Third Dimensional Silo Environmentalism

Plastic is the villain of the mainstream environmental coverage these days. 

To be sure, there are lots of undesirable and unsustainable things about plastic.  But I'm concerned that the attacks are coming out of environmental silos. In the same way I was labelled an "apologist" of used electronics purchases by emerging markets 15 years ago, I've been called an "iconoclast" for even questioning sanctions on plastic packaging, such as the Vermont ban on plastic straws and single use bags. 

Our seeding of the plastic litter offset in Cameroun should demonstrate we are serious about the threat of ocean plastic. But it also shows we are looking for ways to defend the packaging from unfair threats and scapegoatism, without sliding into denial.

https://www.oregon.gov/deq/FilterDocs/MaterialAttributes.pdf

If you never read another one of my blogs, read the Oregon Packaging Paper from 2018. Then visit US Geological Survey USGS.gov every time a recycling story hits the press.

Reporters like Adam Minter, Oliver Wallis-Franklin, and  Laura Sullivan, Emily Kwong, Rebecca Ramirez (of NPR "The Myth of Plastic Recycling") should start with the link above.  It's not all about recycling.

For decades I've described the perfect packaging from a waste silo perspective - organic, reusable, natural and compostable, native American / First Nation adapted... Baby seal pelt bags.

Life Cycle Analysis should keep score of the environmental harm implicated in microplastics, ocean litter, recyclability and recycled content. In all of these, plastic fares poorly. But the camera lenses always focus on the fingerprint, the downstream, the gotcha. It's called fetishism, and it is blind to the role of the total path of consumption. 

Share the Scare from Plastic Collection from Urban Wastewater: Hygiene is Paramount

A caution about our plastic litter "offset" project in Cameroon...

While we remain proud of the success documented by University of Cameroun researchers, as profiled in Recycling Today, I found out yesterday that we owe several words of caution. For decades, African city canals have suffered pollution and diseases associated with raw sewage.

For published peer reviewed articles on the subject, google our lead researcher, Dr. Asi Quiggle Atud et. al.

• Abundance Dynamic of Oocysts in the Groundwater of Mbankomo, a Sub-urban Area Yaounde: Physico-chemical Factors and Health Risk
• Distribution of Cryptosporidium and Cyclospora in the Soil Around the Wells and Springs in Yaounde and Environs: Role of Some Abiotic Factors of the Medium
• Biomonitoring of drinking water (springs) in the sub-urban areas of Centre Region (Cameroon): Microsporidies and quality of water

So glad we partnered with experts rather than diving in, so to speak, with informal sector workers.

While the "bang for the buck" cost of diverting ocean-bound plastic in early rainy season was strongly demonstrated, four of the workers suffered bacterial illness afterwards. 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7126130/

https://www.in.gov/health/eph/onsite-sewage-systems-program/diseases-involving-sewage/

The disease risks involving city sewage in emerging markets are one of the reasons we are working with the University of Cameroun, Yaounde, rather than with the so-called "informal sector" in this second stage.

Had I followed my first impulses and thrown funding at informal sector workers, we might not have any means to study the correlation with bacterial illness suffered by four of our nine Enprosa Action workers who cleaned up the plastic litter in Yaounde, Limbe, and Douala.

As with #GeeksofColor accused of dumping electronics, we have to recognize that these are Africans taking risks to their personal health to provide a better future for their society. It's another case of the perfect being the enemy of the good, but also a call to constantly improve and leave no environmental soldiers behind.

I was frightened by the news of the hospitalization of Dr. Asi. He is in many ways the splitting image of his father, my landlord from 1984-86 in Ngaoundal, Cameroon. His dad tragically died when Dr. Asi was still a boy.  Now I have to #ShareTheScare and document the need for PPE and santization after every exposure to the city water.

The Charge Against Better: Recycling and X are "Necessary but Not Sufficient"

 The Charge Against Better: Recycling and X are "Necessary but Not Sufficient"

- Holier than Thou

- The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good

- Whataboutism

The title of the shared Linkedin Post is "Climate Scientists: Concept of Net Zero is a Dangerous Trap".  The Conversation piece raises serious concerns, which I share, about moral licensing.

Strap your brass balls on. The crotch-kickers are circling.

Let us concede that things that are NECESSARY might not be SUFFICIENT.  Recycling for example is necessary to reduce mining, forestry, and finite fossil fuel extraction. But Recycling won't be able to replace those completely, because:

- 1 World population is increasing

- 2 Human standard of living, on average, are increasing exponentially

-  3 Recycling is rarely 100% efficient (the "downcycling" argument that PET plastic is recycled into carpents, and office paper is recycled into tissue paper).

Having just completed July's hugely successful partnership with University of Yaounde, Cameroon, I can simultaneously feel pride (see Recycling Today and Waste Today coverage, and France24) - and chagrin. 

Is our success diverting plastic from predictable monsoon stormwater runoff, using labor at $0.36 cents an hour, something to feel proud of? The Conversation is a sobering indictment of pride, focused on the Paris Accord in 2015, which "morally licensed" carbon trading, which will not end global warming.  The European Union Emissions Trading System hasn't made much of a dent in 1-2-3 driven consumption.

But the criticism is haughty and disdainful of the humans who do the work picking up the litter and planting trees and providing recycled content alternatives.