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Research on Plastic Pollution:

-It is estimated that 8 million tonnes of plastic enters the ocean from coastal communities every year.

-Plastic micro-beads are used as exfoliates in personal care products, such as facial scrubs and even toothpastes, which are inevitably flushed down the drain. (one of the most dangerous thing)

-Damage to marine life (A staggering 90% of seabirds are now thought to have ingested plastic).

-Plastic pollution costs us $1bn a year (fishing damage, ship collision with plastic).

Source: https://www.boatinternational.com/luxury-yacht-life/marine-life/things-you-need-to-know-about-plastic-pollution–30337/frame-3 

-As plastics make their way up the food chain, they pose a substantial threat to humankind– affecting hormones, immune systems, and even causing diseases like cancer.

-Plastic doesn’t biodegrade – which means that once it’s here, it’s here forever. We’re drowning in decades of plastic pollution and, on top of that, newly made plastics are finding their way into circulation every day.

-Fossil fuels are used in the production of plastic, so every piece of plastic in the world is responsible for generating carbon emissions.

Source: https://www.ecotricity.co.uk/news/news-archive/2019/everything-you-need-to-know-about-plastic-pollution

Reflection on the Readings: 

Sustainability

This chapter that we read for this book was focused on the concept on sustainability. Some notes that I took away from this chapter was the three epochs the author talked about and his thoughts on sustainability. The first epoch was governmental and federal command and control of re-mediating and preventing environmental damage. This epoch was mainly focused on the reform of laws or rules in order to prevent environmental damage whether it is the ocean, the air quality, or the human health in general. The first epoch is actually very important because it is concerning the health and ecosystem of the whole earth since humans were mostly responsible for the unnatural damages that has been made. The second epoch was achieving economic efficiency in environmental protections. Climate change has been one of the most top problem that has been occurring in the past decades and there have been a minority group of people trying to take a stance on it. However, for most people, they simply do not care or want to take actions because they feel like climate change isn’t really affecting them personally. Meanwhile industries that produce mass amount of CO2 emissions are still doing the same thing because it actually costs people more money to shut it down than to keep it running. Industries like plastic and packaging productions cannot find a better and cheaper way to produce what they have been producing. Therefore the second epoch is to achieve economic efficiency while protecting the environment. The third epoch is sustainability. The meaning of sustainability is the economic development activity that “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. In order to achieve sustainability, it needs to have the values of the first two epochs combined so that it prevents environmental damage yet it achieves economic efficiency. One of the points the writer talked about and I agree upon was achieving maximum sustainable yield. An example of that is fishing. We have to make sure that the amount we fish is about the same rate fishes reproduce. Therefore achieving a sustainable yield and trying to reach the steady state.

Accumulation: The Material Politics of Plastic

This chapter of Accumulation: The Material Politics of Plastic was mostly about how PET plastic bottles are made to be wasted. PET plastic bottles are a major contributor to the growing environmental burden of plastics. They are a major contributor because most plastic bottles that we buy at the convenient stores or that we drink out of are made of PET plastic; therefore they are everywhere. The disposability is a shifting quality of the PET plastic. The qualities of disposing the PET plastic is constantly being requalified in different arrangements and economies. 

In the beginning when plastic was first made, glass and aluminum packaging especially for drinks were still dominating the market share because the initial plastic material couldn’t handle the fizz and carbonated drinks. Later on, scientist at the DuPont lab were able to create a form of plastic that could hold carbonated drinks which is very strong in terms of durability yet it is a fraction of the weight of glass bottles. Hence, the creation of PET bottles came about. It completely changed the game of packaging and how consumers uses plastic. The “plastic explosion” in the 1950’s happened because so many industries are creating mass productions of plastic. But later on, plastic just became a material that is cheap and something that is always there because it is all over the world. As we know now, it takes decades and up to centuries for plastics to actually “degrade” and even then, they just degrade into smaller pieces for animals to eat up and polluting oceans and landfills with their chemical release. Therefore in order to really change the plastic pollution, the best way is to absolutely cut out plastic. 

“The Concepts of Sustainability” MIT Press & “Accumulation: The Material Politics of Plastic” 

-The US has begun to enter a “third epoch” or period of environmental concern.

-Introducing sustainability in relation to an American lifestyle

-Sustainability: economic development activity that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

-The basic premise of sustainability is that Earth’s resources cannot be used, depleted, and damaged indefinitely. 

-The idea could be traced back to Thomas Malthus because at some point humans will run out of resources, especially if the population keeps growing

-Brundtland Commission of 1987 described sustainability as having 3 co-equal parts or elements, all of which start with the letter e: environment, economy, equity.

-Sustainability must simultaneously protect the environment, preserve economic growth and development, and promote equity.

-Particular emphasis on ecology and economics 

-Sustainable biological resource use: focuses on the maximum sustainable yield from natural systems, such as forests and fisheries. 

– Sustainable Agriculture: ensures that farming remains productive during and after major disturbances.

-Carrying Capacity: the ability of an area of land to support human populations

-Achieving sustainability requires some types of socio-political characteristics

-Sustainable Energy: producing electricity and powering machinery through means other than burning fossil fuels

-Sustainable Society and Sustainable Economy: a broad array of efforts to maintain social conditions and economic and human well-being 

-Does higher economic growth really translate into better quality of life?

-Sustainable Development: the relationship between economic growth and environmental protection

-Ecological Carrying Capacity (strain of thought): suggests that an ecosystem has a finite capacity to sustain life

-The Resource/Environment (strain of thought): the depletion of natural resources as the primary challenge of sustainability

-The Biosphere (strain of thought): based on the notion that human activity has the ability to affect the health of the entire planet

-The Critique of Technology (strain): technology and technological innovation have played in promoting rather than avoiding degradation

– The No-growth Slow-growth (strain): a global perspective that there are limits to the Earth’s carrying capacity

-Ecodevelopment (strain): the focus on the need to reconcile social, economic, and political objectives with the realities of natural resources and the environment

-Shifting global thought to think topologically rather than the logic of inexorable effects

-PET bottles are single-use bottles

Guest Speaker Discussion:

I found the guest speaker discussion to be highly stimulating and informative. Since his work is centered in Shanghai it is much easier to envision the current situation that we are confronted with around us. It felt like he was offering insider knowledge and it made the discussion even more dynamic. It also gave me somewhat of a hopeful outlook on the future and the possibilities of human technological development regarding sustainability. Even though there is a lot of unanswered questions, we are setting up the discussion to bring attention to the issue. I wanted to hear more about his findings and research. The part I found most interesting was when he talked about how he followed locals who gathered trash to certain places and the efficiency of their role as unofficial trash picker-uppers.  

The concepts of sustainability, as the title name says， systematically introduces the what sustainability is to me. It is easy to understand that sustainability or sustainable development should meet the needs of the current generation without sacrificing the ability and needs of the future generation. Another interesting thing that I take away is the 3E, which is “Environment, Economy, and Equity”. Compared to 3R, 3E theoretically explain how to be sustainable: We should simultaneously protect the environment, preserve economic growth and promoting equity. 

Accumulation: The Material Politics of Plastic mainly discover the birth of PET and the recycling of PET material. By reading this section, I learn how PET flooded into the market. At first, the beverages industry seek a material to take place of glass, and PET could be that role. PET as a bottle, package for food, is cheap to produce and almost weightless. What worths thinking is that “package is designed to be thrown away”. Starting from the original intention, PET is not the most suitable material because it is hard to be recycled. PET had a fast-speed development, causing that people could not realize its effects until its proliferation.

Interestingly, after reading these two articles, I realize that using PET material totally deviates from the path of sustainability. Firstly, using PET will leave bunches of environmental issues for the future generation; Besides, the carrying capacity of our planet will decrease gradually with the use of PET. In the long term, plastic pollution has a big possibility of destroying our ecosystem even if the advance of technology and science can power carrying capacity of the planet. We should not take any risk.

According to the talk on previous Wednesday, to recycle is the collective responsibility around the globe. But from the first reading, it is shocking to know that even in the most developed country–the U.S, the concept of sustainability is ambiguous and has not taken firmly. Sustainability is not just the work of China or Vietnam, but the work of the whole planet; it is not a current work or the work can be solved in once, it is a permanent topic across the history and last till the end of the human history. We should keep moving on in the path of sustainability.

Thoughts on Richard Brubaker’s Talk

Richard Brubaker’s talk offered new perspectives on sustainability that I had never considered before. I thought it was very interesting how he looked at waste from a business standpoint, making the point that waste is an economic failure as much as it is a moral failure. Waste is in fact a material that has not been properly allocated or used, but also offers an opportunity for people to jump in and profit off of this misallocation. Instead of a somewhat doomed and gloomy message many other environmental media promote, Brubaker’s talk was refreshingly inspirational and shed light onto the creative ways individuals and companies are re-allocating waste back into a valuable material.

Thoughts on the Readings

Both of the readings shed light on problems with consumerism. In “The Concepts of Sustainability,” William Rees mentions how “there cannot be sustainability as long as economic growth is defined in a way that is based on consumption.” This consumption is very evident in Gay Hawkin’s chapter in terms of how we use PET plastic. Hawkins brings up an interesting point in that PET bottles are made specifically for disposal. This supports the first reading in problems with consumption and consumerism – if constantly producing disposable plastics is what the current economy needs to survive and grow, then that is not sustainable.

One of the strains of thoughts in sustainability that was brought up in “The Concepts of Sustainability” was the critique of technology strain of thought, stating that technology has harmed the environment more than it has benefitted it. This in combination with the reading focused on PET plastic reminded me all too well of the constant plastic waste we see in Shanghai that have direct links to new technologies we implement in our daily lives. For example, new algorithms that make food delivery services like Eleme or Meituan more efficient has also meant that more and more single-use plastic disposable items are used to meet the demand of consumers.

Plastic Pollution Discoveries

I started off by searching “plastic pollution” which led me to read some generic facts about how much plastic is generated per year and how most of it ends up in our oceans. Then, I stumbled across something that equally fascinated and horrified me: garbage patches. Garbage patches are giant patches of trash that just accumulate in the ocean, the most well known being the Great North Pacific Garbage Patch, which has a whopping surface area size of 1.6 million square kilometers. Basically, when waste accumulates in the ocean, some of it eventually finds its way to these garbage patches because of gyres and convergence zones. Gyres move in a circular motion around a central vortex, which essentially traps the debris. The Great North Pacific Garbage Patch in particular is bounded by the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. Most of the debris that make up garbage patches are microplastics, which give the water a cloudy look. In addition to the microplastics, larger waste items such as fishing nets are present.

Week 2 — Plastic Pollution

This article is talking about the ideas that author had after listening to Richard Brubaker’s speech, reading two famous essays and searching piles of papers, mainly on three topics: the relationship between business models and ecological sustainable development in various industries, the current situation of plastic products production and the harm of plastics to the environment. The author believes that collective responsibility plays a huge role to the failure of sustainability and that business models and ecological regulations in government and industry are also the priority of our environmental construction.

I largely agree with the author’s view of the PET. Plastic product is a great invention in the period when plastics were just developed. As the article said, “durability and permanence were its biggest selling points.” However, I think that all products should be built and used on sustainable conditions, whether it is in the clean production or recycling section, it is a company’s, an industry’s, and even the whole society’s duty to pay attention to. Speaking of this point of view, I’m reminded of the description of some of the most persistent and toxic pesticides in 《Silent Spring》. After the use of such chemicals, the agricultural output has surged, bringing lucrative economic results, which basically popular around the world. However, gradually as research going deep, scientists had discovered their persecution of the environment and the serious harm to the human body through the enrichment of the food chain. Various countries have banned the production and use of this product.

In addition, through the reading of the article, I learned that micro-plastic is a new concept that is extremely harmful to the earth’s biology and the marine environment. No matter the plastic foam that we use for transportation or the small plastic straws that we use only a few seconds, things like these can all cause chronic diseases and disrupt metabolism in our endocrine and reproductive systems through a series of changes. This confirms the famous phrase in Chinese Buddhism that “there must be fruit.” 

In the article, concerning the six foundations proposed by Kent E. Portney, the author analyzes from the perspective of the business model, and I personally prefer to start from the scientific research point of view. At present, although China’s scientific and technological development is booming and flourishing, there are not so much real scientific researches and outstanding patents that can be combined with current trashing condition. As far as I’m concerned, researches on college students are generally based on the results of laboratory experiments. I believe that each of the six foundations is inseparable from the development of actual technology, and this requires a group of intellectuals in our country who are willing to devote themselves to scientific research.

In conclusion, this article has a wide range of perspectives, profound and scientific knowledge as well as thought-provoking.

The readings on “The Concept of Sustainability” focuses on the significance of sustainability in our ever-expanding world where resources are limited and finite. This shed light on how sustainability is only achievable through collaboration of many different stakeholders and the only way to move forward is through sustainable development.

The second reading “Accumulation: The Material Politics of Plastic” outlines the invention and popularisation of PET plastics, how it entered the mainstream market and the difficulty of recycling these plastics. I found this reading particularly interesting as the “disposable” aspect that was previously a positive in terms of business decisions, have now completely shifted into an environmental problem.

Both these readings had links to the Collective Responsibility talk we were able to listen to the previous Wednesday. It was extremely insightful how even a very big and modern city like Shanghai, still has a huge waste management problem — highlighting how hard it is to not only recycle waste but also finding the proper way for citizens to properly sort out their waste. Moreover, this act of recycling and managing waste is made even more difficult through having to sort out through many different types of trash that often times cannot even be recycled.

Through some quick Google searches on NatGeo and EcoWatch, the most shocking facts about plastic pollution I found was that half of all the plastics manufactured were only made in the last 15 years and that the average time a plastic bag is used for is 12 minutes! As a consumer who previously did not think much of what happens to plastic and waste once it gets thrown away, I now am more aware of the extreme difficulty in recycling and managing the billions of plastic wastage.

Plastic is everywhere. It is such a common part of our everyday lives that we often don’t even think about it: where it’s produced, what its function is or what happens after we toss it away. The documentary “Bag it” and the readings of Vice and National Geographic all outline the ugly truth in our plastic waste management.

As stated in the readings, China, along with other developing Asian countries, were able to accept exports of plastic and waste from developed countries. However, this has recently changed — leading to problems of where to manage these tons and tons of plastic waste. This situation in which the convenience in simply shipping away their plastic problems is no longer an option, is an inevitable one. As described in the Nat Geo article, facing this problem head-on, now that governments have no choice, could be an ““opportunity” for other nations to create better recycling systems at home.”

Having said that, the readings and video is a stark reminder of our own part of the plastic problem. It’s extremely easy to point fingers at others and avoid blame but the root cause of our plastic problem boils down to us as consumers. Whether it is grocery shopping or ordering takeout food on Eleme, there has been countless times where I simply toss the plastic packaging into the trash without a single thought of what would happen to it. Even when we attempt at reducing plastic waste, many businesses don’t offer plastic alternatives, besides consumers bringing in our own reusables. This is the reason why plastic continues to linger on until today despite the knowledge of us knowing how harmful it is — convenience. We as consumers have to constantly remind ourselves that the belief of single-use plastic bags is a total myth as these plastics actually live on and find themselves where they aren’t supposed to be.