10 Overlooked Benefits Of Plastic
Activists rarely mention the sustainability benefits of plastic, but they're significant.
When Christine Lagarde recently stated that the European Central Bank needed to work harder to be more sustainable, was she preparing Europeans for the shift to polymer-based bank notes? As more than 30 countries have shifted to plastic bills (with studies showing it is safer and more sustainable), this is just one more case of where plastic solutions have been introduced to make life better, safer, more environmentally-friendly and more enjoyable.
As plastic is not natural, activists would want you to believe it is the source of all that’s evil. But if we truly followed their no-plastics campaigns, life would be harder, shorter and less sustainable. The Firebreak is introducing a three-part series to look at how these anti-plastics campaigners are operating and the interest groups behind them. But before that, we should revisit an earlier article examining the important environmental and public health benefits of plastic.
Here are the first ten. Feel free to add your own.
1. Plastic packaging protects food
Unless you want to take an animal home and slaughter it yourself, you will likely need to rely on several types of plastic packaging to protect your meat from the elements, cross-contamination and bacteria. That plastic lining inside your tin can or drinks carton prevents metals from migrating into your food. Rats and insects love dry foods like rice and pasta … so how do you think they are kept safe during transport and storage? Without plastics, we would have serious food safety issues like E. coli, spoilage, infestation and fungal and bacteria issues. People who think plastic food packaging is unnecessary either grow all the food they need in their window boxes or have no idea how food is manufactured, maintained or transported.
2. Plastic can be easily recycled
If Europeans seriously want a circular economy (actually, most don’t really care), then EU officials had better start promoting plastics. Different plastics can be recycled or reused with low energy or waste management costs. For those end-of-life plastic products not easily repurposed, as petroleum products, the energy can be recovered through incineration or methane capture. The alternatives to plastics (glass, paper and textiles) are more environmentally costly to reuse, recycle or manage. How many high-production cost organic cotton bags are in your garage or at the bottom of your closet? And how often do you buy plastic garbage bags when you used to reuse old shopping bags?
3. Plastic reduces food waste
A cucumber wrapped in plastic will last around three times longer than one with no shrink-wrap. Fresh vegetables without packaging (from carrots to lettuce) will wilt as soon as I put them in the fridge and while elitist foodies can get their servants to go to the fresh-market every morning to make them a salad (if they don’t grow all of the ingredients in their posh roof gardens), most of us working people only have time for one or two trips to the supermarket per week. Those strawberries bouncing around in a paper bag will be half-way to juice before I’m half-way home. How much added food waste will we create if the naturopaths let nature do its work on my fruit and vegs? Retailers of course won’t mind – saving costs on packaging while having me make extra trips to the shops once I clean all the slime from the bottom of my fridge drawer. But maybe the rest of us should wake up and demand technology to keep our food fresh and safe.
Then there is the question of nutritional value not only from the deterioration of the food from the time of harvest (which plastic reduces) but also the ease and convenience of packaging fruit and vegetables. Do not underestimate the impact bagged lettuce and pre-made salads have made on healthier diets over the last few decades. Where making a salad had been a chore, today it has become an easy add-on to any meal. Many of the elitist foodies will want you to believe there are risks of pathogens or nutrition loss from bagged salads, but these are malicious myths.
4. Plastic is more sustainable
When I think of sustainable innovations today, I think of plastic. Lighter automotive plastics not only reduce running costs and save fuel, but allow for more efficient transportation manufacturing costs. Polyurethane foam insulation is more effective at reducing home heating and cooling costs than older alternatives. The specialty polymers going into solar panels enable cheaper energy conversion efforts (especially as solar calendering processes advance). The “circular economy” should be renamed the “plastic economy” (where repurposing other materials consumes energy and wastes water while recycling plastics recovers energy). Whenever I see a “green-conscious” brand using glass packaging, I immediately think: What a waste! A waste of water and energy in rebottling. A waste of fuel and space in transporting the heavier materials. A waste of minerals given that most glass is not reused 20 times (the amount required to justify the environmental burden of manufacturing the glass). But in the Age of Stupid, glass is portrayed as sustainable.
5. Plastic saves lives
In the 1970s, PVC replaced glass for blood bags in hospitals. It is still the best plastic today for this essential, life-saving system. Greenpeace fought for 50 years to ban PVC blood bags … and lost.
Each time I am hooked up to a machine, IV or tubes, I see plastic. Doctors put on gloves to protect patients from deadly bacteria, use plastic syringes, tubes and hoses. Speaking with a nurse about the long-standing ridiculous Greenpeace campaign against PVC blood bags (I was involved in this one going back to the 1990s), she scoffed, recalling how hard it was in the days when blood came in glass bottles, awkward to use, risk of contaminants and frequently breaking. Our doctors and nurses need our support; they don’t need idiotic naturopaths taking efficient tools away from them for some unjustifiable eco-puritan ideology.
6. Plastic reduces CO2 emissions
The last 50 years has seen a continuous march of refining industrial production processes replacing older, heavier materials like steel and cement with a variety of technical polymers. As much as activist eco-zealots want to portray this as evil Father Profit burdening Mother Earth with more pollutants and chemicals than the poor planet can bear, the motive for this is industry’s commitment to product stewardship and sustainable production. Plastic is more lightweight than older industrial products from the 19th century. Lighter cars and planes with plastic parts use less fuel, saving consumers money and emitting less CO2 into the atmosphere. It costs far less energy to extrude a polymer than to mould steel or iron so the manufacturing process is more environmentally friendly. Ask any plumber or electrician if they are OK with going back to a world without plastics and watch for the expression.
7. Plastic provides fairness in consumption
Not everyone is as rich and privileged as the eco-zealots who are used to making the decisions for those less fortunate. Many in poor regions or emerging economies can only afford to acquire mass-produced consumer goods, furniture, clothing and household goods made from synthetic materials. With accessible polymers, the working poor can afford toys for their children, home comforts and accessible electronics. Lunches from meal trucks are affordable with disposable cutlery, providing convenience to those without means or time.
While those “eco-conscious” who sip Perrier from fine crystal would prefer to see such “tacky” plastic banned, I think it would be unfair to deny those with limited means from enjoying material consumption and aspiring to acquire. Environmentalists are not concerned with the consequences their elitist ideology will impose on the less fortunate. Whether it is higher green electricity costs creating a class of energy impoverished, barriers to affordable food production causing food security or health issues, or less access to goods causing material discomfort, activists have been fond of putting their ideology above social justice. So the zealot march to ban plastic is just one more example of green privilege beating down on the aspiring lower classes.
8. Plastic enables sexual empowerment
Religious zealots want to ban condoms, enslave women to at least three decades of servitude and increase risks of sexually-transmitted diseases. Do the environmental zealots seriously want to join hands with their irrational cousins? I keep hearing green activists talk about empowerment and women’s rights. While I am having a hard time envisioning recyclable condoms or glass vibrators, are these eco-zealots aware of how their puritan demands for a single-use plastic tax will affect preventative lifestyle choices. The liberation led by latex since the 1960s did not merely coincide with the sexual revolution. Imagine your favourite sex-toys being replaced with glass alternatives!
9. Plastic is innovative
Almost every innovative product I can think of has some type of polymer application. Sit in your car and imagine a world without plastics. My new, energy-efficient flat-screen TV was not made from repurposed peanut shells. You want to run a trail race up a mountain with all natural products, good bloody luck! The rise of 3D printing has enable engineers to find faster, better solutions with polymers. My naturopath friends who try to go a week or a month without plastic are cute but terribly misinformed (especially when they try to make their own deodorant or scrub their scalp with a bar). What they are saying is they want to reject all technology and innovation.
I am aware there are alternatives to plastics (namely in food packaging and textiles) or, in some cases, plastics can be overused or unnecessary, but only a troubled individual would then conclude we need to go without plastic or have a plastic-free world. Innovation is an iterative process, always being refined and developed. There may be cases where alternatives to plastics do exist but more often polymeric solutions are judged to be more efficient. This though must be decided on the basis of the best technology and not on some political declaration or activist campaign agenda for a blanket ban on plastic.
10. Plastic provides safety
Single-use plastics have a purpose: safety. I watched in disbelief as privileged environmentalists waged war on straws, leaving food engineers scrambling for alternatives. Plastic, first and foremost is about guaranteeing my safety. Banning or taxing single-use plastics out of existence is an attack on my personal safety.
When my dentist puts on a new pair of plastic gloves, I feel safe.
When my fresh meat or fish are wrapped in plastic, I feel safe.
When my blister pack medications are sealed, I feel safe.
When I buy water in a developing country and the cap clicks, I feel safe.
When I open the child-lock on my detergents and cleaning products, I feel safe.
When activists and hotshot journalists start dictating policies on eliminating beneficial single-use plastics, I certainly don’t feel safe.
Thank you for keeping an open mind enough to finish reading this article. You might have rolled your eyes at the start, but hopefully had a chance to think while reading this. The next two articles should help you understand why such a prejudice has been imposed on you, and who was behind it.