First of all I wanted to share with you the news that made me lose my absolute shit this week which is the fact that the current issue (July 3) of The New Yorker has a lengthy discussion of the problems and perils of plastics AND I AM FEATURED IN ABOUT A THIRD OF THE ARTICLE. 

“How Plastics are Poisoning Us” by Elizabeth Kolbert discusses three new books on the subject and mine is the third. Here is the link.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/07/03/book-reviews-plastic-waste

Up until now I didn’t think I could get into The New Yorker unless I happened to be hanging out with Judd Hirsh at a Brooklyn-based gastro-pub-slash-laundromat (which actually doesn’t happen as often as you would think) or perhaps invented a new food such as the “Fondonut” (fondue, but with donuts), so as you can imagine I had to be revived repeatedly after hearing the news.

I promise to stay conscious now, though. For one thing, I’m happy as a clam, and that’s a wonderful way to feel. (Although, are clams REALLY all that happy? Discuss.) For another, I’ve got some reading to catch up on: both of the other books in the article (A Poison Like No Other: How Microplastics Corrupted Our Planet and Our Bodies by Matt Simon, and Wasteland: The Secret World of Waste and the Urgent Search for a Cleaner Future by Oliver Franklin-Wallis) look fascinating, especially to the Garbage-Obsessed Anti-Plastic Nerd that I have become.

More importantly, what this tells me is that the moment to have this conversation has arrived. Culturally we need to get to the place where the average person is aware of not just the enormous environmental problems of plastic, but also the dire and mounting health ramifications of our overwhelming dependance on plastic. Which is to say this isn’t just about turtles and polar bears anymore.

History has shown that once we as a culture all realize the immensity of a threat to public health, we can wade past the shrill objections of industry and get to work solving it, which means legislation. This has happened before: with lead, with cigarettes, and most recently with sugar. None of these things has disappeared, but collectively we all have a far greater awareness of their potential for harm and greater legal protections from them than we did in the past.

It takes a long, long time and scientific study after scientific study, not to mention people like me who talk about an issue incessantly to anyone who will listen. Even if you aren’t obsessed, if you’re reading this blog you have a lot more information than the average person about the dangers and health consequences of plastic, and you should consider that, as you move through the world, you are part of this pivotally important conversation in ways both big and small.

For example, it’s Plastic Free July this month, so why not take the opportunity to do something anti-plastic today? That could be writing your congressman and asking them not to support “chemical recycling” (which is burning plastic pretending to be recycling) or it could be asking for a “real cup” at your coffee shop and taking the time to sit down and drink it there. It could be telling a friend that you just found out that plastics are bad for our bodies and how crazy is that and maybe they should read this book this woman wrote all about going no garbage for a year. (I heard she was featured in The New Yorker having laundromat sushi with Judd Hirsch.)

Whatever you do, it will be a thing that otherwise would not have been done. One voice heard. One less plastic-lined cup releasing microplastics. One person who now has new information with which to move about in the world. It may not seem like a lot, but taken collectively? It’s everything. It’s how fundamental change happens.

Tell me in the comments: what will you do to celebrate Plastic Free July?