Plastic homes, plastic food, plastic pets, plastic entertainment – well not quite, but plastic appreciation, or its continual manufacture in today’s society, is undeniable, even manic.
Even in the magical art form of music, plastic is rife, with human’s bellowing either its praise or damnation from back street balconies, dark recording studios, or showers.
Fake Plastic Trees – The Bends; Plastic Passion – The Cure; Plastic – Alanis Morissette/Portishead; Plastic People – Frank Zappa. I could go on, you catch my drift.
Yes it appears this insidious, yet practical material, which is derived from oil and converted into polymers, has gradually crept its way into the world’s darkest crevices and has down right invaded the bowels of society.
In fact, it’s all around us. As I type, I have a plastic bottle of soda water next to my feet and a sheet of bubble wrap on my bed.
And what’s this general plastic pervasion doing? Unfortunately, besides providing light weight and durable containers, large wads of it also end up in the oceans where it hugs the water dwellers without letting go. Whales, dolphins, seals, puffins and turtles have their wind pipes blocked and die a slow death.
Recently, a rare eight metre Bryde’s Whale, found washed up near Cairns in Queensland, contained six square metres of the stuff in its guts. In another example, a green turtle was found dead near Morton Bay, Brisbane, with over 50 items in its stomach – the likes of plastic bags and balloons.
Of course, there’s also the toxic chemicals that plastic spits into the atmosphere, in gargantuan quantities. Still, however, this persistent little ductile just keeps getting pumped out, with Australia alone manufacturing 14 million tonnes of it since 2000.
While many of the world’s rivers are littered with shopping trolleys, we can’t see them, as they sink. Plastic, on the other hand floats, it likes to be seen. In fact, it’s rather a malicious little thing, as it brainwashes its ambivalent parents into ignoring its adverse effects, leading them to make more of it. Out of sight out of mind. Who am I kidding, maybe the pros of plastic are worth it?
After all, we can’t really see the cons, right? It’s also light, durable and inexpensive, it provides a house for my favourite cereal to live in, as well as one of my all time favourite foods, sushi. It also, on the odd occasion, provides for some rather beautiful scenes – in the film American Beauty.
Then there’s people like , who just pulled into Sydney Harbour on a boat made out of 12,000 plastic bottles, after sailing 15,000 kilometres across the world to promote waste caused by this incessant child of industry.
It’s a lot to take in. I’m gonna have some more soda water.
Thank god for people like good ol’ Dave de Rothschild, finally putting a small amount of plastic into some good green causes. I have heard a perhaps dubious rumour that his families bank are considering putting a stop on all loans to any corporation and countries involved in plastic production and use. Indeed the World B.ank, IMF and The glorious Federal Bank of America are considering the young playboys request..i will not put my head in a plastic bag and wait.
Why does sushi need the little bit of plastic grass dividing bits? Is it reused? Is it thrown away? Hmm