Problem:
In our Oceans several so called Garbage Patches have formed. The most pronounced are the North Atlantic Garbage Patch, the Indian Ocean Garbage Patch and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. What is a garbage Patch and why is it a problem?
Basically Garbage Patches are large Vortexes in which floating plastic waste is sucked and cycles trapped by the ocean currents. Obviously neither the Oceans nor the Currents are to blame for the accumulation of waste in these areas. It is estimated that around 20 % of the plastic stems from sea-based human emitters such as ships or oil-rigs, while 80% is emitted from land-based human systems/emitters.
To find out more
about the genesis of these patches we have to look back more than 150
years where the first plastics were discovered and since became a
primary resource/material for our Economic System. For Self-education
on this I suggest watching the Documentary “Addicted to Plastic”,
a great film which covers also most of what is discussed here. One
can lit(t)er-Ally say that plastics has become our “drug of
abuse/addiction”, the Way it was/is used to promote and facilitate
the fast paced consumerism lifestyle with lots of cheap and
disposable feel-good products. Plastics are resistant and durable,
dependent on the specific compound and circumstances they last
several hundred years in the environment. This means that, besides a
small amount that has been incinerated, all the plastic produced from
the beginning is still in circulation on the planet – and it gets
more and more on a daily basis. We are just now becoming aware of the
potential timebomb we have been and are accumulating within the
unaware use of plastics – in the name of Money.
Suggested to watch:
Addicted to Plastic
This Film should see all of the world!!
At this Point we can already spot
a the major “Problems” that can as well be realized as
starting points for preventive and corrective measures, namely:
- The
sheer mass of plastic products and packaging and its unquestioned and
unaware usage.
- A dysfunctional Relationship to the “waste” plastic, meaning the waste management systems did and (almost everywhere) do not function effectively, treating plastic as a valuable resource that is manmade from the earth, while realizing that due to its nature and properties: plastic is not part of the natural environment.
- Just because its so widespread and seemingly “inert” plastic is seen as harmless, effecting no consequences
In fact plastic is
not harmless as we can see when having a look at the consequences it
creates for animals and ecosystems. Bigger parts and particles of
plastic pose a threat to animals like Sea-Birds, Turtles and seals
that can get caught in old nets, plastic strips or similar pieces. As
one can see in the Picture below they will also eat the plastic. A study
carried out by US and Canadian Scientists found that dead Sea-Birds
now have 9 times more plastic in their bellies then 40 years ago. On
the impacts of plastic a quote from the Article on
“wildlifeextra.com”:
"The science on this
issue is still being refined - there is much we don't know about the
impacts of plastic ingestion on birds in general and Northern Fulmars
in particular. We do know that the plastic in the stomach displaces
the space for food that the birds need and that plastic can lacerate
the stomach lining. Some of the birds we looked at had their gizzards
completely full with plastic. We also know that plastic in the sea
absorbs an astounding level of contaminants in a very short time and
that these contaminants may leach out in a bird that swallows it,"
said Avery-Gomm.
What all of this
small plastic debris has in common is that they accumulate
(hydrophobic/oily) contaminants, for example PCB. The
accumulation-factor in this case is 1 million. That means that there
is 1 million times more PCB per weight in the plastic Nurdles than in
the surrounding water. Through the consumption of fish and smaller
organisms the plastic enters the food-chain. What happens once the
Contaminants are present in the Food-chain is that they accumulate.
Bioaccumulation is the process of accumulation on one “tropic level” of the ecosystem, meaning for example the accumulation of PCB in one animal species. This depends for example on the rate the fish consume Nurdles instead of actual food, what again depends on how the Nurdles/food-ratio is in the feeding-ground. The more plastic is in the water = the more contaminants enter the food-chain. The concentration of contaminants also plays a role and one can say the the higher the concentration in the plastic, the more will accumulate in the organisms consuming it.
Biomagnification describes the Process of accumulation along the food-chain, meaning that generally the bigger the animals the more contaminants per bodyweight they accumulate in their bodies.
Now, even if one do not care and is ignorant about the consequences that this has for animals themselves one can see that that our plastic-waste and contaminants are a boomerang, coming right back to us, because at the top of the food-chain: sits the Human.
After so much Problems, lets look at the solutions:
Solutions:
Frist it is for us to
realize that basically we have really fucked up in terms of what we
have done and still are doing to the Ecosystems and the Planet as a
whole. We have created consequences that will stay for a while, even
if we stop immediatly, and that will/may have further consequences
that we are just now really starting to get aware of, like this
plastic-timebomb – Thus it is to in fact stop our addiction to
plastic as a main ingredient for our consumerist frenzy. Now - how
do we do this? Clear is that we can not allow ourselves to stay on
our old ways of how we have done and treathed „things“ – So -
we need a systematic and complete change. A new system that is based
on Life as the only real value. Equal Money Captitalism is the
proposal of such a system. Following are two excerpts of the
Economist Journey to Life that i will expand on. Here you can Educate
yourself on how such a system functions.
Informed Decision-Making
"Within
Capitalism, the assumption is made that the consumer always has full
knowledge available about the products they can buy - and thus, that
they are always able to make informed decisions about the purchases
they make - and that this mechanism, therefore - makes it so that
only the best quality products are bought and stimulated to be
produced, while inferior
products will phase out.
Obviously - this is currently not the case. The only point that is
shared (and not even that comprehensively) is the ingredients.
Labelling
within Equal Money Capitalism will include not only ingredients, but
also how the price was established
- who contributed to the production process, what share of the profit
goes to these participants - what
are the externalities involved in terms of the harm that was caused
towards the environment in the form of pollution and what resources
were involved to produce the product, etc".
Economist Journey to Life – Equal Money Capitalism – The WayForward
In
a System based on life a inferior product is a product that harms or
poses a threat to life – and it is interesting because this already
so, just because we do not consider the animals, nature, the
environment as ourselves as equal life, because we see them in
separation of ourselves we can justify that harm and abuse being
done, in the name of money, what means that that our system currently
is not based on life but on Greed. Labeling is a cool tool to expose
the real cost of “things” and at whose cost these “things”
are created. We have to re-evaluate all products and processes
involved in the production of goods in terms of their
consequences
for Life on earth. The current knowledge is flawed and can not be
trusted so easily, as – in most of the cases – the very founders
of Research/Studies are the very profiteers of that research/studies. For
the first time we will be able to establish real science that takes
all life into consideration and so enables informed decision-making: “So studies like ecology, physics, sociology, education, psychology will form the basis of economics and not the other way around - where today, economics determines science in terms of what is being researched as that which is the most profitable”
Day 184: The Relationship between Ecology and Economics in Equal Money Capitalism
So in concrete terms this
means that we look through all the products/applications we use plastic
for at them sort out what we can do differently. Do we need to have
candy and detergents tabs double packed in plastic? Or is this design
based on psychology trickery to sell better – Competition will be
eliminated and with it will go a lot of the diversity in plastics and
and multi-material-packaging that cause problems when the
product/package becomes “waste” and enters the recycling. There
are bioplastics and some bigger companies already have proven that they
can create sustainable and applicable products from it. With a sound
foundation for economics like proposed here, a lot of things will
change – because it becomes possible to change them.
And finally a good dose of
common sense will help us see our “Blind Spot” namely that
plastic is made from Oil and Oil is running out. That means that the
way plastic is used currently is not sustainable whatsoever and will
stop, one way or another. Thus for the applications where we still
will be using the plastics of today, a recycling-system where we
threat plastic as a valuable resource would be a good idea.
Rewards:
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| Art: Matti Freeman |
Great post! Thanks
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