Go Green

The title of this blog post is not some trite remark about the dangers of too much bottled water; rather it’s a valid commentary on a disturbing situation. Before I go further, this magazine article should be mandatory reading for anyone who wonders what happens with all the plastic we use day in and day out. It’s a long article, but one well worth the read. Here’s the intro paragraph:

“A vast swath of the Pacific, twice the size of Texas, is full of a plastic stew that is entering the food chain. Scientists say these toxins are causing obesity, infertility…and worse.”

You read that right. There is a giant, floating mass of discarded plastic — bottles, grocery sacks and tires, to name some of it — in the Pacific Ocean.

If you don’t have time to read the whole article, let me sum it up for you best as possible: Humans create a huge amount of plastic waste every day; the waste is hardly ever recycled; a huge amount of it has found its way into the ocean; plastics are made with toxic chemicals; as plastics s-l-o-w-l-y break down, they release toxic particles into the water and air; this is having a hugely negative impact on ocean life; microscopic plastic particles also are finding their way into human bodies; doubly worse, a lot of plastics, when heated, leach chemicals into whatever they happen to be touching — including food; exposure to such toxins causes a number of serious problems that may slowly be making people in this world sick.

I know it sounds melodramatic, but this magazine article has influenced my perception of the world around me. Since reading this, my wife and I have stopped buying bottled water for our house and have moved to wooden toys for our son. We bought glass containers to store and reheat our leftovers.

If fertility problems, obesity, increased incidences of diabetes and various types of cancer don’t concern you, than don’t worry about plastics. If they do — and all these serious maladies have been connected to exposure to chemicals found in everyday plastic items — then you owe it to yourself to be educated about the dangers of the products you use.

As consumers and people who have to live on this Earth for the rest of our lives, we have to ask ourselves some questions here: Doesn’t it seem like you hear about medical costs rising every year in America? Does it seem like America is getting sicker and sicker every year? Why is that? Is there a chance, even a slight one, that all the toxic chemicals we are forced to live with are slowly undermining everyone’s health?

If there is a chance, and much research says there is, all you can do is take action to cut these things out of your life. Start by reading the article I mention above, and see where you want to go from there.

- Nick