Rise Above Plastics is a new-ish Surfrider campaign, which hopes to bring attention to the problem of marine debris that is generated most typically by you and me and which you probably see floating in the line-up everyday. Other ocean junk tends to break down into its constituent elements in the ocean over time, but plastics are forever. They break down into smaller pieces of, well, plastic, all the way down to the molecular level - fish eat it, you eat the fish… you get the picture, and, ironically, the plastic.Recycling seemed to start as a “good” thing way back when, before drinks were dispensed in plastic bottles, but now often suffices as the knee-jerk, feel-good justification for picking up a few extra pallets of individual-serving water bottles. One of the original tenants of the Rise Above Plastics (RAP) campaign is that, “We all rely and use many forms of plastics each and everyday - but much of that use is a convenience choice, a choice that can be swayed toward the proper environmental path, often requiring no more effort on your part.” It’s not just flexing your purchasing power or exercising the right choice, it’s about a fundamental change in personal paradigm. The solution: Lead an “examined life,” turn off your automatic pilot to take a look at your actions that may affect the environment. Then ask yourself, “Is it worth it, to buy a plastic bottle drink versus one in a glass?” For me, the answer is a resounding no. I actively recycle SUPs that other people generate, but if I have to resort to recycling a SUP item that I’ve “created” because I chose to use it, then that’s a failure on my part. Recycling as a failure - think about that. Recycling as a last resort - act on that.
Even if 99% of all single-use plastics (SUPs) make it to the recycler (the hard part) and are actually recycled (the unknown part), we still have a monumental environmental waste problem (the tangible part). The dang stuff is produced in unbelievable volumes and just doesn’t go away. It takes energy and resources to create, ship and dispose of that bottle — a bottle that really only has a useful lifetime of 15 minutes — then it takes more energy and resources to render that same bottle into something else. Waste, followed by waste, and compounded by more waste. Lots of efforts put together just to produce and handle waste — efforts that, when realized as a waste, can and should be avoided.
Perhaps too abstract or radical a shift for the average Joe, but, like it or lump it, it’s where we all eventually need to be, and is the conceptual pillar of Rise Above Plastics — rise above the concept that single-use plastics are worth the price of the unseen repercussions of their use. Believe it or not, it’s a pretty easy change to make.
Now, with the economy hitting the skids, reports are showing that markets for recycled materials have died as well. Recyclable materials are sitting in piles, unused and unwanted — an ugly reality. Climb aboard the RAP train. Visit www.riseaboveplastics.org and help staunch the flow of garbage to the sea.
Scott Harrison is the Chairman of the San Diego County Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation.
