The weight of plastic produced annually in the United States is more than twice the weight of our entire population. Plastic waste is accumulating not only in our landfills, but also in our streets, parks, and waterways. A recent trawl of surface waters of the northern Pacific Ocean recovered six pounds of plastic pieces for every pound of zooplankton. If current trends of production and disposal continue, this ratio is expected to climb to 60:1 within a decade. In this section of the ocean, one million plastic particles were found floating near the surface for every square kilometer, up three times since the early 1990s.

Across the country, any loose trash item will likely end up in our waterways. Plastic bags and cups are picked up by wind or rain, and storm drains and creeks carry them downstream. In the San Francisco Bay Area for example, plastic items make up 51.5% of trash in creeks. Because plastic never biodegrades, the total trash load continues to grow. This litter is not only an eyesore; it harms wildlife and threatens vital habitat. In the North Pacific, an estimated 100,000 marine mammals die yearly from accidental ingestion or entanglement in plastic debris. One million seabirds die this way.

When plastic articles break into smaller pieces, their essential constituents (long-chain polymers) remain intact. These polymers resist metabolism by any creature, great or small. Jellyfish and salps, the most efficient filter-feeding organisms in the ocean, have been found with plastic particles firmly embedded in their tissues. These particles move up the food chain, all the way to humans. Plastics and their additives also migrate directly into our food via plastic containers. Even small amounts of these chemicals that get into our food or air can have harmful effects, including male infertility, premature puberty, asthma, cancer, and insulin resistance.

Further, using plastic wastes precious resources: an estimated 3 million barrels of oil are required to produce the 19 billion plastic bags used annually in California. Only a few plastic carryout bags use recycled content; most of those contain only around 5% recycled material. In San Francisco, an estimated 50-150 million grocery bags have been dispensed from grocery stores each year, most of them plastic. (The recent ban of plastic bags, approved in March 2007, will reduce the numbers greatly, but is only a beginning.) In Marin County, to the north of San Francisco, we estimate 10-40 million bags leave grocery stores each year, and many more from other retail outlets. All of this is just the tip of the plastic iceberg.

One particularly wasteful use of plastic is the purchase and disposal of 93 billion water bottles every year. Transporting this water increases greenhouse gas emissions (each gallon of water weighs about 8 pounds), and puts undue pressure on low-income families (the cost of bottled water is over 1000 times the cost of tap water, which is usually safer, too).

Our exposure to plastic is universal, and growing. To reverse these dangerous trends, we must rethink our approach to consumption, our reliance on toxic chemicals, and the founding premise of profit over everything else. In other words, rethinking plastics means rethinking our lives.

Over the last two years, Green Sangha has engaged in an increasingly vigorous public awareness campaign on plastics pollution. In 2007, we gave 52 public presentations, attended by over 1500 citizens and schoolchildren. We also showed our plastics exhibit at community events, viewed by over 2000 visitors, and testified at public hearings, including city council deliberation on two legislative actions initiated by our members.

We invite you to join our campaign to Rethink Plastics and Rethink Our Lives. You can start by looking at one of our articles, viewing our slide presentation, or clicking on any of the websites below. Then, contact us with your ideas and wishes. Together we can stem the tides of pollution and restore beauty and health to the planet.

• Green Sangha plastics flyers (PDF documents):
  • Don’t Think Of A Plastic Bag (Full double-sided sheet)
  • Why I Don’t Use Plastic Bags (a shortened version that you can share in your local grocery store)
  • Growing a Green Practice: A Meditation On Plastics
• For some informative links regarding PVC plastic visit: http://www.ejnet.org/plastics/pvc/
• Take Action Against Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) Plastics (PDF document)
• Earth Resource Foundation is another great resource for information about plastics.
• The California Product Stewardship Council works to promote product stewardship and extended producer responsibility (EPR).
• Visit the Agalita foundation to learn more about plastic in the ocean: http://www.algalita.org/ and http://www.plasticdebris.org/
• Find out the truth about what happens to our plastic “recycling”: Sky News Video Report — Green Britain: Are You Poisoning China?
• Fake Plastic Fish is one Green Sangha member’s personal blog documenting her efforts to reduce the amount of plastic in her life and find healthy alternatives to plastic products.
• Green Mary, a Green Sangha Sonoma County member, does Bay Area event greening. A major part of her event waste diversion is resource management and eco-education, focusing largely on plastics reduction and providing alternatives to one-time use water bottles. She helps to install permanent or temporary water filtration systems and dispensers so that attendees can refill their own water bottles rather than relying on the steady stream of “recyclable” ones that pour through events each year. Event composting and recycling maximization, green consulting, and a highly informative water bottle presentation for events, businesses and municipalities with viable, visionary alternatives. www.green-mary.com