Plastics: Convenient, Fashionable and Deadly
This discusses the hazards of indiscriminate use of plastic products at home and in workplaces. It also presents some suggestions on how to minimize the use of plastics to delay, at most, looming pollution caused by the material.
LIKE it or not, we have been used to a lifestyle swamped with plastics —bags, bottles, containers and disposable product packages.
This 19th-century invention has given life in marketplaces, workplaces, offices and homes a kind of convenience we are probably unwilling to part with, even if we know that plastic trash is killing our seas and choking our waterways.
Charles Moore, in a 2001 Algalita Marine Research Foundation video transcript, estimated that plastic debris in oceans weigh six times more than all zooplanktons in the seas.
Despite education and awareness campaign against indiscriminate use of plastic products, the production and demand for this petro-chemical byproduct continue to expand over the years.
Von Hernandez, Greenpeace-Southeast Asia campaign director, had that the one probable reason why there is so much foot-dragging on the part of Philippine government in addressing the hazards of excessive use of plastics is not lack of awareness, but the billions of pesos plastic-recycling industries in the country is getting from the business.
Another reason is that most people have found plastic bags and Styrofoam good companions in the market places, grocery stores and in the kitchen.
Convenience
The demand for plastic bags and plastic-based packaging materials is surging, thriving on an almost folkloric belief that it is cheapest, most reliable, most convenient and easiest to get rid of compared with other substitute materials.
The Polystyrene Packaging Association of the Philippines, a group producing food-packaging products, said in product promotion pitch: With today’s fast-paced lifestyle, society requires a fast and reliable way of being served fresh, clean food in most convenient and safe way. This is one advantage of polystyrene that reusable or paper packaging cannot offer—speed and reliability.
Polystyrene (PS) comes in many shapes and forms, from foam egg cartons and meat trays, to soup bowls and salad boxes, from coffee cups and utensils to CD “jewel boxes,” and from produce trays to “peanuts” used in packing and the lightweight molded foam that cushion new appliances and electronics.
Virtually, there is no corner in our homes, offices and even in our lives untouched by plastics. The abundance of the material has somehow ushered in a culture of “disposables” or a consciousness that nothing actually has lasting value. With the help of plastics, we have come to know the convenience of a use-and-dispose lifestyle—disposable lighters, bags, diapers, cups, bottles, and name it, modern life has it— disposable partners, too?
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