottles, the flatware—knives, forks and spoons— given out by fast food businesses and many of the components of our Toyota. Plastic is cheap and convenient. Plastic has become such a part of our lives and such a benefit to manufacturing that until the 1960’s, few even questioned any negative side effects that might be associated with its use. For most of us, not a day goes by that we do not eat, drink or breathe micro-plastics. During that decade known popularly as the Sizzling’ Sixties, many previous assumptions called into question for the first time. When Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring was published, many began to express concern about man’s activities negatively affecting the natural environment. Ohio’s Cuyahoga River, bisecting the major industrial city of Cleveland, had been so riddled with pollutants that it had burst into flames more than once. But this time the national press got hold of the story. A reporter was on hand, and the outrageous state of the Cuyahoga’s waters as well as many other US waterways entered the public consciousness. Mayor Carl Stokes, the nation’s first mayor of African descent to lead a major city, worked closely with his brother Congressman Louis Stokes to support legislation to clean up the Cuyahoga. At the same time, President Richard Nixon signed the Environmental Protection Agency into law in December, 1970. On April 7, 1972, President Nixon also signed into law the Clean Water Act. The American people were waking up to threats to the environment and human health on many levels. As a consequence, The Endangered Species Act was also signed into law by Mr. Nixon on December 28, 1973. Thomas Jefferson wisely observed that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. It is also the price of every other good thing, including the sanctity of the natural environment that sustains Continued on page 10
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El Ojo del Lago / July 2022
