Plasticized

Okay, so for this extra credit assignment I choose to watch the documentary Plasticized. This documentary, just like the last, was an amazing, eye-opening, movie. It began with a man’s curiosity of plastic pollution, which eventually evolved to a journey apart of the 5 Gyres Institute to travel through the South Atlantic gyres. This expedition was the first of two things, it was the first time the producer went to open sea, and the first time they filmed a documentary of plastic pollution.

The central idea of this documentary almost centered around, or at least carried the theme of, the evil fact that people throw away an item in one minute that lasts forever. During the film I learned how the plastic that is polluted into our environment accumulates to the gyres –which are natural earth systems- and then biomagnifies up the food chain. As we learned in class, the bio magnification can take place in small fish, than to larger fish, and then, yes you know it, to humans. But, lets kick it back a notch for a second, its not just the plastic alone that bio accumulates, instead, pollutants attract to plastic and when near, they attach to one another. When this plastic is attached to even more pollution (i.e. chemicals), it disrupts fish’ endocrine systems. Cruel right?

So, on this journey to the gyre, they trolled to collect plastic, and the occasional fish that they would examine. The crew on the ship was SO driven to collect floating plastic, it was insane, at one point one of the scientist even jumped in the water to collect a piece of floating plastic. Just watching them do some of the troll work was even exhausting; at some points it’s so torturous for them, but yet so rewarding in the end. In fact, for one week of the expedition the storms were so rough that the ship began to leak, but when they awoke, the water was calm, for the first time.

Lets now examine the trolling, they drag this small net, which skims across the ocean surface, and it’s about a foot long. This, as I mentioned earlier, collects plastic that floats on the open ocean. Now this small amount that they troll is less than the edge of a razor blade compared to a football field, sounds small right? That goes to show just how large the ocean is, and why we should work towards controlling and preventing this large wasteful plastic use. But, if you added up all the tablespoons of troll they collect, it would add to tens of thousands of tons of trash floating in the gyres alone.

This leaves humans with one question; do we do something about this? Or do we just merely walk away? It seems easy to agree that walking away and ignoring the situation is nothing more than attributing to the great floating patch of trash in the ocean, and all of the other bio magnifying plastic that kills animal’s worldwide. From this documentary I really did learn how bad plastic use is, and where most of the plastic really does go, even sometimes after recycling. It was most definitely a life changing movie, so if you’re reading this…. What are you waiting for? Go check it out!

Here are some facts displayed at the end of the documentary:

• In 2010 alone it was estimated that over 300 million tons of new plastics were produced around the world.
• Only 13.3% of plastics were recycled in 2008, less than 1% of plastic bags are recycled each year.
• The cost to recycle 1 ton of plastic bags is $4,000, the product created is values at $32.

Unbelievable right?

Interesting....

Wow… So this is it, my last required blog post for this semester in environmental science, it sure has been an amazing semester. But with that said, lets just go ahead tear the band-aide right off. We’re all off to a new chapter, and for us environmental science students –and our blog viewers- hopefully the upcoming chapters entail some sort of environmentally friendly behavior!

So, looking back on this semester, what do I personally think is the most important environmental issue today? To narrowly answer this question I would have to say America’s affluent behavior on the environment, but to be more broad, global warming. I picked these topics because both of them have to deal with the climate change that we’ve been experiencing, and the threatening outcomes that may occur if our wasteful behavior continues globally.

So, how do we know the warming is real? Well, for starters, in 2007 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that, due to CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions, the earth’s lower atmosphere has warmed since 1980. They also found that the average global temperature has raised 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit, just as did the emission of CO2. Not to mention, they found that glaciers have been melting, and floating sea ice is shrinking. Lastly, they found that major lakes have warmed, and the sea level rose by 7 inches during the 20^th century.

So why is global warming so scary? Lets face it, if this continues we’re going to face some serious consequences, according to our text, some of the consequences are: severe drought, more ice and snow melt, rising sea levels, more extreme weather conditions, threat of biodiversity, decline of agriculture, and worse human health. Crazy right? One issue can bring about dozens of consequences, and It’s obvious that the harsh weather conditions and raising sea level will kill and endless amount of humans and keystone animals. But, its not until you think critically about the situation until you realize the true harm global warming creates, for example, more sea= less land, less land +high population= cluttered populations, poor health, and ultimately, chaos. Not to mention the fact that many agriculture sources will come to a halt due to weather changes, thereby limiting our food. Okay, so I’m sure we could go on all day talking about the catastrophic events that result from the burning of fossil fuels, but lets look at what we can do as a society to stop global warming. Well, as a society, there are a number of things we can do, such as, cutting fossil fuel use, shift from coal to natural gas, improve energy efficiency, reduce deforestation, use renewable energy sources, and finally, put a price on greenhouse gas emissions. As an individual, I can take societal prevention measures into my own hands (and you can do the same) by not using as much fossil fuels, this means not using as much plastic, and not driving around as much. Besides cutting back on items that use nonrenewable resources, one of the most important things we can do is spread the word and help others help our environment; after all, we’re in this together.

One of the most interesting things I’ve learned this semester was the invention of “earth ships”, which I talked about in my last blog. Earth ships are self-sustainable homes that use no energy, and that can even withstand huge storm events- not to mention, they’re made of reused material! After researching earth ships, I really would like to get more environmentally involved, as the documentary “Garbage Warrior” really did inspire me. Who knows, maybe one day Ill even get the change to help build an earth ship, and more importantly, maybe one day corporate America will focus more on building structures that actually help us, rather than just put us in debt so we can work to pay them off for the rest of our lives.

 

Garbage Warrior

 So, Garbage Warrior is an amazing movie! And for this blog post I’m going to teach my viewers what the movie was about and what I learned from it. The main idea of this documentary centers on the main character, Mike, and his desire to steer mankind –which he refers to as metaphorical buffalo- away from a very steep cliff.

So who is Mike? Well, Mike builds self-sustainable homes from items such as bottles, tires, cans, and glass. The idea that people can live in the houses that he builds and literally pay nothing, amazes him, in fact, they can even harvest their own food and never have the need to leave home. Interestingly enough, Mike takes advantage of many energy sources that are necessary for life, such as thermal energy, solar energy, maximum sunlight exposure, and water infiltration. As you can imagine, these houses that Mike and his crew build have very interesting designs, and they’re always referred to as works in progress, due to the fact that they’re all trial runs and experiments.

Eventually, these buildings that Mike calls “earth ships” become very popular, and he begins to receive an endless amount of calls from people who want them to build earth ships for them, or even in some cases, earth communities. This gave Mike an idea, and from that point on he began creating his own earth community. Eventually, his company got shut down for violating architect subdivisions –namely expensive ones- such as not having adequate roads and services. In turn, Mike’s credentials and license were revoked. Due to Mike’s passion and love for protecting the environment, he decided to do everything he could to make his buildings legal, regardless of the fact that it was corporate America who shut him down.

So what did he have to do? Well, Mike had to become a legal subdivision, therefore, he was required to pay thousands of dollars for people to draw useless diagrams, and in some cases, he had to pay thousands for people to just walk around and pick up arrowheads. After an endless amount of ridiculous requests, Mike took this fight to the state, instead of the county. Mike then drafted a new law to allow for easier testing of sustainable buildings. After he drafted the law, he went around and tried proposed the draft to hundreds of committee members and lawyers. This part of the documentary was really amazing, as it demonstrated Mike completely out of his element, but it showed how much will power he had to accomplish what he believed in. So, after proposing the bill, and redrafting it over, and over, and over again, he finally met with one representative who understood his concerns, and redrafted the law with him. After she helped him rewrite the bill, she went around to every representative, and actually got four other representatives to agree, in the end, they got out to judiciary by 9 to 2, but the bill actually died out from filibustering.

So this is where the documentary really gets good, Mike and his 7 man crew respond to help victims of a tsunami that hit the Andaman Islands. Once they arrived, they began to make self-sustainable buildings for the survivors; buildings that required no maintenance, and that could withstand massive storms and earthquakes. In fact, they buildings made it so the people no longer needed a water well, as the building would catch the water itself. In the end the local architects began to love these useful designs, and they adopted the techniques that Mike and his crew used, which was odd, because it took 14 days for an undeveloped country in a disaster to adopt this idea, but its taken over 3 years for a developed country like the U.S to even consider it.

After that major storm event, in 2006, New Mexico re-presented Mike’s bill, then on February of that year, his second attempt to introduce new legislation failed. This was huge for Mike, in his eyes the American dream went down the toilet. Then, once again, another storm event occurred, this time it was hurricane Rita. Once again, Mike and his crew responded to make earth ships for the survivors. This is when Mike heard the news, the U.S. board of architects learned about Mikes work in the Andaman Islands, and they invited him to reapply for his architect license. In the end, Mikes test site law was finally approved by the state legislature.

If you can’t already tell, this documentary is an amazing story about a man and his dream to help the environment, and in the end, his good will and passion is what allowed his dreams to come true. Mike never gave up, and watching this movie and all of his reactions to some of the unfortunate events is really nothing but mind-numbing. It just goes to show much self-sustainable buildings are to people, and the environment. After all, if these earth ships can change the minds of corporate Americans, then they can do anything. 

Trash Production

Okay, so its obvious that careless waste management can be detrimental to not only our wallets, but our environment. But discussing waste management really makes me wonder…. How much do I waste?

So for this blog I’m going to track, for a two day period, how much waste I create, and how some research on waste management can reduce my waste production. So, here it goes!

For my two-day period I trashed:

·      3 burrito wrappers from a Mexican food joint.

·      2 taco wrappers

·      3 sauce packages

·      16oz energy drink can

·      Soda can

·      Small plastic water cup

·      Cardboard box

·      Small plastic wrap

·      Fishing line

·      1 Parking pass

The second day:

·      Gatorade container

·      12oz aluminum can

·      Fishing line

·      Cereal box

·      12oz glass can

·      Energy drink

·      Meat packaging and zip lock bag

·      4 Produce bags

·      2 parking passes

Looking back at the list, I realized that I do waste more than I thought, but, to ease both of our minds, keep in mind that I do recycle glass and aluminum (though there is obvious room for improvement).

So, here is a list of waste-reduction strategies that I researched- all of which follow the principle of reduce, reuse, and recycle.

1.     Selective Shopping

▪   Reduce the amount of packaging you buy, reuse what you can, and recycle the rest. ▪   Look for products without packaging. ▪   Avoid individually wrapped portions (cheese slices, juice, etc.). ▪   Favor products with a high recycled content, even if they cost a little more. ▪   Choose concentrated products in reusable containers, and largest size containers. ▪   Buy in bulk. ▪   When purchasing just one or two items, tell the clerk, "I don't need a bag, thanks." ▪   Avoid disposable razors, pens, pencils and lighters. ▪   Buy recycled paper bathroom tissue, napkins and kitchen towels. ▪   Avoid pump toothpaste - it is over-packaged and includes excess plastic. ▪   Use your own reusable canvas or string bags when shopping. ▪   If you do opt for paper or plastic grocery bags, take them back to the store to be recycled. ▪   Buy quality products and keep them for a lifetime. 2.     In the Home ▪   Use resealable, reusable containers for lunch and leftovers. ▪   Use old toothbrushes and other brushes to clean bathroom tile, shoes, etc. ▪   Use ceramic mugs, cloth napkins & towels, china plates and silverware. ▪   Use baking soda to clean sinks, toilet bowls and showers. ▪   Reuse glass jars to store nails, screws, craft supplies and other small items. ▪   When spring cleaning or moving, have a yard sale or donate items to charities instead of throwing them away.

Reduce, Reuse and Recycle

While recycling is part of the solution for preserving landfill space and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the best option is to prevent or reduce the amount of waste that is generated in the first place.Reuse also plays an important role in keeping material out of landfills by ensuring that a product has been used to its fullest extent before disposal or recycling. And it creates new markets for materials, new jobs, and opportunities for vocational training. But even the best waste reducers and reusers will be left with items that have reached the end of their usable life.

Here's how you can do your best to reduce, reuse, and recycle those items that are not usually recyclable in your home or business recycling bins.

Unwanted phone books

Unwanted mail

Plastic bags

Reusable product alternatives

Cloth Diapers

Donate, exchange, or sell

Styrofoam

Athletic Shoes

Baby Gear

Wine corks

Buy products made from recycled material

Reduce packaging

Redemption centers

Recycled Greeting Card Program

3.     Recycle:

·      Unwanted phone books

·      Unwanted Mail

·      Plastic Bags

4.     Reuse

▪   Use washable cloths instead of throwaway wipes

▪   Buy rechargeable batteries

▪   Buy cloth napkins that you can wash instead of paper you throw away

▪   Buy washable plates and cups for picnics instead of disposables

▪   Buy razors with replaceable blades

▪   Use reusable containers with lids instead of aluminum foil and plastic bags or wrap

▪   Rinse plastic bags and reuse them

▪   Buy a refillable water bottle instead of single use plastic bottles

5.     Donate, Exchange, or Sell

Give new life to your old things by donating, exchanging, or selling them.

•    Visit bargainlink.com or check the yellow pages to find thrift stores or charities that will take your donated items.

•    Donate or purchase local used building materials:

Architectural Salvage (Specializes in vintage and eclectic one-of-a-kind items)
2401 Kettner Blvd.
San Diego, CA 92101
(619) 696-1313



•    Buy used books, CDs, DVDs, and video games or trade them at an online exchange such as swaptree.com or swapadvd.com.

•    Sell your used items by advertising in the local paper or online at craigslist.com.

•    Give away or get free stuff using freecycle.org.

6.     Reduce Packaging

•    Large box of cereal vs. individually wrapped snack pack of mini boxes of cereal

•    Pudding mixes in recyclable boxes vs. pre-made pudding packs with individual servings that are stored in non-recyclable plastic cups

•    Fresh vegetables bought by the pound vs. vegetables in shrink-wrap or in clamshell containers

•    1-gallon water jugs vs. 6-pack of individual 12-ounce plastic bottles

Okay, so maybe I got a little out of hand with the waste reduction tips, but, here’s one last one that I found of high interest to myself- due to the fact that on many of my experiment days I wasted fishing line. So, if you’re like me and love to fish, check this out!

7.     Recycle  Fishing Line

Recently, fishing line recycling programs have sprouted up all over the world. Many U.S. states have initiated monofilament-recycling programs and installed fishing line collection bins at popular fishing destinations. These bins are typically made from white or black PVC pipe. Look for these bins at your favorite fishing spot, or ask your local department of fish and wildlife about monofilament recycling programs in your state.

Additionally, most sporting goods and tackle stores have collection bins for your old monofilament fishing line. Save your old fishing line for recycling when you are changing line. When you're out in the field, store all the clippings and snippets of fishing line that you can. Next time you're in the sporting goods store, drop off your old fishing line.

If you are in a location where fishing line recycling is not accessible, you can mail your old fishing line to Berkley Fishing for recycling.

So, now you may be wondering, after applying some of the available options to my life, how much did I waste in the next two days?

·      2-16 oz recycled cans

·      2- recycled burrito wrappers

·      Small amount of fishing line- of which I still have in my tackle box

·      15 oz soup container- recycled

·      4 egg shells

·      Small scraps found at the Riverside Community Garden

·      Recycled Gatorade container

Wow, It’s crazy how much some simple tips can reduce so much trash waste. As can be seen from the list above, there was much more waste in my first two-day cycle, but still, recycled material made most of my waste production. All in all, the most useful tool for me was to recycle, recycle everything from cans to fishing line. With that stated, it was most difficult for me to stop using aluminum cans containing food and beverages, as I know prevention is much better than recycling, but still, I was able to recycle (and I still plan to continue recycling all of my harmful goods). So, in conclusion, while recycling is part of the solution for preserving landfill space, the best option available is to prevent or reduce the amount of waste that is generated in the first place. Obvious, right? Maybe not so much…

Reusing also plays an important role in keeping material out of landfills by ensuring that a product has been used to its fullest extent before disposal or recycling. Also, it creates new markets for materials, new jobs, and opportunities for vocational training. But even the best waste reducers and reusers will be left with items that have reached the end of their usable life.

But if you follow the tips above, you too can reduce, reuse, and recycle those items that are not usually recyclable in your home or business recycling bins.