Plastics. . .

—From EF—

In December of 1967 we were rounding the last lap of our two years in Columbia, South Carolina, the first job after Conrad finished his PhD. That year a classic movie hit the screen wherein another new graduate was facing the prospect of his first job and was entrusted with the key to success: Plastics. Dustin Hoffman didn’t take that advice, and neither did Conrad Bishop. However, legions of movers and shakers took it very seriously, made obscene fortunes, and are now drowning all life on earth in an unending flood of plastic garbage.

The raw material for most plastics is petroleum. Since the awareness of climate chaos and rising temperatures hit mainstream consciousness, we’ve all been exhorted to do what we can to minimize a major culprit, the use of fossil fuels. Alternative energy sources are no longer a silly joke, and this is a danger signal for those whose revenues might be impacted. A high proportion of the oil pumped from the ground ends up being burned as gasoline for cars and trucks and power stations, but if that market slacks off because too many people are turning to wind and solar and driving less, new advances in the use of plastic are compensating.

We’re supposed to take comfort in the advent of recycling and the little triangles that tell us how to sort, but there isn’t enough money to be made in the products of recycling so the bins of stuff go where they would have gone all along.

I’m old enough to remember when buying a package of safety pins didn’t require tin snips to open the package. I also remember the gash I gave myself when first coping with the new hard-plastic shells that suddenly enclosed flashlight batteries, once they figured out how to weld the cover to the new backing that has a little hole to hang from a store’s hooks. I remember how recently the produce shelves started selling pre-washed salad in dishpan-sized hard plastic coffins. And now the meat departments display their wares pre-sealed in thick tough bags that have been vacuum-sealed, often swimming in marinade. The poundage of salty liquid sells at the same rate as the meat, and those who are supposed to avoid salt can simply not buy anything and save even more. When I searched long enough to find a package without marinade, I found that my kitchen scissors could neither penetrate nor cut that pouch. A clerk helpfully told me she uses box cutters.

Our local (wonderful) non-chain independent market changed hands recently. Now marinade pouches gleam like polished Buicks on the shelves, and many of my favorite little dodges for making rice into a tasty main dish are gone now, replaced by more pre-processed convenience meals—packaged in plastic, of course. And many of the friends who’d kindly fetch me bags of chicken necks for stock don’t work there now. Fewer men are needed when the distributor delivers the product already cut and packaged—in plastic. How nice. It stays fresh longer, and if it doesn’t you can’t tell anything from texture or smell any more.

I’ve seen the claim that what shows up on the grocery shelves is mostly controlled now by only four or five giant corporations distributing things under a variety of sub-labels. Kroger, Safeway, Vons, Albertsons, Pavilions, Ralph’s Pay Less, Pick’n’Save, Fred Meyer—that’s all Kroger wearing different hats. Try complaining to that monolith about plastic packaging.

OK, all you FB activists, if you know about any locally effective movements to pressure for less plastic, please share. I talk to the folks behind the counter at my stores, but they shrug and tell me it’s delivered to them in the plastic. Not their fault, nothing to be done.

Anybody?

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