{"id":32648,"date":"2011-01-22T13:11:40","date_gmt":"2011-01-22T18:11:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=32648"},"modified":"2011-09-26T14:01:24","modified_gmt":"2011-09-26T19:01:24","slug":"the-economic-injustice-of-plastic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2011\/01\/22\/the-economic-injustice-of-plastic\/","title":{"rendered":"“The Economic Injustice of Plastic”"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Dmitriy T.M. sent in a link to a 13-minute video in which Van Jones discusses the problems with patting ourselves on the back too much every time we put a plastic bottle in the recycle bin instead of the trash, and the need to recognize the link between environmental concerns and other social issues:<\/p>\n

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Also see our posts on the race between energy efficiency and consumption<\/a>, exposure to environmental toxins and social class<\/a>, race and exposure to toxic-release facilities<\/a>, reframing the environmental movement<\/a>, tracking garbage in the ocean<\/a>, mountains of waste waiting to be recycled<\/a>, framing anti-immigration as pro-environment<\/a>, and conspicuous environmentalism<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Full transcript after the jump, thanks to\u00a0thewhatifgirl<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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I am honored to be here and I am honored to talk about this topic, which I think is of great importance. We\u2019ve been talking a lot about the horrific impacts of plastic on the planet and on other species, but plastic hurts people too, especially poor people. Both in the production of plastic, the use of plastic, and the disposal of plastic, people who have the bulls eye on their foreheads are poor people.<\/p>\n

People got very upset when the BP oil spill happened, for very good reason. People thought about, \u2018Oh my god, this is terrible, this is oil, it\u2019s in the water, it\u2019s going to destroy the living systems there, people are going to be hurt. This is a terrible thing, this oil is going to hurt the people in the Gulf.\u2019<\/p>\n

What people don\u2019t think about is, what if the oil had made it safely to shore? What if the oil had actually got where it was trying to go? Not only would it have been burned in engines and added to global warming, but there\u2019s a place called Cancer Alley, and the reason it\u2019s called Cancer Alley is because the petrochemical industry takes that oil and turns it into plastic. The process kills people and shortens the lives of people who live there in the Gulf. So oil and petrochemicals are not just a problem when there\u2019s a spill, there\u2019re a problem when there\u2019s not. What we don\u2019t often appreciate is the price that poor people pay for us to have these disposable products. The other thing we don\u2019t often appreciate is that it\u2019s not just at the point of production that poor people suffer, poor people also suffer at the point of use.<\/p>\n

Those of us who are of a certain income level, we have something called \u2018choice\u2019. The reason you want to work hard, and have a job, and not be poor, and broke, is so you can have choices, economic choices. We actually get to choose not to use products that have dangerous and poisonous products in them. Other people, who are poor, don\u2019t have those choices. So low-income people are often the ones buying those products that have the dangerous chemicals in them, their children are using [them]. Those people wind up ingesting a disproportionate amount of this poisonous (plastic?). People say they should just buy a different product. The problem with being poor is you don\u2019t have those choices, you often have to buy the cheapest products, the cheapest products are often the most dangerous.<\/p>\n

If that weren\u2019t bad enough, if it weren\u2019t just the production of plastic that\u2019s giving people cancer in places like Cancer Alley and shortening people\u2019s lives and hurting poor kids at the point of use, at the point of disposal once again its poor people who bear the burden. Often, we think we\u2019re doing a good thing. You know, you\u2019re in your office, you\u2019re drinking your bottle of water, whatever it is, you say to yourself, \u2018Hey, I\u2019m going to throw this away. No, I\u2019m going to be virtuous, I\u2019m going to put it in the blue bin. I put mine in the blue bin.\u2019 And then you look at your colleagues, you know, \u2018You cretin, you put yours in the white bin. You know, you feel a moral tickle, you feel so good about yourself.\u2019 But if we \u2013 maybe (??) not you, but I feel this way often. You know, and we kind of have this sort of moral, feel-good moment but if we were able to follow that little bottle on its journey, we would be shocked to discover that all too often, that bottle is going to be put on a boat, it\u2019s going to go all the way across the ocean at some expense and it\u2019s going to wind up in a developing country off of China.<\/p>\n

I think in our minds we think that someone\u2019s going to take the little bottle. \u2018Oh little bottle,\u2019 you know, \u2018we\u2019re so happy to see you, little bottle. You\u2019ve served so well.\u2019 They give it a little bottle massage, a little bottle medal, you know, and \u2018what would you like to do next?\u2019 The little bottle is all, \u2018I just don\u2019t know\u2019, you know. But that\u2019s not actually what happens. That bottle winds up getting burnt. Recycling of plastic in many developing countries means the incineration of plastic, the burning of the plastic, which releases incredible toxic chemicals and once again kills people.<\/p>\n

And so poor people who are making these products in petrochemical centers like Cancer Alley, poor people who are consuming these products disprportionately, and then even poor people who are at the tail end of the recycling are having their lives shortened, are all being harmed greatly by this addiction we have to disposability.<\/p>\n

You think to yourself, because I know how you are, you say, \u2018That sure is terrible. For those poor people. It\u2019s just awful, those poor people. I hope someone does something to help them.\u2019 But what we don\u2019t understand is, here we are in Los Angeles, we\u2019ve worked very hard to get the smog reduction happening in Los Angeles, but guess what? Since they\u2019re doing so much dirty production in Asian [countries], because environmental laws don\u2019t protect the people in Asian [countries], almost all of the clean air gains, the toxic air gains that we\u2019ve achieved here in California have been wiped out by dirty air coming over from Asia.<\/p>\n

So we all are being hit, we all are being impacted, it\u2019s just the poor people get it first and worst. The dirty production, the burning of toxins, the lack of environmental standards in Asia is actually creating so much dirty air pollution, it is coming across the ocean and it has erased our gains here in California. We\u2019re back where we were in the 1970s. And so we\u2019re on one planet, and we have to be able to get to the root of these problems.<\/p>\n

The root of this problem in my view is the idea of disposability itself. If you understand the link between what we\u2019re doing to poison and pollute the planet, and what we\u2019re doing to poor people, you arrive at a very troubling but also very helpful insight: in order to trash the planet, you have to trash people. But if you create a world where you don\u2019t trash people, you don\u2019t trash the planet. So it\u2019s really, we\u2019re at a moment now where the coming together of social justice as an idea and ecology as an idea, we can finally see that they are really at the end of the day the same idea, and it\u2019s the idea that we don\u2019t have disposable anything. We don\u2019t have disposable resources, we don\u2019t have disposable species, and we don\u2019t have disposable people either. We don\u2019t have a throw-away planet and we don\u2019t have throw-away children, it\u2019s all precious. And as we all begin to come back to that basic understanding, new opportunities for action begin to emerge.<\/p>\n

Biomimicry, which is somethiing that is an emerging science, winds up being a very important social justic idea. To the people who are just learning about this, biomimicry is respecting the wisdom of all species. Democracy, by tthe way, means respecting the wisdom of all people, and we\u2019ll get to that, but biomimicry means respecting the wisdom of all species. It turns out, you know, we\u2019re a pretty clever species, there\u2019s this big cortex or whatever, we\u2019re pretty proud of ourselves, but if we want to make something hard, you know, \u2018I know, I\u2019m going to make a hard substance. I know, I\u2019m going to get vacuums and furnaces and drag stuff out of the ground, get stuff hot and poison and pollute, but I\u2019ve got this hard thing! I\u2019m so clever!\u2019 You look behind you and there\u2019s distruction all around you. But guess what. You\u2019re so clever but you\u2019re not as clever as a clam. A clamshell\u2019s hard. There\u2019s no vacuums, there\u2019s no big furnaces, there\u2019s no poison, there\u2019s no pollution. It turns out that another species has figured out a long time ago how to create many of the things we need using biological processes that nature knows how to use well. That insight of biomimicry, that insight of our scientists finally realizing that we have as much to learn from other species \u2013 I don\u2019t mean, you know, taking a mouse and sticking it with stuff, you know, I don\u2019t mean learning from them that way, abusing the little species, you know, actually respecting them, respecting what they\u2019ve achieved. That\u2019s called biomimicry, and that opens the door to zero waste production, zero pollution production, that we could actually enjoy a high quality of life, a high standard of living without trashing the planet. Well, that idea of biomimicry, of respecting the wisdom of all species, combined with the idea of democracy, of social justice, respecting the wisdom and the worth of all people, would give us a different society. We would have a different economy. We would have a green society that Dr. King would be proud of.<\/p>\n

That should be the goal. And the way that we get there is to first of all recognize that the idea of disposability not only hurts the species we\u2019ve talked about but it even corrupts our own society. We\u2019re so proud to live here in California. We just had this vote and everyone\u2019s like, \u2018Well, not in our state. I don\u2019t know what those other states were doing but\u2026.\u2019 You know, just so proud. And you know, I\u2019m proud too. But California, even though we lead the world in some of the green stuff, we lead the world in some of the gulag stuff. California has one of the highest incarceration rates of all the 50 states, so we have a moral challenge in all this movement. We\u2019re passionate about rescuing some dead materials from the landfill but sometimes not as passionate about rescuing living beings, living people. And I would say that, we live in a country, 5% of the world\u2019s population, 25% of the world\u2019s greenhouse gasses, but also 25% of the world\u2019s prisoners. One out of every 4 people locked up anywhere in the world is locked up right here in the United States. That is consistent with this idea that disposability is something that we believe in.<\/p>\n

And yet, as a movement that has to broaden its constituency, that has to grow, that has to reach out beyond our natural comfort zone, one of the challenges to the success of this movement, to getting rid of things like plastic and helping the economy shift is that people look at our movement with some suspicion. They ask a question and the question is, how can these people be so passionate, a poor person, a low-income person, somebody in Cancer Alley, somebody in Watts, somebody in Harlem, somebody on an Indian reservation might say to themselves \u2013 and rightfully so \u2013 how can these people be so passionate about making sure that a plastic bottle has a second chance in life, an aluminum can has a second chance, and yet when my child gets in trouble and goes to prison, he doesn\u2019t get a second chance. How can this movement be so passionate about saying we don\u2019t have throw-away stuff, you don\u2019t throw away dead materials, and yet accept throw-away lives and throw-away communities like Cancer Alley.<\/p>\n

And so we now get a chance to be truly proud of this movement. When we take on topics like this, it gives us that extra call to reach out to other movements and to become more inclusive and to grow. And we can finally get out of this crazy dilemma that we\u2019ve been in.<\/p>\n

Most of you are good soft-hearted people. When you\u2019re younger, you cared about the whole world and at some point, somebody said you had to pick an issue, right? You had to boil your love down to an issue. Can\u2019t love the whole world, you \u2018ve got to work on trees or you\u2019ve got to work on immigration, you\u2019ve got to shrink it down to be about one issue. And really, they fundamentally told you, are you going to hug a tree, or are you going to hug a child? Pick! Are you going to hug a tree, or are you going to hug a child? Pick! Well, when you start working issues like plastic, you realize that the whole thing is connected, and luckily most of us are blessed to have 2 arms. We can hug both. Thank you very much.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dmitriy T.M. sent in a link to a 13-minute video in which Van Jones discusses the problems with patting ourselves on the back too much every time we put a plastic bottle in the recycle bin instead of the trash, and the need to recognize the link between environmental concerns and other social issues: Also […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[229,36,2123,285],"class_list":["post-32648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-consumption","tag-economics","tag-environmentnature","tag-raceethnicity"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32648"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39869,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32648\/revisions\/39869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}