We all know how much we rely on plastic in our everyday lives (if you don't, just look around you!). Plastic is made from oil, and this tends to bother environmentalists. As well as being non-renewable (i.e. it will run out someday), oil is rather polluting when dragged from the ground and "used" - read: burned. And of course, besides all that polluting the C02 it emits also contributes to climate change.
One of the lowest hanging fruit (in this culture's mind's eye) concerning the struggle to be more sustainable is the ubiquitous plastic shopping bag and wrapping that food products are sold in. To replace conventional plastic bags and packaging, bioplastics have been invented. These are plastics manufactured from "renewable" sources - mainly glucose which normally comes from refined maize (or potatoes or beets). Increasingly you will see advertising on shopping bags saying that they are biodegradable, these are invariably made from bioplastics. With regards to there biodegradability, my aunt and uncle (who actually have a very functioning compost heap - nice) have tried to compost them, but have been unsuccessful up until now, apparently they persist long after the rest of the food scraps, paper, etc. Biodegradability is only a measure of the amount of time it takes something to breakdown anyway - but that's another blog post.
So bioplastics are becoming increasingly popular, especially by those who *really* want to be seen to be doing something good for the environment. At my local supermarket, all the organic fruit is placed on a recycled cardboard tray and wrapped in a very loud crinkly bioplastic (the normal fruit of course gets the conventional thin plastic bag - which are somehow exempt from laws banning plastic shopping bags...). The problem with bioplastics is that there production consumes a lot more energy than conventional plastics. The actual production of the plastics obviously takes energy in both cases, and it seems that bioplastics consume more energy in their production, but it also takes energy to produce the feedstock. Oil obviously requires drilling, transport, etc. But glucose (or starch - made of lots of glucose molecules) needs all the inputs required to grow it on top of the energy intensive refining process. And when you boil it down, these inputs are essentially oil (chemical fertilizers, pesticides, petrol for the tractor) - I'm assuming a company will use the cheapest glucose around, which with our skewed subsidies is more than likely not organic!
So it turns out that at the end of the day the more environmental choice would probably be conventional plastic. Of course neither of these are really environmental choices at all, and if I was writing this post for my other "live simply it will help the planet" blog I would probably end off by saying we should all be re-using our cotton, hemp or plastic bags. In this case though I imagine you can guess what my solution will be...
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Saturday, June 12, 2010
The oil spill
Osborne, Britain's chancellor of the exchequer, said after speaking to BP CEO Tony Hayward, "The prime minister is also clear that we need constructive solutions and that we remember the economic value BP brings to people in Britain and America."
The oil spill and people's response to it confuses me. And at the same time it shows how brilliantly this culture has turned us from citizens - people - to consumers. Just looking at the response to it shows the lies we are being told. I mean chemical dispersants? Plastic bags to put the oil in (and then dump it where? another planet?)? Oil absorbent booms? Plastic protective gloves and clothing? The common thread? ALL these things use oil either as an ingredient (plastic, most chemicals) or in their production and transport to the spill. Bad for the economy? The economy is loving it! All this buying up of oil fighting equipment, all the media flights and trips on boats. Pathetic. Real solutions? Try supporting nature in it's own ability to deal with the spill.
When I see a video on youtube of a US man mocking BP's response to the oil spill and encouraging people to dump their garden "waste" on BP's property to get back at them, the madness is clear. To punish a company that in their NORMAL operations rapes and kills the earth by "dumping" the most valuable product the earth offers us on their property is beyond nonsensical.
I'm waiting for the "Buy American" campaigns telling people to buy their petrol from US companies - because there products are a product of nature (1) that do not kill the earth? Does anyone really think other oil companies are better? One encouraging sign is the couple of "radical environmentalists" talking about oil companies, particularly Shell's destruction of the Niger delta, and comparing it to the Gulf oil spill.
Looking at the quotation above, one can only marvel that Osborne is still a publicly employed official. People might actually believe that? Even if you think in purely economic terms, BP is destroying the economy by vacuuming up "resources" that could be used for "development". Let's not even get into the bit about how they are destroying the planet. You know, that thing that all of us - our children and all other species depend on for LIFE. And then the little sinister leer and knowing wink - bringing economic value (a prime example of an oxymoron) "to people in Britain and America". To clarify, not to Britain and America, but only to people, and by that we mean some people, not all, and by that we mean an infinitesimal portion of the people in the UK and US, and by that we mean the ecocidal maniacs who are destroying everything the rest of us (including the cute and cuddly, big and ugly, inanimate, breathtaking, tiny, new and old) rely on for LIFE.
We don't need a better response to the oil spill, we need a better response to the assault on our planet. We don't need people angry at BP, we need people angry at this culture. We need more Greenpeace, we need more Sea Shepard, we need more MEND, we need more people who refuse to take responsibility for the death of the planet, but begin to dismantle the industrial economy, starting from where it is weakest.
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(1) Oil might be a product from nature, but petrol is certainly not. There is also a reason nature stored the oil underground.
The oil spill and people's response to it confuses me. And at the same time it shows how brilliantly this culture has turned us from citizens - people - to consumers. Just looking at the response to it shows the lies we are being told. I mean chemical dispersants? Plastic bags to put the oil in (and then dump it where? another planet?)? Oil absorbent booms? Plastic protective gloves and clothing? The common thread? ALL these things use oil either as an ingredient (plastic, most chemicals) or in their production and transport to the spill. Bad for the economy? The economy is loving it! All this buying up of oil fighting equipment, all the media flights and trips on boats. Pathetic. Real solutions? Try supporting nature in it's own ability to deal with the spill.
When I see a video on youtube of a US man mocking BP's response to the oil spill and encouraging people to dump their garden "waste" on BP's property to get back at them, the madness is clear. To punish a company that in their NORMAL operations rapes and kills the earth by "dumping" the most valuable product the earth offers us on their property is beyond nonsensical.
I'm waiting for the "Buy American" campaigns telling people to buy their petrol from US companies - because there products are a product of nature (1) that do not kill the earth? Does anyone really think other oil companies are better? One encouraging sign is the couple of "radical environmentalists" talking about oil companies, particularly Shell's destruction of the Niger delta, and comparing it to the Gulf oil spill.
Looking at the quotation above, one can only marvel that Osborne is still a publicly employed official. People might actually believe that? Even if you think in purely economic terms, BP is destroying the economy by vacuuming up "resources" that could be used for "development". Let's not even get into the bit about how they are destroying the planet. You know, that thing that all of us - our children and all other species depend on for LIFE. And then the little sinister leer and knowing wink - bringing economic value (a prime example of an oxymoron) "to people in Britain and America". To clarify, not to Britain and America, but only to people, and by that we mean some people, not all, and by that we mean an infinitesimal portion of the people in the UK and US, and by that we mean the ecocidal maniacs who are destroying everything the rest of us (including the cute and cuddly, big and ugly, inanimate, breathtaking, tiny, new and old) rely on for LIFE.
We don't need a better response to the oil spill, we need a better response to the assault on our planet. We don't need people angry at BP, we need people angry at this culture. We need more Greenpeace, we need more Sea Shepard, we need more MEND, we need more people who refuse to take responsibility for the death of the planet, but begin to dismantle the industrial economy, starting from where it is weakest.
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(1) Oil might be a product from nature, but petrol is certainly not. There is also a reason nature stored the oil underground.
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