Rethinking Plastics:


A friend in the East Bay chapter of Green Sangha found an article,
referenced below, which conveys vividly the four major issues which we have
been discussing with regard to plastics:

Litter
Wildlife impacts
Toxicity
Waste

It opens with a story of Charles Moore, the captain whose trawls of the
North Pacific Gyre have given us some of the most dramatic information
about accumulating marine plastics. The article describes also some of the
most telling studies on endocrine disruption, including one scientist's
correlation of our obesity epidemic with BPA exposure. It also describes
why recycling is not the answer to this global epidemic:

“There’s no legal way to recycle a milk container into another milk
container without adding a new virgin layer of plastic,” Moore says,
pointing out that, because plastic melts at low temperatures, it retains
pollutants and the tainted residue of its former contents. Turn up the heat
to sear these off, and some plastics release deadly vapors. So the
reclaimed stuff is mostly used to make entirely different products, things
that don’t go anywhere near our mouths, such as fleece jackets and
carpeting. Therefore, unlike recycling glass, metal, or paper, recycling
plastic doesn’t always result in less use of virgin material. It also
doesn’t help that fresh-made plastic is far cheaper.

When you get a chance, take a few minutes to read the article. It will
help collect your thoughts on the issue, and fuel our collective desire to
put everything we can into this campaign to end the plastics plague.
Working together, we are already seeing the first signs of change in public
and governmental attitudes. As we continue, the momentum will only grow.

Blessings on this holiday weekend,

Stuart

http://www.bestlifeonline.com/cms/publish/travel-leisure/Our_oceans_are_turning_into_p
lastic_are_we.shtml