Plastics are treated as a product that miraculously appears from nowhere
and it goes to nowhere.
It starts when the oil and the gas leave the wellhead.
And it keeps on being a problem at every stage along the way.
Why is it that we are seeing so much more plastics entering the environment?
This is the story of plastics.
I feel like I don't know how to answer anymore when people say, "why are you
focusing on plastic? Why is plastic a problem." I mean, I feel like I should just
take them here. And not say anything just take them here for an hour and
then see what they think. Whether they think plastic bags are not a problem anymore.
What makes me so depressed is that you can't undo this, can you?
It's not possible.
The stratification of plastic bag layers have reached four or five meters deep
into the soil. There's really no way of extracting it.
I think what's most frustrating is that the industries are out there pushing the idea that
this is all because of bad management. But they're distracting from the truth,
which is that there is no way you can manage this waste. It's not meant to be managed.
It has absolutely no value, it can't be recycled.
It's not the communities and the people in rural areas that are uneducated and unwilling,
it's the industries that are not letting them become educated enough to be aware about this.
These industries that we're talking about, they're multinational corporations.
They're not just fast-moving consumer goods industries, they are also plastic
manufacturers. They're not just plastic manufacturers, they are also fossil fuel
industries that provide the raw material for plastic pellets. But what bothers me
is that people tend to look at these rivers and these polluted beaches and
think, "somebody needs to come here and clean it up." That's just completely wrong,
because not only is it almost impossible and ineffective
but it's really not the solution. The solution is prevention.
So, plastic bag robbery is one of our most popular campaigns. We band together a bunch of
volunteers, we give everybody reusable bags, and then we fan out into
public places, into crowds. Whenever we see somebody who's carrying a plastic bag
we come up to them and then we say, "we're going to take your plastic bag,"
"but we're going to exchange it with this reusable bag." So, the point of that is the
exchange really. There's an interaction that happens between the volunteer and
the person who is carrying the plastic bag, so immediately in their minds
there's a difference between something that single-use and something that's reusable.
Whether they're reusing it or not, that's a different story because
it's hard to compete with free plastic bags.
What's incentivizing them to bring their own bags? Nothing. There has to be a
policy, because that's the only way that you can get massive scale lifestyle
conversions, so it's light and it's fun - is the first step to go
and that's how you get people interested and that's how you get people to think of
what more we can do.