The Dangerous Persistence Of Plastic, And What NYC Needs To Do About It
Gotham Gazette by Karl Palmquist | January 11, 2022
Our trashy story begins with a wartime question: after mass-producing aluminum, steel, and plastics for the military to fight Nazis, what happens when the war is over? What if, instead of reverting to peacetime manufacturing, America could charge ahead, simultaneously creating and fulfilling a civilian “need?”
The rest is advertising history. Over the course of a few decades, but seemingly overnight, a country with a working system of reusables, and return-and-refill products, was reimagined by deceptive marketing. Single-use items were branded as convenient and inexpensive, regardless of their hefty monetary and earthly costs. The phrase “toss-away prices” was thrown around to draw consumers away from reusable items. Enter the era of disposability.
Today, we are drowning in plastics. The non-profit Beyond Plastics has estimated that in three years, there will be one pound of plastic in the ocean for every three pounds of fish. More than just an environmental eye-sore, our trash poses a threat to our well-being. Large, bulk plastics break down into tiny fragments, called microplastics, that are inhalable and ingestible.