Plastic, Gyres, and Health

This week someone came up to me and said, "so I hear you have given up plastic." I guess that is partially true. Plastic has become a great enemy of sorts. I touched on this a while back after watching the movie "Bag It" but I would like to revisit this issue.

Dang near everything we consume, in one way or another, contains plastic either in its making or in its packaging. Of all that plastic, it is estimated that only about 5% of that is recovered for reuse. Around 50% ends up in landfills, and the remaining is "unaccounted for", meaning let free to roam the environment (more than I can say for most animals or people). This free range trash ends up in our water ways and eventually out to sea to choke out the marine life.

The oceans have these things called gyres. They are these networks of how the currents and winds move the oceans and effect weather patterns. There are 5 major gyres in our oceans. You may have even heard of them mentioned in global warming talks. Trash gets caught in these whirlpool like areas. As I understand it, currently, one trash island is the size of the United States and another is more than twice the size of Texas.

Plastic is made to last a very long time, even though most of it is only in our hands for very short periods of time. Lets just say we hold a yogurt container in our hand for 5 minuets. That plastic container will last hundreds of years, floating around in the ocean. Your plastic bag you used to carry your items in, will blow around for 500 to 1,000 years... maybe in little pieces, but it will be around.

These pieces get eaten by such animals as fish and birds. It ends up causing all kinds of problems for them like dehydration, internal blockages... death. It leads to many many deaths.

Those who do not die from the over-consumption of plastic, may very well die and end up on the plate of a human and the plastic epidemic climbs up the food chain. The chemicals causing health problems become more and more concentrated with each ingestion - bioaccumulation. What does that mean, besides go vegan?

Well lets begin with plankton eating and absorbing the goods of plastic. The plankton is eaten by small fish then that is eaten by a bigger fish like a mackerel then a tuna then a human. All the chemicals and toxins become more and more concentrated, not less. Because plastics absorb other toxins floating around, you not only consume the plastic bits that the fish consumed, you take in all the toxins that have been absorbed. Some pellets found in the oceans have been known to contain poisons 1 million times greater than in the water that surrounds it.

Lets think about the poisons in our oceans from things like oil spills, nuclear waste, mercury, pesticides, dioxin, PCB, DDT, PBA. Those mix with the plastic and escalate the health issues of consuming ocean life. To avoid getting too carried away, lets just focus on the plastic health issues, and here is what you can expect from your food wrapped and heated up in plastic:

Birth defects, cancer (about every type you can imagine), liver dysfunctions, lower sperm counts, endocrine disruption, asthma, infertility, endometriosis, decreased immune system, early onset of puberty, multitude of skin conditions, more infertility, headaches, respiratory issues, all kinds of hormonal changes (mostly decreasing "male" hormone levels and increasing "female" hormone levels), increased exposure to dioxin and mercury....

These are things we are fairly sure of just from having plastic in our every day world of water bottles and the like. If you start to think about the bioaccumulation of these poisons, its overwhelming. I would like to say that I can't imagine what this would look like, but to be honest, its not the future. We are seeing the health effect now. This isn't what will happen when... it is happening now.

But we have a choice! This is something we can take some control over and of. Its not like climate change where we can not envision everyone giving up their cars. It is also not about being having the money to buy the more environmentally green washed lightbulb. Its actually about consuming different, less, and saving money. You simply choose not to get a plastic bag, not to buy bottled water/soda/kombucha/beer, no freakin' styrofoam, re-use everything, drink from the tap (water or beer)... make your own... don't eat animals.

In my current food procurement situation, my food is in plastic for very limited times. Mostly it is in transporting it in an old plastic bag from the store, to a glass container I have at home. I have been experiencing some health shifts. At first I chalked this up to not consuming as many preservatives and such, but after reviewing some of this research, I am changing my perspective.

I have certainly had some detoxing effects like skin stuff, but mostly I my body feels great! My mind feels more clear, sharp, creative. I am 43 years old, and have been experiencing some changes in my cycle, but that has calmed in the past couple months. My body digests and processes my foods much more efficiently.  I've been tired lately, but I think it is because I have actually had more energy to do more things, so I am busier. I wake with out an alarm early. In other words, I feel good.

One strange side effect from all this is that I have felt more emotionally available.... well I don't know about available so much, as being more in touch with my emotions. The walls are crumbling. Its work I've been doing for a long time, and I now feel like I have the space, time, energy, the presence to be present with my friends. It may just be a coincidence, but I can't help but feel that there is a connection in being able to digest my life instead of having to process the toxic waste of plastic. That alone maybe worth never going back.