Thanks first for the feedback: it’s not easy bringing up stuff no one wants to hear, or rather, it’d be way more chill if the problem didn’t exist. But for those who hung around and new readers—hello!!—facts are the balms to our doubts and knowledge is how we keep the werewolves at bay.

Recap on the stakes in plastic (and if you have no idea what I’m talking about, here’s the last newsletter ”life in plastic”):

1. Plastic is made from the fossil fuels oil and gas, finite resources that should stay in the ground. CO2 emissions from fossil fuels made up 91% of emissions last year.

2. The plastics industry is comprised of the oil and gas companies and bolstered by investors and consumer goods. Plastic is manufactured beyond need. Reliable has become disposable.

3. The drive to recycle plastic has been pushed by the industry in order to sell more plastic. 95% of plastic is not recycled because it’s never been economically viable. The industry knew this to be the case since the 1970s—not that it stopped them from mythologizing bottles, using kids to guilt trip us, and muddling recycling symbols. People believe that every plastic purchase can be transformed because companies invested into conning us.

4. Plastic that doesn’t get recycled becomes trash and looking at trash sucks. Getting rid of trash sucks. Loss of wildlife sucks. Plastic in our bodies sucks. This line item sucks.

5. With clean energy on the rise, oil and gas companies are amping up plastic production to maintain their vast profits. By 2050, plastic consumption may be nearly doubled and the ocean may have more plastic than fish.

Okay—quick cat nap—and we’re back: I’m not here to reiterate what you now know. I’m here to reset some thoughts around power, guilt, and my ragged tool, obsession.

I don’t appreciate when bodies with power take advantage of beings with less. Guilt is a feeling, and so, a weapon, and what a relief for power when we whip our own selves into a frenzy. And obsession: it tops off my blind spots and plastic encases mine clear. But I have power too, and you do, so, in order of effectiveness, let’s fuckin’ go.

Individual Moves

Recycle

Recycling plastic is largely a sham, but recycling overall is not. Verified still are glass, metal, and paper (though no pizza stains or paper towels plz). For plastic, #1 and 2 can be recycled and sometimes #5, so keep checking the product, empty, and rinse it. Look up your town’s waste policies; unbiasedly, here is Burbank’s and LA’s. Promise I won’t tell Earth if you print the pages and place them as guides by your bins.

Check with your city first, but generally, if the plastics are—

• Not reusable

• #3-4, 6-7 (and sometimes 5)

• Not numbered

• Styrofoam

• Saran wrap

• Shrink wrap around what you bought

• Utensils

• Candy wrappers

• Chip / snack bags

• Straws

• Sachets

• Sauce packets / condiments

• Any scraps and broken pieces

• Hangers

• Paper takeout containers e.g. wax-coated boxes, Chinese pails

• Microwave meal / frozen food boxes

• Paper coffee cups

• Receipts

—Make that shit rain at the dump. They really do stick plastic in paper, don’t they? Here are additional common items and hybrid materials that cannot be recycled. It’s important to not try to recycle everything as bogus objects jam machines and even break them.

I proffer recycling as the least effective option as it has dominated the plastics conversation for too long. Since TerraCycle won’t save us either, I accept that recycling is not magic. Material over mind.

Reuse & Reduce

Bottles make terrariums; koozies turn into drip; fire hoses thrill dogs and cement bags sling. I don’t sew or water plants, so repurposing is not my style, but I wash and reuse Ziplocs, and that takes diligence too. You don’t have to be creative to reuse and reduce (though who am I to stop ya?). It just takes awareness of yourself as much as of your surroundings and your tenacity to create less waste.

Hypervigilant, you may now see plastic everywhere: it’s in your swelling trash can, and again, that’s by design. Computers and pipes can stay, but you can tally your single-usage through this calculator or this one. Deliberate too on your needs and wants, and what can shift within those to stay satisfied.

Heads up this step comes with investments that may feel pricey, and I do mean feel—I’ve always prided myself for, and needed, to be thrifty. But as you phase out single-use items, you offset costs with fewer monthly buys or daily runs with that fav homebrew in your thermos. Don’t get greenwashed and know that glass, metal, paper, and fabric even, remain better than bioplastic. Check what substitutes you already have, finish your home plastics, and make changes when you can.

Grub Stuff

Needs start simple like drinking water: there are reusable bottles, thermoses, and you can always bring mugs to the office. I exclusively eat burritos, but if you need forks for some reason, there are metal and bamboo travel sets and cloth napkins. At home, silicone bags and beeswax paper store well beside your Tupperware (office-friendly too).

For groceries, reusable bags go for bagging and produce / bulk. I almost suggested bringing plastic bags back to the store for recycling, but NCIS Plastic sniped that one. Get crafty with reusing plastic bags then and all the more reason to keep a couple reusable bags in the car.

Oh and straws? I sip the side, but there are various options. My vice is boba, so when I do need that thick-thick, I slurp this portable keychain.

Clean Stuff

Need to not smell? Yeah, you got deodorant, but what if you didn’t have to get a new tube every time? There are containers that use minimal to no plastic and I’ll be that b who says *aluminum doesn’t give you cancer* so here’s one antiperspirant.

Same story with shampoos, conditioners, soaps, even skincare, and if you wanna get real crazy, find a zero waste refill station near you (and in LA). I dig refills and Meow Meow Tweet has a baller program, but they’re not sponsoring this, so get whatever you want!

And

there are more single-use goods to sub, but this is already LONG. So research on! Then come back and tell me, so I too can Google less.

Refuse

All geared up, you don’t need utensils, that receipt, that plastic bag, or drive-thru ketchup on the way home. It’s automatic for machines and staff to offer, so remember the best things in life are NO… thank you.

Really?

I’m a 30-something still finding my people and interests, so I am on the go. I grab food with a tiny budget, so my fridge is full of takeout containers my roommates can attest to. I started and abandoned a spreadsheet on restaurants with recyclable containers and have never remembered to bring my own to friends’ places for leftovers.

I am (mumble mumble) fine with that.

Plastic is everywhere and everywhere needs convenience because life should be a little easier. Have the refuse / reduce / reuse / recycle mindset, but pick your battles and don’t stress. Got a strong personal preference? Keep it. Because you and I alone are not fixing plastic.

Collective Force

Extended Producer Responsibility

You and I use plastic, but we’re not the reasons the industry is generating more of it. To stop the pollution, we need to go back to the source and make them pay for it. But as I’ve kerosened the torches and sharpened the pitchforks, what startles me is that we slowly are.

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is the proposal that manufacturers should be legally required to cover end-of-life costs for the products they make. Punitively, companies would pay fees to municipalities and their waste management systems. Positively, companies would be incentivized to produce more consciously e.g. fees lower with clear disposal instructions and simpler material usage. And unlike tricky corporate pledges made by werewolves with PR firms, external producer responsibility organizations (PROs) monitor the companies and ensure local obligations are fulfilled.

EPR started in 90s Europe and has progressed through to Canada and even Asia. EPR laws exist for hazardous waste in the US, but ordinary plastic, paper, metal, and glass are now getting their day. As of 2023, six states have EPR plastic laws and more states are running the bases. California especially hits as it puts mandates on manufacturers, retailers, sellers, you name it. Single-use producers must join a PRO by 2024 or they will be prohibited from selling to the most populous state. By 2032, all single-use plastic must be cut by 25%.

Circular Economy

A higher model that looks after EPR is the circular economy where visions are on the agenda. Instead of our linear “take-make-waste” proceedings, the circular economy incorporates recovery. What if there were large assembly lines for sanitizing and refilling? What if planned obsolescence meant disassembly and redesign with instructions? What if like every rock and tree and creature, a manmade good was understood to have the energy that’s been imbued in it? People still work at factories. Fossil fuels were once animals and plants.

Y’all

I peered around when I fell into this manhole because rabbits didn’t make this. Companies are run by people and people drill the earth and people sell it and people manipulate people.

6 out of 50 states is not much to brag about and California is not the whole planet. My dad used to say he never wanted to return to the Philippines because it’s polluted, and I’ve been there, and I’ve seen it, and it is. HQ for Chevron and Wells Fargo lounge in California whose GDP was 3.59 trillion dollars last year. The plastics industry should pay for garbage. It’s the floor of anything they can do.

I thought I had to write this ‘cause I’m a fucking hero and I didn’t know anyone around me as consumed by it. Then I heard about this Japanese village, this victorious lawsuit, every TED Talk, On Being, and this Filipino activist. All of this was done by people which means people care about people and our habitat—as if all that good news didn’t come from the same friend who asked me to write a few jokes. I can uncoil, knowing I’m on a whole side of doing something after all.

So what to reduce? Start with the guilt that was heaped upon you before you were born. Refuse now what you don’t ask for and use your gut again: if something looks off, investigate it and telephone a friend. You know where that goes. You can move it there.

Nicole