What is Plastic?

Does anyone remember the days when we would go to the grocery store and all we had to worry about was paying the bill? Now, we have to remember to bring our bags in from the car and then keep the bags to the side of the cart so that they are ready to use once the groceries start piling up on the conveyor belt. We also have to make sure that we brought enough bags for the amount of groceries we were planning to buy because, heaven forbid, 5 cents a bag is just highway robbery! On top of all that, we have to bag our own damn groceries instead of checking the cash register to make sure those Gushers! really are on sale for $2 each, assuming that you are allowed to Mix n Match with Scooby Doo snacks which are also on sale - 3 for $6. Guess what? They weren't. Oh well, too late now! Please leave the store.

While we are talking about COVID, the efficiency of this whole process had to be increased as stores wanted us in and out, as fast as possible. Conveyor belts are being sanitized with every purchase and the longer we take to bag our groceries, the slower the whole sanitize/bag/place all your personal belongings on the floor process took! People glared at us from the other end of the conveyor belt wondering why we can't bag 100 items faster. Stores made us feel rushed and, if they did offer to bag our groceries for us, they would use their own store bags. Here we go now; back to the plastics. With all the online Walmart grocery orders I did just this year, I have more plastic bags stored up now than I did before we were told to start bringing our own cloth bags to the store.

Is it a safe assumption to think that every person being asked to bring their own shopping bags to the store understands the environmental effects of plastic bags? At first, we assumed that it was because there were too many plastic bags floating around in abandoned parking lots. Then, we saw it as a threat to our children, aged 3 and younger. So dangerous that plastic bags had to come with a written warning. Caution: Risk of suffocation. A plastic bag is not a toy. Ok, we get it. Plastic is bad. However, does the world know the real answer as to why?

According to ibanet.org, the major impact of plastic bags on the environment is that it takes many years to for them to decompose. In addition, toxic substances are released into the soil when plastic bags perish under sunlight and, if plastic bags are burned, they release a toxic substance into the air causing ambient air pollution. Nonplasticbeach.com says this about the environmental impact of plastic: Plastic pollution causes harm to humans, animals and plants through toxic pollutants. It can take hundreds or even thousands of years for plastic to break down so the environmental damage is long-lasting. It affects all organisms in the food chain from tiny species like plankton through to whales. Beached whales. Has anyone seen the videos? Just search it on YouTube. It is horrific! If fish were meant to live on land, this is what it would look like. Legless sea creatures, stuck on a beach, with nowhere to go. Huge, awe-inspiring animals, choking on plastic and no one can save them. Their final minutes are spent stranded on a beach, looking at an environment that was never meant for them. How does an event like this happen? Was it all because of a plastic bag? A jug of water that some corporation chose to use to store the tap water that they are selling back to us at double the price? Did anyone ever stop to think of the environmental impact that this plastic jug would have on every human being on this planet? No. Because we only think of profit, not the greater good of humanity.

But, it is not only plastic! You know that soft and fuzzy feeling you get when you crawl into your most snuggly hoodie in the dead of winter? Well, that feeling should come with a hit of guilt after you read this: your hoodie is most likely made of polyester and fleece. They all release microplastics which break down in the ocean and kill the ecosystem, thanks to information posted by Reimagine Co. What about your favorite leggings or when you go buy a new bikini for the summer? All bad...nylon, spandex, acrylic, and microfleece were materials that were either sold to us as comfortable, super stretchy, or warm in subzero temperatures, but they all came at a cost that big corporations will never admit to. Beached whales. I am currently watching a documentary on Netflix about plastics and microplastics in the ocean. Huge plastic containers being taking out to the middle of the ocean and dumped where no one can see. Yet, one man did see and he had a camera. Now, he has a death threat from these corporations who don't want us to know what they are doing to our sea life. Let's not forget that if these microplastics are in the bellies of all our fish, they are sure to be in our bloodstream as well.

I want to switch gears a little bit to talk about what is being done to educate the world about the harm done to our Earth. I recently listened to a Ted Talk Interview about a young climate activist. Her movement is about climate justice and her name is Xiye Bastida. I was so intrigued to learn that she is willing to fight for what she believes in because she was taught from a young age that the environment is everything. It is our rain, our rivers, our moon, our trees, our agriculture, and our food. My words, not hers. I am sure she is much more eloquent than me. Her belief is that if you take care of the Earth, it will take care of you. So let me introduce her story...

Xiye Bastida is a Mexican-Chilean climate activist and member of the indigenous Mexican Otomi-Toltec nation. She is one of the major organizers of Fridays for Future New York City and has been a leading voice for indigenous and immigrant visibility in climate activism, according to Google. She is just 19-years-old and already quite experienced speaking with politicians. Her first time speaking was at a conference in Malaysia, at 15-years-old, and the most recent discussion was virtually, with Joe Biden in April 2021. Her parents are both environmentalists. When she spoke about the school strike for climate that she initiated, I was moved to tears. She is one person, fighting this fight as hard as she possibly can. She realized that she was not alone on that first day when she walked out of class to protest the government, who was doing nothing to change their policies. She was not alone when she led a march in New York and the police gave her a nod to allow the students to walk through the city, chanting the words, "If you adults won't save the world, we will".

She is on the administration committee of the People's Climate Movement and a former member of Sunrise Movement and Extinction Rebellion. She is co-founder of Re-Earth Initiative, an international not-for-profit organization that is inclusive and intersectional “just as the climate movement should be”, according to Wikipedia. As if that's not enough, she also has a platform for training activists, who want to fight the environment, as mentioned in Entrepreneur.com.

What is this information overload meant for? To show you that one person can make a difference. She mentioned that many students did come to her after the school strike for climate, saying that they agreed with her but didn't know how to make a difference. They didn't believe that one person's efforts could help. She told them that they were wrong. By showing up and by telling your friends to show up, the worldwide march in September of 2019 grew to 7.6 million people standing up for climate change. One person can make a difference by spreading the word, rejecting corporations who continue to do unethical things, and educating other youth and adults on how we can start to undo the harm that has been done to Mother Earth. The whales might not survive, but if we don't make changes now, what hope do we have? The youth are on board. Are you?