Hi there. Welcome to the Wallace Element. I’m your host Barry Wallace. As I record this, it’s Monday, March 25th. My goal is to get two or three episodes out each week, and I’m running behind schedule, so let’s get things going.
First a humorous story and a new addition to the Wallace Element. According to the story, two women who attended college together met twenty years later. One of them had gone on to become a teacher, while the other had been born into money, married into more money, loved to tell everyone about her globe-trotting lifestyle, and was not above exaggerating. She immediately started telling the teacher about all the trips she had taken, the places she had seen and things she had done, while the other one just smiled and occasionally said, “Oh my.” Finally the first lady ran out of steam and asked her old friend why she kept saying “Oh my.” The other woman replied, “Well, you were having so much fun, I didn’t want to interrupt, and ‘Oh my’ is more polite to say than ‘bullshit.’ So the new addition to my show is the bullshit whistle. Any time you hear this whistle, you’ll know my reaction to something I just told you or a quote I shared. For those reading the blog, I’ll just insert (whistle).
And a quick update on Election 2024. I saw this morning that evidently some polls evidently show Trump with a slim lead over Biden. I’m sorry folks, but this is somewhere between insane and criminally insane. Two quick reasons: First, Biden’s age is not an issue! He’s sharp, and I dare any of you who righteously worry about his age to have a discussion with him on the key issues of the day. Second, Trump’s lying, thieving, narcissistic, destructive nature, incompetence, astounding ignorance about everything from international relations to how democracy works under our Constitution, total lack of conscience or compassion and his stated demand that he be given complete dictatorial powers, are all critical—many of them proven to be criminal— issues, You’d have to be an idiot, someone who literally hates our Constitution AND democracy, or else just like him, to even consider letting him worm his way back into the oval office. Come ON people! “I love America,” and “I prefer Trump,” are two phrases that are NOT compatible. You CAN. NOT. BE. Both. Take it to the bank. Come on folks, be smart, not dumb.
Now let’s get to our main topic. It’s the monster under our beds, in our beds, our refrigerators, our houses and cars; it’s in our clothes, our shampoo, our food, in or wrapped around everything we buy; it’s choking our oceans, rivers, lakes and ponds; it is killing our wildlife and sea-life, and it’s killing us; it is apparently indestructible and impossible to slow down, much less stop; It’s like the Martians from “The War of the Worlds,” but it’s immune to the germs that saved us from them. This monster is the Blob, Godzilla, Marvel’s Thanos, and every nightmare you ever had, magnified a hundred times; It’s as great a threat to our survival as the atom bomb, but it’s one that’s actually happening; it’s a monster of our own creation, of course, and it might just be the greatest example of man’s stupidity, arrogance, greed, and just not giving a damn. It may well be the end of all we know. It’s called plastics.
I don’t have to tell you how pervasive this stuff is. You can’t get away from it. The packaged food you buy, the fruits and vegetables you bag up, the toothpaste you use, virtually everything you do or use is in some way infected with this monster.
I won’t bother trying to list all of the exhaustive facts about this crisis here. You can do your own search on the Internet, by using phrases like “plastic crisis,” “plastic in the environment,” “Plastic in the oceans,” “is plastic being recycled,” etc. in the search bar. I’ll just give you a handful of examples.
Quoting from “The Plastic Crisis Finally Gets Emergency Status,” article by Matt Simon in Wired.com, May of 2023:
“We’re now churning out a trillion pounds of it a year—an altogether more stunning figure when you consider that the material is ultra-lightweight by design. Less than 10 percent of that is recycled, while the rest ends up in landfills, leaks into the environment, or is burned. And that dysfunctional relationship is getting exponentially worse, as plastic production could triple by 2060.”
Quoting from ““Earth faces plastic pollution disaster unless we take drastic action,” by Adam Vaughan in NewScientist.com, in July of 2020 :
“Plastic pollution is ubiquitous and growing, but knowing the best way to stop it has largely been a guessing game so far. Now, a study has found that if the world undertook every feasible action to cut plastic pollution, we would still only manage to get rid of 78 per cent of it by 2040, compared with a business-as-usual scenario.”
There is this about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, as described in National Geographic:
“The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a collection of marine debris in the North Pacific Ocean. Also known as the Pacific trash vortex, the garbage patch is actually two distinct collections of debris bounded by the massive North Pacific Subtropical Gyre.
“For many people, the idea of a “garbage patch” conjures up images of an island of trash floating on the ocean. In reality, these patches are almost entirely made up of tiny bits of plastic, called microplastics. Microplastics can’t always be seen by the naked eye. Even satellite imagery doesn’t show a giant patch of garbage. The microplastics of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch can simply make the water look like a cloudy soup.”
One trillion pounds by the way is five hundred million tons. Now, there are scientists who say there is some hope, if we start now—twenty years ago would have been better, but the now and the future are what we have to work with—we could make a sizeable reduction up to almost 80% as Mister Vaughan’s article states. But there is a two-fold problem, which to be honest, I don’t think we will solve. First of all, the 78% figure is a ‘best scenario’ guess.
The two-fold problem is that the world’s governments don’t seem to give a damn, and the world’s manufacturers care even less. You see, we keep getting told lies in the first place. Have you and I not been, for several years now, putting our plastics in the recycling bin? I, like many of us, have a big blue one that I set out for collection every week. We also take our plastic trash, in the form of plastic bags, plastic film, chip bags and candy wrappers, etc., to recycling centers. And that’s the big lie. The truth is that only about 10-15 percent of that is ever actually recycled, and it ought to be a crime.
We keep hearing the same two excuses; Since plastics are not all the same, we are told, and many are multi-layered, it is #1 too difficult or impossible to recycle them, and #2 too expensive, re: not cost effective. We are also told that the electronics and cables we want to turn in can’t be recycled, for the two same golden reasons. Too complicated and too expensive. A nation that has gone to the moon multiple times, sent exploration vehicles far into the galaxy; a nation that has technology that was nothing but a dream, if even that, in my childhood, a nation among several others that also possess incredible technology. . .finds it too difficult, and too expensive, to save ourselves and our planet from the trash we generate? (whistle)
I have long been incredulous that the supposedly intelligent human race has repeatedly gone along, creating toxic materials and items, with no thought whatsoever as to how to dispose of them when it—as is inevitable—becomes necessary. This is stupidity and arrogance on a level that boggles the mind. I was forced to reach the conclusion some time ago that humans are merely skilled, as any worker is skilled, while lacking any sort of foresight, morality, or concern that is necessary to be considered truly intelligent. We are a self-declared “intelligent” species that has always followed one simple manner of dealing with the trash and toxic materials we create. Just throw them away and forget about them.
Much of this, of course is the result of greed. Do you really think this crisis, and so many others, is beyond our scientific abilities? (whistle) The real truth here is that the billionaires of our world, the supposedly elite uber-wealthy among us, the ones who profit on unimaginable levels from the toxic plastic trash they create, are not willing to sacrifice any portion of their growing riches for the sake of the planet and all of its people. Obviously they do not care, here in America, and that greed may be surpassed by other countries. I experienced this first hand recently, when a bed I ordered for my cat arrived. It was made in China, shipped by Amazon, in plastic of course, and when I got the box itself open, the bed was literally swathed in layer upon layer of plastic. You might be prompted to think that God him/her self was personally ordering them to spread plastic around the world in the greatest amount possible.
There is also a third problem that will likely make it unlikely we will save ourselves from the plastic monster. Conservatives. As I said in the first episode, conservatives are terrified of change, prone to avoid it at all costs, and think only as far as their own front porch, or if you prefer, the tip of their nose. They already deny climate change, they denied the Covid-19 pandemic, and you can expect them to deny there is any environmental problem with plastics. Besides, they’re too busy trying to turn America over to Dictator Trump, who has already committed himself to completely trash the fight to save the environment.
But this problem is one that doesn’t apply only to conservatives. We humans always have been, and continue to be, so deliciously happy with any product that seems to entertain, comfort, or otherwise make our lives easier and more enjoyable, that we have never bothered to trouble ourselves with what George Orwell might call “ungood” thoughts like the harms and hazards that result.
Plastic in the ocean? Well, I don’t swim in the ocean, so it’s not a problem to me. Besides, it’s not my job. Plastic trash accumulating everywhere? I keep my own yard clean, so it’s not a problem. Besides, it’s not my job. The air becoming unbreathable from the toxic fumes of a trillion tons and more of plastic production every year? Sniff sniff. The air at my house seems to be fine, so I don’t see the problem. Besides, it’s not my job. Animals and fish dying due to plastic congestion and ingestion? They’re not my animals and fish, so I don’t feel responsible. Besides . . . .(whistle)
And that is the state of affairs in which we find ourselves. Plastic, plastic everywhere, killing the air,, the waters, the animals, the sea life and birds. This job belongs to all of us, to recycle, spread awareness in a collective loud voice, and to pressure government and private industry—pressure them loud and hard—if we are to have any hope of saving ourselves from the monster we created. It is not a job we dare run away from, not just for animals and birds and fish, but for the future of our children, their children, their children and all the children beyond.
There are some things we can do individually. Here’s one of them. Stop using those flimsy plastic bags in the produce section of grocery stores. Instead, take those reusable bags you pay a dime for, and reuse them by putting your apples, bananas, tomatoes, and other produce in them instead of using the ones at the store. I’ll bet you can think of some other things, too. And this is a discussion we’ll be returning to from time to time.
I’m running over again. This may become a habit. This is the Wallace Element, I’m Wallace, and I’m outta here until next time. Ciao.
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