Special Skills: Can travel without the aid of humans (assisted by wind), can break up into millions of tiny pieces over time that are invisible to the human eye, will never decompose
Disguise: A recycling triangle containing the #6, allowing it to pretend that it is healthy for our planet so that it can blend in with increasingly environmentally aware society
Mission: To fill up landfills, annihilate all marine life, poison humans through the food chain
The following video is the Styrofoam edition of How It's Made (watching it is optional):
Last week, I went to eat at the sushi restaurant at lunch with two friends. I ordered a spicy tuna roll and was surprised by more than the sauce it was drenched in - it came in a Styrofoam container. Using Styrofoam for takeout is common but I had never experienced getting in-restaurant food in a Styrofoam takeaway container. I understand that students make up a large portion of the restaurant’s customers and
lunch time is short so students may need to get takeaway
students want to spend as little money as possible on their lunch (before we split up and went for sushi there was a big debate in my lunch group about whether you got more food for your money at Subway or at sushi).
However, we ate our sushi at the restaurant (as did the large group of P.W. students sitting next to us) and got back to school 10 – 15 minutes prior to the first bell. Also, I would gladly spend an extra 50 cents to have my food served on a washable plate (I was going to say I would pay extra for a paper plate instead of a Styrofoam one since paper plates are more expensive, however; I would rather have my extra 50 cents go towards a dishwasher’s wages). I think that many students would pay the extra money if there is a sign up that explains that the restaurant is not over charging but that they are using the money to provide environmentally friendly services. Students care about saving the environment.
I cannot imagine how many Styrofoam containers are produced and thrown away each month, even if the restaurant only uses them at lunch time – I have friends who go there multiple times a week, some of whom are vegetarians. I do not understand this. I am not a vegetarian because I do not mind eating free range animals, however; I will not eat from Styrofoam containers because I do mind polluting animals’ habitats and putting Styrofoam into their food chain.
The French Ministry of Ecology calculated that over 14 million tonnes of Styrofoam are produced in the world each year. This is the equivalent to the weight of 93,000 blue whales (the volume of the Styrofoam is much greater than the volume of 93,000 whales because it is so light – it is 98% air), so the problem is where to put it all once we are done with it. Unlike blue whales, Styrofoam does NOT belong in our oceans. However, Styrofoam gets into the water through ocean dumping, it is easily blown by the wind because it is so light, and it goes through (and clogs) storm drains.
We know this because we have already created the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and have observed that it is 90% plastic. The following video explains what the Garbage Patch is:
Captain Charles Moore (discoverer of the Garbage Patch) said:
“My generation is the last to have ever experienced the ocean without plastic debris in it.”
Captain Paul Watson (Sea Shepherd Conservation Society) said:
"The simple fact is that when you drop a Styrofoam cup onto the street, you're causing more damage than you would by dropping a stick of dynamite into the ocean. You set in motion an invasion of thousands of killer plastibots that will cause death and destruction for centuries to come.
"The plankton is thick, part of the time I can't see my fingertips with my arms extended in front of me. I watch above the surface or swim with one arm ahead of me at all times to avoid running into something."
I was reading Mark Powell's blog on Blogspot where he described each day of his thirty-eight day swim around Bainbridge Island. When I read the above quote about the amount of plankton in the water I was amazed but, more importantly, I wondered what it would be like if there was 6x as much plastic as there is plankton everywhere, instead of just in the Pacific Garbage Patch. It would be disgusting to swim in.
If not into our ocean, the Styrofoam goes to the landfill. Styrofoam makes up 25%-30% of our landfill. Below is a picture of the Cache Creek Landfill:
When researching alternatives to Styrofoam, I found this interesting article comparing Styrofoam to paper on almost every website. I cannot believe that the following article is the message that is being sent out to the public:
Paper Cups Use More Raw Materials and Energy Than Styrofoam (And Cost More)
Paper Cups Don’t Biodegrade
Well, they do eventually (as does anything, eventually), but it takes much more time than I’d thought for a paper cup to biodegrade. The gubmint says, “Modern landfills are designed to inhibit degradation so that toxic wastes do not seep into the surrounding soil and groundwater. The paper cup will still be a paper cup 20 years from now.”
“A study by Canadian scientist Martin Hocking shows that making a paper cup uses as much petroleum or natural gas as a polystyrene cup. Plus, the paper cup uses wood pulp. The Canadian study said, ‘The paper cup consumes 12 times as much steam, 36 times as much electricity, and twice as much cooling water as the plastic cup.’ And because the paper cup uses more raw materials and energy, it also costs 2.5 times more than the plastic cup.”
I was shocked to read this and, unsure of what to believe, I read it aloud to my family on Sunday dinner night. My mother (rather knowledgeable and educated person) suggested that Styrofoam industries paid to have this study done and have Styrofoam advertised as the greener choice. My grandfather (opinionated ex-logger) said that paper was a renewable resource and logging provides many many jobs. I said that paper is recyclable and decomposable, whereas Styrofoam is not. Sure, paper may not decompose for twenty years, but how can this be comparable to Styrofoam that will NEVER decompose? The technology to recycle Styrofoam exists, however; it is extraordinarily expensive. For example, it costs 3,000 US dollars to recycle one tonne of Styrofoam ($42,000,000,000 to recycle all the Styrofoam in the world each year) and $89 to recycle one tonne of glass. Because of this, there is no Styrofoam recycling in the Lower Mainland and in 2001, the American Chemistry Council stated that less than 1% of Styrofoam in the US was being recycled.
Karel Menard (of the Quebec Common Front for the Ecological Management of Waste) said:
"We always come back to the same thing. They say polystyrene is necessary for sanitation, transport, hygiene . . . but we did fine without it before."
"It's not about returning to the days of candlelit caves but of finding new solutions. If the Styrofoam manufacturers and users were forced, through legislation, to internalize its environmental cost, they would come up with a new, viable and sustainable alternative."
Some alterntives to Styrofoam are:
Bringing your own Tupperware container to restaurants for leftovers and always having a mug with you for beverages
Other products such as this takeout shell designed by Styrophobia - it is made of sugarcane waste pulp leftover from extraction and will biodegrade in your compost within 60-120 days:
I went out for lunch in Kerrisdale with my grandpa on Sunday and, because he is the slowest eater ever, he rolled up the remaining half of his burger in the paper place setting and put it in his pocket instead of having them package it up to go in a Styrofoam clamshell, like a normal person would. He said “see, I know how to handle these kinds of things.” Although I did not think about it at the time, in a funny way he really does because he avoided one extra piece of Styrofoam by re-using the paper on the table that would have been recycled or thrown away anyways.
Metro Vancouver says:
"There are no good options in getting rid of garbage. The best option is to just not create it in the first place."
This quote correlates with what Charles Moore says about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch; that there is no way to clean the Garbage Patch up – the only thing we can do is stop putting garbage into our oceans in the future.
I was also reading an article about a man whose family of four had reduced their garbage to a couple of milk cartons full per week. I know that my family of three produces more garbage than that. The problem is that Styrofoam is used for so many things, such as packaging for the meat we buy at the grocery store.
I am choosing to protest the use of Styrofoam because
it is a local problem, meaning that it is something that I, a regular person living in Vancouver, can change. (This is unlike the illegal whaling that goes on in Japan, for example, which would be much more difficult for me to control in my current situation since I do not eat whale meat, etc.). However, although it is all good and well that I can make a small difference by not taking Styrofoam, actually saving our planet is something that we all have to do together. The only way to do this (and what stops us from doing it) is to make sure that everyone knows about the effect of Styrofoam on the environment.
it is an environmental problem. I think that we need to start with our environmental problems because if we have no planet then we will never be able to fix our other problems such as poverty and animal cruelty. They will not exist anymore because our Earth will not exist anymore.
For these reasons, I am taking my efforts one step further to do something that will hopefully raise awareness about the issue: I am going to gather supporters and form an anti-Styrofoam organization in Vancouver (I have been unable to find any pre-existing ones). For one year (or as long as it takes) we will collect all the unnecessary Styrofoam products that we can - Styrofoam cups and containers that are being thrown away, ones that we find on the ground, and ones that we personally use (for our groceries, at events, etc.). We will count the pieces of Styrofoam that we collect, bag them up for storage, and, once we have enough of it (an amount of Styrofoam that can be comparable to 93,000 blue whales), we will choose a public park to dump it in. We will hold a large protest around the Styrofoam pile.
The following is an excerpt from the Vancouver Park By-Laws:
14A. Except for litter which is deposited in compliance with section
14B, no person shall deposit any garbage, refuse or other waste
material in a park.
14B. No person shall deposit litter in a park except in litter containers
provided, maintained or authorized by the Board.
We are doing this to (positive consequences):
Show people the problem and the threats it poses to the environment. People can ignore the Styrofoam in the oceans and in the landfills because we cannot see it. We value public parks a lot in Vancouver, so we will use one to demonstrate what is happening to the rest of our planet. What good are a few pristine public parks when the rest of the world is being turned into a giant landfill?
Encourage the Vancouver government to ban the use of all unnecessary Styrofoam products. This has already happened in some places in California. The only necessary products are Styrofoam packing material for transporting things, such as medicine, that must be kept cold (Styrofoam is an excellent insultor). Businesses who need to use Styrofoam packing should be required to get a free license.
Encourage people to bring their used Styrofoam (e.g. packing peanuts) to a Styrofoam re-using centre that we will establish in Vancouver. The Styrofoam that people do need to use must be brought back to this centre. It will work because, unless being used to transport radioactive compounds, the Styrofoam will remain clean and can be re-used until it is falling apart. Other countries, such as Ireland (where I lived for a few years), are very good at re-using packing Styrofoam, so we must follow their example.
Below is a link to a US petition against packaging food in Styrofoam because of the environmental impact and potential health hazards: http://www.petitiononline.com/5706esp/petition.html I have tried to come up with an action that will have the least amount of negative consequences - I do not want to hurt any people or any businesses that currently use Styrofoam. There is a line between not going far enough and going too far. I hope to cross the line to just on the other side of too far so that people actually think about what I have done but that I do not offend them so much that they simply get defensive and ignore the point I am trying to make. If the government does eventually put a ban on Styrofoam products, restaurants may charge extra for takeaway containers because they will be made of more expensive products like paper or sugarcane. The other alternative (that may be a negative for some people) is that some restaurants may not offer any takeout containers – they will expect you to bring your own. My family says that they will support my action (although I am sure that my mother will soon get tired of all the Styrofoam that will be taking up our garage). Like many people, they think about the environment a lot and try to be eco-friendly in small ways, but have never made drastic changes or tried to change how other people live their eco-unfriendly lives. I am not sure that they believe I am capable of doing it or believe that I actually will. What I will do is prove them wrong. Some of my friends have already started collecting Styrofoam. Others haven't really changed at all and continue to use Styrofoam despite my attempts at explaining how bad it is to them. One person asked me why I was doing it and I said that it is partly for the animals in the ocean whose habitat we continue to destroy. I want to stop killing animals because there is more plastic in the ocean than there is plankton. However, it is also a selfish act. I want to always be ble to enjoy a beautiful sparkling ocean that is free of ugly garbage. I am doing it so that humans can live on the Earth for longer because we have already worked so hard and progressed so far by building cars and learning how to fly . I do not want all of these things to go to waste because we were smart enough to do those things but not smart enough to keep the Earth healthy. If we can be a greener society I know that we will all feel better because no one enjoys making garbage - it just seems unavoidable. We would also become much more responsible because we would have to start caring about where our waste ends up.
Last week we unloaded the Styrofoam in the park. It was extremely successful because there were 1,000 people (I went around to schools in Vancouver and told students about the event I was planning) at the protest around the Styrofoam heap, chanting various slogans and holding up signs. People who passed by were very upset by the huge pile of white garbage in their park. At the end of the day, everyone cleaned up the Styrofoam together although, of course, it all had to go to the landfill because it was all used cups and dirty takeout containers that were now scrunched. This affected people because it showed them that it was used and now it all had to get thrown away. They knew exactly how much Styrofoam was going into the landfill because they had been able to see it and know that this was only the smallest fraction of the Styrofoam that has gone and will go to the landfill, where it will sit forever. Forever is a long time - I think this is the message that we got across to many people because people make such small decision in seconds every day that end up having a permanent impact on the Earth. The event received lots of media attention so everyone who wasn't there has seen it on the various news clips during the week.
Although there has been no mention of laws regarding Styrofoam changing yet, I am hopeful that they will in the near future because we have begun the change. If people refuse to use Styrofoam and continue to protest it, the government will be forced to listen. The government does, after all, represent the people. The reason that I am not writing to you from jail is that the police (as I am sure you have seen on the news) decided not to arrest us for littering and being a disturbance in the park. Everyone was shocked but it was very encouraging because I know that this was something many people were worried about. Many people refused to join the actual protest (although they helped collect Styrofoam) because they were afraid that they would get in trouble.
Initiating the creation of the Styrofoam pile and anti-Styrofoam protest has really changed the person that I am. It improved my leadership skills because I did something that I never thought I could do. It also brought me closer to a lot of people and it was amazing because we all came together and worked towards a common goal. Taking on the challenge of making people more aware of the Styrofoam issue has definitely improved my awareness of other issues around the world and made me want to learn more about them. I am very glad that I did it.
As a result, my life has changed. Now that I know what I know, it is too late to go back. I cannot take any Styrofoam products. Instead, I bring my Tupperware container and stainless steel mug everywhere that I go so that I am always ready and #6 cannot catch me off guard. I like to think that I am setting an example for other people when I do these things because everyone needs to start thinking about their waste a little bit more. In Starbucks, for example, 1/10 people get their drink in a paper or plastic cup, despite the fact that Starbucks constantly sells a variety of mugs and gives discounts to people who bring their own. This shows that we still have a long way to go and it will take a very long time to change our ways. It is why I challenge you to pick up an environmentally friendly habit.
The following video was made by grade 10 students and it shows that it is not too late to change. It is ironic that the song playing says "just forget the world" when this is exactly what we have been doing but what we can no longer do. (Watching is optional):
