Around the world, folks have been cleaning things up. Thousands of clean ups have picked up thousands of tons of plastic. Great. I am glad. Plastic causes all sorts of problems loose in the environments.
But... What now?
First, what now to do with all 'the trash' that has been picked up? Right now it is siting in black garbage bags, that most likely will be brought to a dump site somewhere. But how different is that 'dump site' from where the 'trash' was picked up? Afterall, a dumbsite, was itself a field or forest only a few decades ago.
Second, what now for those who picked up 'trash' to do? We're all involved in the production, consumption of petroleum based products and packaging by the our very existence in this age. Despite all the PR campaigns, companies are set to produce more plastic this coming year than the year before.
But again, I am glad. I am glad for the opportunity to be able to ask these questions.
Plastic is not evil-- it is simply atoms arranged to make a certain type of rather unique molecules. Plastic, just like any technology, is a reflection of our civilizational consciousness at this moment. Looking in this mirror, we can see that we have much to learn. Yes, that reflection in the mirror has many quirks, mainly because we're at a tremendous moment of making choices about who we want to be. I that the plastic quirk/crisis is a grand opportunity to choose who we want to be on Planet Earth.
For example, I used to be very critical of places that use plastic straws and bags. I also used to look down upon those who use and dispose of plastic and toxic cigarette filters. I've come to see it the other way round now.
For me each piece of plastic, each straw, each acetate-filter-cigarette-butt is a grand opportunity! Forget about global plastic bans. Forget about banning plastic straws and plastic bags. Yes, these are important, but vastly more so is the existential, moment by moment choice that we as have with each plastic bag, cigarette, razor, and straw. We can either give away our power and throw away, recycle, or put in a bin our plastic-- and in so doing perpetuate the very industrial recycling, trash, dumping, production, and consumption systems that are at the root of the problem.
Or we can keep our plastic.
We can take responsibility for each piece, count it, clean it, and keep it out of the old and failing systems.
In my home, no plastic leaves. Every month, my partner and I weigh our net consumed plastic. Our goal is to mindfully and reduce each month what we consume. The plastic that we do consume, and the plastic we gather from our neighbours we pack into a bottle to make an ecobrick. We have used ecobricks to build our garden, our table and our chairs. We log our ecobricks each month on the GoBrik.com. We gain BrikCoins by reviewing the ecobricks of others around the world. We use these Brikcoins to pay our friends and neighbours for food, things and services.
Indeed, plastic is something to pick up. However, it is time to reconsider what we do with it afterwards. Plastic is precious, both in its absence from the environment, and in what we can do with it next.
Along this line, I am proud to release this how-to video on the making of an Ocean Ecobrick (in Indonesia Ecobrick Samudra). This is an invention of mind that fully embodies regenerative, cradle-to-cradle, principles to allow anyone anywhere to transform plastic (especially the plastic that we've picked up on beaches!) to be transformed into a practical and reusable building block.
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://russs.net/yesterday-we-picked-up-the-plastic-and-today/