scientists: charming and disarming.

I've spent the last few years having an on and off obsession with scientists (also mathematicians.) Primarily because I don't actually know many (if any) scientists or mathematicians. They seems very different from my life and I imagine them to have great stories of banal things that encourage my mind to drift in wonder about tiny details of monstrous proportions.

As I meet these folks, they rarely are able to live up to my very high expectation of personality and charm.

However, ones I read about in books often make me crush out in a serious way.

The book "The World Without Us" introduced me to Dr. Tony Andrady, apparently known as the oracle of plastic's life in our world. He writes 800 page books on the subject of plastic and strikes me as the kind of guy that makes obscure jokes about hydrocarbons in that very endearing way. I think of him dreaming of a bacteria that one day will be able to ingest plastic, pooping out an entirely new substance.

Anyway, I like Tony. I enjoy that he is described as having a "reasonably persuasive voice."

Tony lays it out like this.


The vast majority of plastic that has ever been created -- this primarily means since the 1950's when the whole sha-bang really took off -- is still here. None of it has broken down entirely, none of it has been made into something other than plastic. It's all hanging around, waiting. Waiting for what? Well, he says, there are a couple of answers. It's waiting to be broken down into smaller and smaller pieces for animals to eat or to become more and more clear for animals to get tangled in and die. While, probably all plastic will biodegrate on some level and every permutation of plastic has a different life span --- no plastic has ever died a natural death.

I appreciate Tony's cynicism. It's quite charming.

But the beauty of this scientist -- is his belief in the absolute truth of nature. That everything that comes from it will eventually be taken back to it. Nature will take no defectors.

Tony comes back with the science for us.

Give it 100,000 years -- Earth will either hustle some microbes to evolve so that they can eat plastic. They have, apparently, recently learned to eat oil -- very exciting. Go team. Or if biologic time can not meet plastic where it is at then geologic time will be the victor. Tony hypothesizes that something will happen and the Earth will take in the 1 billion tons of plastic we've made so far (no hyperbole, serious number) and it will turn the plastic into magic. Just like dinosaur bones and petrified trees of the past -- the plastic particles, the polymers and hydrocarbons, will emerge to our distant homo-sapien relatives as some new and clever resource.

Tony says, "Change is the hallmark of nature. Nothing remains the same."

Until the next geologic era?

Well, the science is fuzzy.

bioplastics

To me, bioplastics sounds a lot like biofuels -- maybe a good idea or maybe just a tech fix that will have merciless repercussions in the near future.

A tech fix is the process of solving a problem with a technological invention only to have that fix create an entirely new problem that now, again, needs to be fixed. Tech fix is often based on industry and usually lacks a holistic approach to problem solving.

Plastics though were originally made from bio or organic materials. The strictly chemical, petroleum based polymer strands of today are a relatively new invention.

Bioplastics are long strings of polymers made from soybeans, cornstarch, and potatoes. The first plastics were made from cellulose -- pure vegetable fiber. The great US advocate of rubber & plastic -- Henry Ford -- made plastics from soybeans.

So when we see natural food stores busting out the corn-based plastic fad, we know that this is not new science. It is just a convenient time for them to be green.

In the end, will it be a better solution than petroleum based plastic products -- especially one time use plastic products? Maybe. My instinct is to say - Of Course! But I wonder, what will happen when we try to replace the existing plastic reality with corn-based reality (not to mention gas with ethanol)? That is a lot of farm land, that is a lot of food going into the landfills instead of peoples' bellies.

The sheer volume of food being used in such a way makes me recoil and long for a simple juicy butter dripping bite of corn-on-the-cob.

Dreaming of yummy corn does not move us toward a solution. How can anything move us? When the density of consumption is at max capacity and creates a situation where nothing can be done to replace all the plastic we use. Nothing is reasonable or good in that large a quantity -- not corn, not cotton cloth, not glass jars, nothing.

Really, I think, we all know what we have to do -- and it's not making everything out of soybeans -- it's just that most of us aren't ready to admit it.

1979

From Plastic: The Making of a Synthetic Century

Our postindustrial epoch frequently goes by the handle Information Age. But it could just as easily be called the Plastic Age. Plastic provides us with the material prerequisite for information storage and retrieval, both analog and digital. ... Plastic not only imitates natural materials, it allows us to recreate an entirely new world of the visual and aural imagination.

In 1979, the global volume of plastics production outstripped that of steel. At precisely that point in our industrial development, we entered the Plastic Age.

The ultimate triumph of plastic has been the victory of package over product, of style over substance, or surface over essence.

The Tower Challenge

No plastic huh?
wellwell, here's my challenge as I head off to work at the Flag Point fire tower, just east of Mt. Hood. I shopped today for my delicious tower purchases....."ah, nope...not that. ah.....nope, shit....no no, yes, no....no cheesepuffs? moving on....ah, put back the Thai Noodles! poop." and goddamn I didn't bring enough bags to fill up from the bulk snacks so I had to use NEW PAPER? God, that's stuoopid.
At first, I exempted myself from having to do this whole no plastic game during my tower hours.
I said a big NO at the house meeting becuz imagine yourself out in the middle of it with no stores to bumble around in to find non perishable plastic replacements at whim. My food stash is a big deal at the tower. It's lonely out there and I guess having the food I want is part of the comforts I take with me along with everything else I pack....delicious beverages, so many books, a guitar, yoga matt, hand crank radio, art supplies..to name a few.
But today, I think I felt the Drastic Plastic spirit biting at me and I said, like the rooster,
"fuck it motherfucker" .....NO PLASTIC!
I'll let you know if it sux'd at the tower without my plastic covered goodies or was no big deal.
Until then,
Jenn

drastic plastic reduction theory

Drastic Plastic Reduction is in full effect.

We recognize our lives revolve fully in both the information age & the disposable age.

As we interact with the world, most bits of data & goods fly through our lives in a split moment, barely pausing for us to take notice, rarely staying long enough to appreciate. Attachment to things, in this post-industrial United States, is a baffling dissonance. We are infinitely attached to consuming things and at the exact some moment throw out as much as possible. The cycle continues ad infinitum. Until Now.

For the next month, our five lives in this old house will intersect & deconstruct these ages. The Ramshackle rejects easy disposal, embraces information & ditches plastic. goodbye plastic & all the baggage that come with it.

Looking for a break in our ever-growing consumerism and our increasingly large garbage haul, the ramshackle is going plastic free. We’ve committed to not buy or consume any new plastic, especially not bringing plastic into the house, for the month of August.

This is a rough game and we don’t expect perfection. But we do want to take note. Our collective adventure and subsequent tales will be posted here for public consumption.