Single Plastic Use

 

     The way society consumes their drinks and carries their purchases is changing. Some people say change is for the better, but some do not agree. If a person likes to drink their favorite beverage out of a straw, they may have to start providing their own soon. Already clerks at stores are asking customers if they need a plastic bag to carry their purchases, soon, they may not ask, and customers will be forced to carry their purchases or put them in a cloth bag they brought with them.  The New York Times published an article on May 23, 2018, entitled New York Today: The Scourge of Plastic Straws. The author, Alexandra Levine writes about New York City introducing a bill that would ban plastic straws in New York City. This ban would include bars, restaurants, food trucks and carts, fast food restaurants, and stadiums. City leaders are proposing a fine of one hundred dollars for violations. A councilman, Rafael Espinal, has proposed the bill to help bring to light the fact that marine life is being affected in New York waterways. This article gives facts on recycling and expands on ideas on how to combat the single plastic use problem that is becoming a larger issue day by day.

        The use of single use plastics that I am referring to here is straws, plastic bags, plastic bottles, and disposable personal protection equipment, also referred to as PPE. There are many other single use plastics in the world today. Single use plastics are items that are used each and every day and thrown out and sometimes recycled. Single plastic use items make people’s lives easier and more convenient in the fast-paced society in which many people live. However, views and the way these items are used need to change so that other things do not change, such as marine life and the effects landfills have on society. The public needs to learn how to change their habits to make changes to the world everyone lives in, they need to socially imagine how their specific actions affect everyone around them and beyond.

There are five hundred million plastic straws used every day in the world (The Be). One hundred billion plastic bags are used each year in the world and people buy approximately fifty million water bottles every day just in the United States (The Facts).  The plastics that end up in landfills are often the cause of pollution and some plastics blow away from landfills (Fact). If plastic bags are recycled, they often clog up the recycling centers machine. People who use single use plastics on a daily basis need to be aware of how that eventually affects society as a whole. Thousands of people who use one single plastic straw in one day, for example, will eventually add up to bigger social problems. If there are straws in landfills, because they are so light, they can blow away off the top of landfills, and possibly end up in oceans, causing problems for marine life (Levine).

            Plastic straws, bottles, and bags all serve a purpose. If society would change straws to paper or compostable cardboard-like straws (Meyer), some would believe that would cause too much upheaval in society. They believe “if it is not broke, do not fix it”.  One solution to cleaning up plastic in the Pacific Ocean has been proposed in the form of a giant trap-like machine (Caron). The New York Times article, Giant Trap Is Deployed to Catch Plastic Littering the Pacific Ocean states this machine might be able to contain about one hundred fifty thousand pounds of plastic in one year.

Besides the compostable cardboard-like straws being proposed as an alternative, aluminum straws and bamboo straws are also being considered as an alternative to plastic straws (Levine).  Using cloth bags as an alternative to plastic bags and reusable water bottles versus plastic bottles would create the same type of competition. Some of these alternatives, however, are not good alternatives for lower income people. They may not be able to afford reusable aluminum straws or water bottles. When people buy groceries, they are given plastic bags for free, so lower income people probably would not want to spend their money on a cloth bag, they would spend their money on something else.

            Symbolic interactionism is a communication theory. Max Weber is credited with this theory. Symbolic interactionism is the interactions of people and how it is interpreted. Symbolic interactionists believe that people construct the rules of society, for example, generally everyone knows what to do when someone reaches out to shake another’s hand. They sometimes place labels on people depending on how they dress, what accessories they have and how they look overall.  A symbolic interactionist would use the symbols of a cloth bag, how does it look, is it designer, for example, are other people carrying the same type of bag, as a way to encourage people to use the cloth bag as an alternate to a plastic one, thus encouraging the disuse of plastic bags. A cool reusable water bottle would look better than an ordinary cheap plastic water bottle. A symbolic interactionist would not be concerned with the way society as a whole looks, just the individual people.

            The standpoint theory is another communication theory. It states that standpoint is a place from which people view their world. In a culture, the majority of the people will have a mutual standpoint. In this case, if the majority of people decide to begin using metal straws in place of plastic, or cloth bags instead of accepting a cloth bag, then most people will follow. If enough people will commit to doing these small things, single use plastic use will decrease.

            There are alternatives to each of the problems discussed, plastic straws, plastic bags, plastic bottles, and PPE.  Some people believe the alternatives offered so far for plastic straws are not very good. Many people in hospitals or with medical conditions need to have flexible plastic straws (Meyer). Some people do not like paper straws because they become too soggy (Meyer). Gary Mortimer and Rebekah Russell- Bennett wrote an article in The Conversation for Queensland University of Technology and explained that stores that are beginning to charge customers for plastic bags are upsetting customers because they are used to getting their plastic bags for free. In order to not be charged this fee, stores are encouraging shoppers to bring in their own cloth reusable bags. The article explains that this is almost like a psychological contract with the customer; ‘buy from me and I will give you a plastic bag’. Customers now feel the store owners have broken their contracts.

Works Cited

“Another Side Effect of COVID-19: The Surge in Plastic Pollution.” Earth.org, 10 Feb. 2021, www. https://earth.org/covid-19-surge-in-plastic-pollution/.

Bomey, Nathan. “Plastic Bags, Forks and Containers Are Everywhere During the Pandemic, Increasing Pollution.” USA Today, 02 Feb. 2021, https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/12/11/plastic-bags-containers-forks-takeout-pandemic-single-use-plastics/3865064001/.

Caron, Christina. “Giant Trap Is Deployed to Catch Plastic Littering the Pacific Ocean.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 15 Mar. 2021 www.nytimes.com/2018/09/09/science/ocean-cleanup-great-pacific-garbage-patch.html.

“Fact Sheet: Single Use Plastics.” Earth Day Network, 10 Apr. 2018, www.earthday.org/2018/03/29/fact-sheet-single-use-plastics/.

Levine, Alexandra. “New York Today: The Scourge of Plastic Straws.” The New York Times, 14 Mar. 2021.

Meyer, Zlati. “Plastic Straws Banned from Many Colleges, Museums.” USA Today, 24 Mar. 2021, pp. 01b–01b.

“The Be Straw Free Campaign.” National Park Services, 21 Mar. 2021, https://www.nps.gov/articles/straw-free.htm.

“The Facts.” Plastic Oceans, 03 Mar. 2021, www.plasticoceans.org/the-facts/.