Confessions of a Plastiholic

     The only way to avoid plastic abuse in this country is to be a hermit like the Unabomber or never buy anything at any store.

     I used to use plastic picnic cups, forks and spoons as unthinkingly as anyone, but by the time plastic plates showed up, I had started to resist using them. And they're the standard for almost every potluck or party you go to. So I made a solemn vow that I wasn't going to use any plastic stuff to eat with. I put together a mess kit with stainless steel utensils and a reusable plastic container from the thrift store - it works great because when I'm done eating I just put the lid on and no mess.

     But then I realized that I'm still using lots of other plastic. Some of it I can re-use, but a lot of it gets trashed. You just can't help yourself when your whole country is abusing plastic.

     Making throwaway items of plastic when it is 99.44%  impossible to truly recycle is abuse. About 2/3 of all plastic packaging is made from natural gas, and 1/4 from oil. If we are going to just throw that gas and oil away, we might as well use it to keep someone warm in the winter instead. Next time you whip out another garbage bag, even if it's the grocery bag, think about it.

     A lot of people have heard about the plastic in the ocean that's killing more than a million sea animals every year.  If there are truly 46,000 pieces of plastic trash per square mile of ocean, as the U.N. says, it's a wonder there aren't more dead bodies. Your old Barbie doll could be a killer.

     The plastic bag industry claims that plastic packaging saves energy because it's lighter than glass, wood, and other things that actually are recyclable. But they don't mention that a lot of plastic containers are used for beverage products, which are extremely heavy. Drinking soda pop in plastic bottles rather than glass ones isn't really going to save any energy - for that you need to drink tap water.

     There are actually some cool ways to re-use plastic, even though it just postpones the inevitable trash.

     The easiest way to truly recycle it would probably be to burn it, the way utilities burn natural gas and coal. And even though plastic probably has fewer contaminants like chlorine and sulfur than oil and coal, burning plastic trash will probably produce a minute amount of dioxins and some other things that could smell like the tailpipe of a car that's burning oil.

     I think I'd rather take my chances with plastic combustion than with nuclear, or mountain-top rape - like the permits for coal strip mining that Obama recently approved.

City Council All Wet?

     If I had known the council was proposing a one-size-fits-all, zero-tolerance policy, I would have suggested some sustainable amendments.

     Food gardens are an obvious exemption here, since growing your own food displaces a certain amount of water use that would otherwise be required for transportation and display for sale. Gardens that are shaded by trees retain water far longer than those which are naked in the Sacramento summer sun. And of course, houses where composting toilets are installed and graywater systems route household wastewater to thirsty plants are conserving water automatically.

     Rumors that we are in a drought have been called into question but as usual politicians ignore impertinent critiques. 

     And of course this ordinance, like so many, depends on complaints for enforcement, which means more of the sort of anonymous complaints and neighbor snitching that sabotages true and sustaining community.

Rural Resistance To Green Veneer

     People who live in the country didn't move there so cities could build high-voltage towers in their fields and farms, as was pointed out in yesterday's Bee. 

     Large-scale, energy-intensive projects like this are not green. Sorry.

     One alternative to meeting Sacramento's sacred future energy demands would be to ban all Sacramento's inefficient and polluting fossil-fuel leafblowers and lawnmowers, and divert all that fuel to one highly efficient stationary turbine with good pollution controls. This would make a sizeable dent in the 'demands' for electricity that are expected for the next few years.

     Another alternative would be to take a close look at our 'demands,' which sound to me like the selfish whims of spoiled children. How much electricity is used for anything we actually need? How much is used for things we like but can actually live without?

     You can't be green, or sustainable, if you don't know the difference. 

Downsizing Government & Minimizing Pain

     Councilmember Ray Tretheway's op-ed in today's Bee advocates energetic enforcement of petty misdemeanors, based on the debatable 'broken-windows' theory that blight causes crime. Elsewhere, WEAVE reports that rape-crisis support for victims will be cut as part of the budget crunch. I hope Tretheway would give higher priority to addressing violent crimes such as rape, than to petty offenses such as graffiti, self-medication, or penny-ante theft.

     Minimizing pain can't happen if we stay inside the box of business-as-usual, which includes law enforcement retribution for underclass street crimes but old-boy bonuses for the upper-class suite crimes that continue to rape public budgets.

     The business-as-usual box also insists that we must fight blight by sticking to certain very unsustainable practices, such as having lawns and landscaping that are over-fertilized, over-pesticided, over-watered, and so manicured by fossil-fuel mowers and leafblowers as to appear made from plastic. No wonder the bees are dying.

     Any use of a fossil fuel is another small attack on Mother Earth, and on our long-term survival, not to mention future property values. 

Swine Flu Spreads Terrorist Germs!!

     Like any flu, swine flu can kill, especially people who are weak. There are sensible things you can do to strengthen your immune system, like eating healthy food (no white flour/rice/pasta/sugar or processed ready-to-eat products), and getting plenty of sleep, and exercise outdoors in the fresh air. And if you do get sick, there is no shortage of natural substances, like medicinal herbs and fresh garlic, that germs don't like.

     Many people are ready to blame hog farms in Mexico for this threat of a pandemic. But even if there turns out to be a connection, these farms are only one symptom of the presenting problem. What kind of farming is unhealthy and why are people working that way? What are the trade-offs? What role does mobility play when half the world is jetting around and the other half are illegal immigrants?

     We don't know if this flu makes people sicker than other flu bugs. If mortality is higher in Mexico, it could be due to poor health due to economic exploitation.

     And could the black market drug trade be a disease vector? If law enforcement can't stop illegal drugs, how can public health officials stop germs from hitchhiking on them? And while this flu is probably not that dangerous, other diseases are. The most cost-effective way to track such vectors is to decriminalize, the only way to shine a light on a black market.

Newsflash! TV Makes You Stupid!

     A concerned parent, Allen Kanner, wrote in the last 2008 Tikkun describing his (and his wife's) decision to raise their kids without TV. They want to shelter their children from the blizzard of corporate capitalist advertising, what Zappa called "the slime oozing out of your TV set." In particular, it's the "corporate materialism" the Kanners object to. Others have demonstrated a link between materialism and low self-esteem.

     But there seems to be another scary effect of TV programming, which is that kids don't know how to play. Teachers report kids don't know what to do with themselves when left alone during recess. Research indicates kids playing with toys they have seen on TV shows limit their play to just the stories shown on those TV shows.

     However, I'm not sure I totally agree with the Kanners' solution of total isolation, particularly as the child progresses toward puberty. I would install exactly one TV, and inoculate my kids by making fun of the ads - a form of play that will empower and sharpen growing minds. Pointing out the hypocrisy and greed that goes along with all that money seems a far more effective way to prepare children to avoid another market meltdown.

     I'm also not sure TV is the only villain here. Kids can't learn to play - or act - on their own if parents never leave them alone. Too many parents are too afraid to let their kids travel alone in their own towns, not to mention out in the woods. Again, inoculation is a better defense than too much protection. Gavin de Becker's book, "Protecting the Gift," has some great ideas about how to do this, from an author with substantial professional experience.

Campaign Finance Reform

     I cannot tell a lie. I am a bad progressive who doesn't believe in public financing of campaigns. I think it's a waste of money that doesn't really address the problem. The last thing we need is more ads when the nature of advertising has gradually been rotting our brains and our schools.

     The problem is locked in place by Supreme legal precedence that any personal money spent on one's campaign is protected by the principle of free speech. The constrained freedom to contribute is also protected. Unfortunately, pandering speech enjoys equal protection not just under the law but by customary acceptance and approval. Such acceptance is close kin to people's approval of local pork.

     Many years ago, I advocated in a letter to the Bee that half of all campaign contributions be allocated to local general funds. Another great idea would be requiring more open-ended, calm, and equal time access to be provided by all news media. We could limit campaigns to a month or 2, as in Europe.

     Another campaign reform available to everyone is to never vote for anyone you see advertised on TV.