Written by Given that plastic is toxic, all plastic derivatives are more or less unusable which means that every invention involving plastic is also unusable.
This is likely 1/5th of all patents, this is a guess. What isn’t a guess? Humans have produced 9 billion tons of plastic, majority of which are still present on the planet in some form to this day. The overall weight of all human creations is 1.1 terratons. That’s a trillion walruses in weight.
For every person on the planet, we make their body weight worth of stuff in a week. One week.
Of this 9 billion tons of plastic, only 2 tons are still in use, the rest is disposed of or attempts at recycling are made.
54% are packaging, the stuff that is made specifically to be thrown out when we get something new. This link is a timeline of plastic. Plastic is a problem. We’ve had it since the 1800s and it goes nowhere. Microplastics are everywhere, in the water, in the blood, in the food we consume, everywhere.
Capitalism is the culprit here, feeding consumerism and consumer demand for the latest and greatest rather than tried and somewhat outdated but still usable. The privatization of invention means that people reinvent the wheel constantly, expending energy that could be used otherwise to create their own spin on something already existing on the marketplace with a slight difference. This is the opinion section of the article, the part where debate comes in, attack the comments if you so choose.
Bioplastics are on the way to supplant the use of natural gas and oil-based plastics. Not fast enough though.
What’s the Hold Up?
Bioplastics can be made from corn or sugarcane but the hesitation there comes from not wanting to use foodstuff for plastics in a world that has not overcome food insecurity as yet.
Furthermore, we have to bear in mind that soil is depleting.
So instead, seaweed emerges as the leading option from which to make bioplastics. Cyanobacteria and microalgae can also be used but that’s not vegan so it’s not on the table as an option for us.
Seaweed! There’s nearly endless ocean to farm it in, it helps stop overfishing by giving fisherfolk something to do on the water that does not involve trapping and suffocating a living being just to eat them, and it gets rid of plastic use by absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere, growing big and healthy and being processed into an alternative to traditional plastic! Brilliant!
So what’s the hold up on making this as widespread as possible?
Some studies propose recycling more as the answer rather than simply replacing existing plastic with bioplastic because the bioplastics pose similar problems of non-degradability despite not being oil or gas-based. However for us, making a plastic without oil or gas is already a step in the correct direction and is a good path to go down and further expand upon.
In truth, both recycling and creating bioplastics are probably the answer while the oceans are yet still usable, and not overheating or acidifying, which happens when the ocean has too much CO2. Articles that claim bioplastics to not be the saviour we believe only serve to complicate what is not that complicated by filling that weekly quota of SEO and clickbaity titles.
Seaweed based bioplastic production takes out oil and gas as the base material. This is a step in the correct direction which makes it seem like a no-brainer. Combined with smarter packaging and recycling methods, seaweed based bioplastics can help to answer the problem of single use plastic while repairing our oceans.
What about longer lasting plastics?
The use of 3D-printing to replace shipping of products and instead, purchasing the blueprint for a patented product is the best compromise to strike with modern day production.
Having a local 3D printer and booking your time, paying per hour of printing, cuts shipping costs by reducing the item shipped to the 3D printing filament or hydrogel for multipurpose use, printing unique items with our own designs available as well.
And guess what? That filament or hydrogel can be made with seaweed! Yes, indeed. I mean, honestly these climate-themed articles are supposed to bum people out so they get kicked into action but this future of 3D printeries instead of stores sounds awesome! Then these stores that go out of business can be turned into homes for the homeless and everyone can try their hand at designing for a little passive income alongside all the other stuff they do. That sounds cool.
Conclusion
The seeming productivity of Capitalism allows toxic materials to proliferate and expand with few checks or balances. While the answer is not to restrict freedom, it should not be profitable to endanger ecosystems and human habitats by introducing toxic materials continuously that we have to pay for. Many feel as though they cannot escape from the toxicity. Trying a CO2 strike where you limit contact with oil, gas, plastic and animal products will enrage you when you realize how inescapable these things truly are.
And we know that many people have become wealthy off this ecosystem destruction and toxicity.
Bioplastics, while not the full answer, when combined with rigorous recycling standards, careful choice of materials, namely seaweed use, and the replacement of stores selling plastic wares with 3D printeries with idiosyncratic printing options – imagine having everything you own bear a signature bunny rabbit to personalize them? This combination can help pivot us to a world free of microplastics!
About Us: Fastfrwrd is a green social platform that makes use of Opensource tools to create a Nature Benefit System- An iteration upon governmental Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) systems with the use of deep gamification. On Fastfrwrd users called Seekers work towards carbon neutrality. Surfing on ecological servers, we congregate in order to socialize but when we do something ecological that is replicable and instructive, we get points which can be spent on a user-generated digital goods marketplace.
Sources:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/humans-are-burying-earth-under-billions-tons-plastic-180964125/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-55239668
https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/55260227
https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/interactive_timeline/14-plastics-innovations-and-impacts-timeline
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/microplastics-detected-in-human-blood-180979826/
https://www.treehugger.com/what-are-bioplastics-6829398
https://e360.yale.edu/features/why-bioplastics-will-not-solve-the-worlds-plastics-problem
https://www.popsci.com/environment/bioplastic-sustainability-issues/
https://www.noaa.gov/ocean-acidification-high-co2-world-dangerous-waters-ahead
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