Plastic is Poison

NPR published an article this month about plastic baby bottles shedding microplastics when heated. Years ago, I remember seeing a headline that read “We Are Drinking Our Clothes”. Since then, I’ve seen so many depressing articles about microplastics in the fog over our bay, in the air we breathe, in the water we drink. Plastic is all around us and our reliance on it is also our demise. I suppose on the bright side it’s good for the plastic problem to become more mainstream. Sad pun intended.

When Bubba was born, I was really terrified of three things: 1) him breathing in air pollution like truck or car exhaust or fertilizer (we live in a rural town surrounded by corn fields), 2) him coming into contact with the lawn spray that is so pervasive in our neighborhood and that our dog might track in, and 3) him ingesting microplastics or harmful metals like lead.

Let’s be real. I was worried about these things before he was born. But before I got pregnant, I only had myself to worry about. To bring another life into this effed up world, I feel immense responsibility to keep him safe.

Safe from plastic and toxins. This task just seems so…impossible. Unless, I put him in a bubble. Wait, is that an option?

Here is what I know about plastic:

• All plastic erodes and becomes finer pieces of microplastic.

• Plastic doesn’t ever leave earth. All the plastic that has ever been created? It’s all still on this earth somewhere.

• Most of our clothing is made of plastic or some synthetic material like acrylic or polyester. Continuously washing and wearing our clothes creates more microplastic. I’m looking at you, yoga pants.

Here are the problems with plastic:

• Plastic disrupts our delicate endocrine system.

• A handful of big corporations are the biggest producers of plastic and thus plastic waste. Coke, Pepsi, and Nestle are up at the top.

• Plastic pollution is nearly impossible to clean up. Microplastic especially.

To get sick from plastic, it’s difficult for doctors to diagnose plastic as the root cause. Cancers are unique to the individual, a special formula made up of small or large traces of genes, toxins, and other stressors.

Do we fight the plastic fight until something else kills us in the end? Do I fight for my child, knowing that it might give him a chance at a better life?

Yes, I believe I do. I’ll take that chance.

The Air I Breathe

I remember the dark exhaust spewing out of an old beat-up car on Division Street in Chicago. The two people in the front seat seemingly not knowing the pillows of poison they left behind as they sped away. That image has stuck with me ever since.

I hold my breath a lot these days. When I’m passing someone smoking a cigarette outside a building. When a semi-truck is idling near me. When I’m standing in a windowless parking garage. I think of the dangerous fumes entering my lungs.

Last week, I walked near a construction zone and felt the dust blow into my eyes, nose, and mouth. I felt violated, contaminated, dirty. Both inside and out.

Air pollution is a silent killer. It seeps into every nook and cranny. Like a ghost, particulates are invisible when they enter our lungs. They are all around us when we om and ah in the yoga studio and when we put our little ones to sleep. Air pollution feels inescapable.

Today, San Francisco is suffocating from a devastating wildfire. Though the fire is more than 150 miles away, the Bay is covered in a thick smoke and the air quality in the city has become worse than Beijing’s. I’m confined indoors and when I do venture out, I wear a mask. Every inhale is short, heavy, calculated.

The issue of air pollution gnaws at me. Physically and figuratively. It sits on my shoulder when I work. It wants my attention when I walk outside. It shakes me when I smell exhaust or burnt plastic. It screams in my ear when I read the news. I am overwhelmed by it, this systemic issue that I can’t fix on my own.

I’ve been called crazy and neurotic for voicing my opinions. But, I can’t deny my instincts when they tell me something in the air is wrong. Every human being and creature has the right to clean air, clean food, clean water. The very basic necessities in life. I need to do more…always more.

“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.”