Speaker 1: Fellow conspiracy realist, how much of you is plastic?
Speaker 2: I think a credit card size amount per day day
Speaker 2: and your brain crosses the brain blood barrier.
Speaker 1: Your body overall. Yes, especially if you are a person
Speaker 1: carrying a child inside of you, now that they probably
Speaker 1: are going to get a dose of plastics too.
Speaker 2: Basically lego at this point, guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Look, if you're not driving currently or operating heavy machinery,
Speaker 1: take a pause and look around your environment and ask
Speaker 1: yourself how many objects in your immediate vicinity contain plastic? Spoiler,
Speaker 1: it's a lot.
Speaker 2: It's so damn convenient, even if you are driving. About
Speaker 2: how much of a.
Speaker 3: Car is plastic nowadays versus I don't know what fifty
Speaker 3: years ago.
Speaker 2: Coding on the gear shifts, the dash panel, all the rubber.
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess that's different than plastic, But it's plastic.
Speaker 1: You can go to some of the most inaccessible parts
Speaker 1: of the Earth and you might reach a place where
Speaker 1: humans have never been in recorded history. But you know
Speaker 1: it, it probably beat you to the punch.
Speaker 2: Plastic. Yeah, it really insists upon itself, as you would say, Ben,
Speaker 2: and it likes to spread its plastic seed.
Speaker 1: And now historically manufacturers ever since the dawn of plastic
Speaker 1: can bake light and so on. They have claimed plastic
Speaker 1: pollution can be solved by recycling. But as we learned
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty, there's more than a little bit of
Speaker 1: stuff they don't want you to know on that one.
Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome back to the show.
Speaker 1: My name is Noah, our rider, die compatriot and colleague.
Speaker 1: Our better third Matt Frederick is on adventures somewhat off
Speaker 1: the grid, but we'll be returning soon, so say hello
Speaker 1: if you see him in the wild. They call me Ben.
Speaker 1: We are joined today with our super producer Alexis code
Speaker 1: name Doc Holliday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you, You
Speaker 1: are here, and that makes this stuff they don't want
Speaker 1: you to know. Before we begin today's episode, take a second,
Speaker 1: if you're in a safe place and not driving, and
Speaker 1: look around just your immediate area. Don't think outside of
Speaker 1: your room. Don't just the stuff you can see or
Speaker 1: the stuff you can touch. Try counting how many things
Speaker 1: you can identify as being made of plastic. Just take
Speaker 1: a second and think about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, just on my desk right here, I've got
Speaker 2: this tiny little plastic ummy bear that my kid uses
Speaker 2: to make necklaces. So there's one a McDonald's cup. I've
Speaker 2: got a bunch of little trinkets, you know. I got
Speaker 2: a little plastic squirrel with a beanie. Like this guy
Speaker 2: is the camera focusing on this cute little I'm really
Speaker 2: bad at centering on this because it's off to the side.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: Got a bunch of like a bottle of hand sanitizer cords,
Speaker 2: you know, Like I've got an ethernet cord that's wrapped
Speaker 2: in rubber with plastic ends on it at the very least. Yeah, man,
Speaker 2: a lot so this camera that we're recording into these
Speaker 2: little cameras.
Speaker 1: I live with a life sized plastic skeleton because that's
Speaker 1: where I'm at, and.
Speaker 2: Life don't spoil. I wanted to believe that Agent Scully
Speaker 2: was in fact a real skeleton.
Speaker 1: I think it is a huge injustice for us to
Speaker 1: say that the nature of her physical material decides whether
Speaker 1: or not she's real. But I'm very you know, just
Speaker 1: like a pro pro b what you want kind of person.
Speaker 1: But you're right, you know, and a lot of our
Speaker 1: fellow listeners just did the same thing. You see the
Speaker 1: objects on nearby counters, shelves, tables, right, and also think
Speaker 1: about the furniture, Think about the device you're using to
Speaker 1: play this episode. Think about the clothing you're wearing. Right,
Speaker 1: what percentage of that is a synthetic polymer? The short
Speaker 1: answer is they're probably For many of us in the
Speaker 1: audience today, there are more plastic things around you than
Speaker 1: you can easily count. Plastic is ubiquitous, Plastic is everywhere.
Speaker 1: So today's question, how did it get here? When did
Speaker 1: we know about it? And what does this mean for
Speaker 1: the future. To answer this, we do have to start
Speaker 1: at what maybe kind of a boring place, but it's
Speaker 1: important for the rest of the episode. So here are
Speaker 1: the facts. Plastic.
Speaker 2: A brief history of plastic. Yeah, technically, plastic is a
Speaker 2: it's like a catch all term sort of. It's a
Speaker 2: word or for a group of things, for any material
Speaker 2: that can be shaped, molded, or manipulated into any form.
Speaker 2: Some of these things occur naturally. These substances occur naturally,
Speaker 2: but most are man made. And today the word plastic
Speaker 2: is really used to refer to a category of materials
Speaker 2: that we collectively call polymers.
Speaker 1: And plastics. First, shout out to everybody who's already remembering
Speaker 1: that scene in the Graduate. It's great scene. Plastics were
Speaker 1: often for times seen in the future. The science is fascinating.
Speaker 1: A lot of children don't know this growing up in school,
Speaker 1: But plastics are made from oil, right, the same kind
Speaker 1: of oil that is, roughly speaking, the same kind of
Speaker 1: oil that's used to make gas. Oil is car been rich.
Speaker 1: That's what makes it such a popular fat these days.
Speaker 1: And plastics are these large carbon containing compounds, if you know,
Speaker 1: like you pointed out in all we're referring to them
Speaker 1: in the modern sense. These polymers, these large molecules. They're
Speaker 1: composed of these repeating units of shorter and shorter carbon
Speaker 1: containing compounds called monomers. Chemists combine these different types of
Speaker 1: monomers to make a vast a monopoly of plastics that
Speaker 1: all have different chemical chemical properties, like how in the
Speaker 1: Justice League or in the X Men or Avengers people
Speaker 1: have different superpowers. Most of this stuff is inert and
Speaker 1: the big, the big win for humanity is that it
Speaker 1: often won't react chemically to other substances you can put
Speaker 1: soap and plastic, right.
Speaker 2: But it makes me think of that scene in Breaking
Speaker 2: Bad where you know, they want to dissolve some bodies
Speaker 2: right in acid, and the material that Walter White asks
Speaker 2: Jesse to go get is are these plastic bins, which
Speaker 2: seems like, you know, acid would melt right through polymer
Speaker 2: bins instead. Jesse thinks this is absurd, so he does
Speaker 2: it in the bathtub and the acid dissolves right through
Speaker 2: the floor, showering you know, goo and dissolved body parts
Speaker 2: all over the living room. But right, isn't that right?
Speaker 2: Ben Like, there's something about the chemical makeup, the inertness
Speaker 2: of plastic that even something as caustic as acid won't react.
Speaker 1: With it, right, Yeah, And it depends on it depends
Speaker 1: on the plastic, right exactly.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: And I think that's a big plot point in Breaking Bad,
Speaker 1: which I just rewatched a lot of it, but in
Speaker 1: a very lazy way. I just rewatched my favorite scenes,
Speaker 1: So I think it holds up. So how do we
Speaker 1: get here? How do we get how did our lives
Speaker 1: become inundated with this stuff? The story of plastic dates
Speaker 1: back to the eighteen hundreds. In eighteen thsfty six, a
Speaker 1: guy named Alexander Parks created something called park Scene. This
Speaker 1: is generally considered the first thermoplastic. A guy named John
Speaker 1: Wesley Hyatt in eighteen sixty nine saw an offer by
Speaker 1: a business in New York to give away ten thousand
Speaker 1: dollars to anyone who could make a substitute for ivory,
Speaker 1: you know, ivory elephant tusk, and this inspired John Wesley
Speaker 1: Hyatt to invent what we call celluloid today. The whole
Speaker 1: reason there was an ivory shortage, by the way, was
Speaker 1: because billiards was growing massively popular. It was the pog
Speaker 1: or the Pokemon of its time, right, So this guy
Speaker 1: invents this guy invents celluloid, and people were like, whoa,
Speaker 1: this is amazing. But it didn't stop there. That's not
Speaker 1: even the real revolution yet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and celluloid, which is a ton twister and of itself,
Speaker 2: is also still what people think of when they think
Speaker 2: about film from cinema. It's printed on celluloid. It's sort
Speaker 2: of I think that's probably not exactly accurate anymore, but
Speaker 2: it's certainly what the original material was that was used
Speaker 2: to project film. Then, in nineteen o seven, a guy
Speaker 2: by the name of Leo Bakeland invented what he very
Speaker 2: self aggrandizingly referred to as Bakelite, which was the first
Speaker 2: fully synthetic plastic, So that meant that it had no
Speaker 2: molecules that were found in nature. It was pure laboratory magic.
Speaker 1: You're right, Noel Bakeland definitely definitely had his eye on
Speaker 1: some marketing there. These two major publicly known successes got
Speaker 1: the attention of the big players in the chemical industry,
Speaker 1: so they just started throwing money into the potential of plastic,
Speaker 1: the R and D the development. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: there was a time when they just started seeing They
Speaker 1: decided that they would just discover and invent new types
Speaker 1: of plast and then later they would figure out what
Speaker 1: that stuff was good for. They just wanted to be
Speaker 1: kind of the first past the post in the invention game.
Speaker 1: And then World War let's fast forward. World War two
Speaker 1: sparks this massive, unprecedented expansion of the plastic industry. Think
Speaker 1: about it. Natural resources are at a premium. We want
Speaker 1: a safe, viable, affordable alternative, and that's why production of
Speaker 1: plastic increased by three hundred percent in the US. And
Speaker 1: this pattern continued in one way or another at the
Speaker 1: end of the war. For a time, people thought plastic
Speaker 1: would save the world. Plastic was a miracle substance that
Speaker 1: may one day prove as historically important as the so
Speaker 1: called Philosopher's Stone of alchemy. Except plastic was real, or
Speaker 1: at the very least sliced bread. You know, but sliced bread.
Speaker 1: It's got this cool.
Speaker 2: Thing about it where you know, you eat it and
Speaker 2: then it's gone and you don't have to worry about
Speaker 2: it hanging around for generations. But it turns out as
Speaker 2: far back as the sixties, folks in the US already
Speaker 2: were realizing that plastics, while they were durable and lightweight
Speaker 2: and able to be molded into any number of amazing shapes,
Speaker 2: stuck around for a long long time, and they're already
Speaker 2: kind of started to be this I don't know if
Speaker 2: distrust is the right word, but a certain awareness and
Speaker 2: trepidation around, like, should we really throw our whole lot
Speaker 2: in with this material when we're already seeing that studies
Speaker 2: are showing that it causes problems with the environment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the apprehension was growing. In nineteen sixty one, study
Speaker 1: found that five percent of birds had plastic on some
Speaker 1: sort in their stomachs. And then people also very pressing
Speaker 1: in people started raising concerns about the possible long term
Speaker 1: effects of plastic on human health. But here's the problem.
Speaker 1: We're already that's the point of Prometheus and Pandora. The
Speaker 1: lid of the jar been unscrewed. We knew the fire
Speaker 1: of this new technology. We as a society had already
Speaker 1: doubled down upon plastic. And today plastic is virtually irreplaceable.
Speaker 1: I mean, there are obviously biodegradable alternatives in certain fields, right,
Speaker 1: Like you can get biodegradable straws, cups, bags, and so on.
Speaker 1: And there are a lot of environmental cleanup programs, they're
Speaker 1: recycling initiatives, but for better or worse, plastic is here
Speaker 1: to stay.
Speaker 2: And I will say, Ben, you're right, there are alternatives, right,
Speaker 2: But those biodegradable straws they suck, They deteriorate, they fall apart.
Speaker 2: They just don't work as well as a plastic straw.
Speaker 2: And this is coming from someone who tries to avoid
Speaker 2: getting a plastic straw whenever humanly possible metal straws. Okay,
Speaker 2: that's cool, but they make everything you drink taste kind
Speaker 2: of metallic and that's not cool. It's really just that
Speaker 2: the the Pandora's box you are describing ben is less
Speaker 2: the greed of monopolistic corporations and more just the malaise
Speaker 2: of consumers and just realizing that, Okay, sure there are problems,
Speaker 2: but gosh, it's sure as convenient, isn't it. It's like,
Speaker 2: we know all these problems with Amazon today, but you
Speaker 2: don't see very many people giving up their Amazon despite
Speaker 2: knowing all the labor problems and the monopoly problems and
Speaker 2: all that stuff. It's a very similar example, and it
Speaker 2: really does all translate to the almighty dollar at the
Speaker 2: end of the day.
Speaker 1: Agreed. And there's one Leviathan when big piece of this
Speaker 1: story that does not get as much press as it deserves.
Speaker 1: It's this, how much did the big manufacturers know about
Speaker 1: the dangers of plastic and when did they know it?
Speaker 1: Perhaps most importantly, what did they do about it? We'll
Speaker 1: tell you afterword from our sponsor. Here's where it gets crazy. Well,
Speaker 1: they knew about it. They knew they knew way more
Speaker 1: about it than the average person. And they went on
Speaker 1: their merry way to the factories and to the banks.
Speaker 2: And the average person knew enough about it already for
Speaker 2: it to be a red flag. I mean, there were
Speaker 2: these studies about the bird stomachs and all of that
Speaker 2: stuff that was out there. But yeah, you're right, Ben,
Speaker 2: they just waltzed their happy asses to the bank and
Speaker 2: cash those checks like forever. I mean, because this really
Speaker 2: is the kind of thing where you're placing a long
Speaker 2: term bet on plastics if you're one of these companies.
Speaker 2: So concerns about plastic became even more mainstream in the seventies,
Speaker 2: you know, ecology and recycle, reduce, reuse and all of
Speaker 2: that stuff. The oil, chemical and plastic industries grew a
Speaker 2: little bit anxious because they're like, how do we spin this?
Speaker 2: You know, we don't want to be the big bad guys.
Speaker 2: We got to figure out a way to sell plastic
Speaker 2: back to the consumers in a way that they can
Speaker 2: feel good about. Right.
Speaker 1: So they hatched what can accurately be called a conspiracy.
Speaker 1: It's an insidious one. In fact, it is a conspiracy
Speaker 1: that you may have participated in with the best of intentions.
Speaker 1: It's one that many of us have played a role
Speaker 1: in this conspiracy in a large way. I hate to
Speaker 1: ruin this for everybody is the concept of recycling plastic
Speaker 1: That is the conspiracy in today's episode. At the first
Speaker 1: National Conference of Packaging Waste in nineteen sixty nine, the
Speaker 1: chief environmental manager of Dow Chemical presented a paper on
Speaker 1: the explosive growth of what are called single use plastics.
Speaker 1: We've all seen those. You know, you go to a
Speaker 1: fast food place, you get your bag and your you
Speaker 1: get your whopper in these trying times to that's an
Speaker 1: Easter egg for just the three of us talking off air,
Speaker 1: and then you get.
Speaker 2: Your you're here with you with your flame world whopper
Speaker 2: to give you comfort during these are trying.
Speaker 1: Times, standing DeVito with an egg, but now it's a whopper.
Speaker 1: So you see these in cafeteria's, universities, restaurants, et cetera.
Speaker 1: And this environmental manager takes an interesting approach because he says,
Speaker 1: you know, he extols the virtues of these things. They're
Speaker 1: durable materials, they might conceivably last forever, but he also
Speaker 1: points out the disposal problem, that's what he calls it.
Speaker 1: He says, there's a coming deluge of plastic waste and
Speaker 1: the industry is turning a blind eye to it, and
Speaker 1: that they're going to continue turning a blind eye to
Speaker 1: it for as long as possible. We a lot of
Speaker 1: people didn't know the extent of this conspiracy until reporters
Speaker 1: working with National Public Radio and a couple of other
Speaker 1: outfits found documents that proved from the very beginning, the
Speaker 1: same corporations telling customers that recycling was on them. Those
Speaker 1: same corporations knew that large scale plastic recycling was a
Speaker 1: pipe dream. It was a plastic pipe dream. It was
Speaker 1: unrealistic to think it would actually work in an economically
Speaker 1: feasible way at that scale.
Speaker 2: Ben, I'm pretty sure we've talked about this on the
Speaker 2: show before, But remember that iconic ecological ad campaign with
Speaker 2: the Native American gentleman and the single tier, you know,
Speaker 2: because there's like piles of garbage behind him and was
Speaker 2: presumably his native land or whatever. You know, I remember
Speaker 2: freaking the guy's name. It turns out that dude wasn't
Speaker 2: even a Native American at all. I think used like Italian,
Speaker 2: and that ad campaign was developed by a lot of
Speaker 2: these waste producing corporations.
Speaker 1: That's right, Yes, Yeah, that's an actor from spaghetti westerns
Speaker 1: and we're talking about the Keep America Beautiful. Campaign. Also
Speaker 1: known as kab Yeah, this is a great example of
Speaker 1: how Big Plastic. That's just what we'll use as mental
Speaker 1: shorthand for all these trade groups. Big Plastic decided that
Speaker 1: instead of putting money into a solution for the problem
Speaker 1: of plastic waste, which they correctly predicted would grow out
Speaker 1: of control, instead of trying to solve that, they spent
Speaker 1: money funding pr campaigns to blame you, the customer, for
Speaker 1: the pollution. The world is going to hell in a handbasket,
Speaker 1: not because of these massive corporations throwing this stuff everywhere,
Speaker 1: but because you use a plastic straw monster.
Speaker 2: You know, I would call it brilliant if it wasn't
Speaker 2: so evil, you know what. You know what, let's say
Speaker 2: it's both. It can be both. It's brilliant and evil,
Speaker 2: because that's right. Then they're punting the responsibility from them
Speaker 2: because they're just giving you what you want. They're just
Speaker 2: you know, continuing that legacy of convenience. It's your fault
Speaker 2: for for throwing it in the in the in the ocean.
Speaker 2: You're the one throwing it and making that Indian cry.
Speaker 1: You did that, even if you've never been to the ocean. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I let's see if we importmante to that. How about Evilian?
Speaker 1: Love it believal?
Speaker 2: It's also done done with Gusto. No I like Avilian
Speaker 2: because it makes me think of it bulliant. So it's
Speaker 2: sort of like it's evil and brilliant, and it's done
Speaker 2: with ebuliance because how how else do you sell it
Speaker 2: if it's not like, got some rasmatas to it, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Aviliant? Yes, all right, booked, We'll we'll get Matt, we'll
Speaker 1: get Mad on board with that too. Actually, let's just
Speaker 1: we'll tell him, let's mess with his mind and tell
Speaker 1: him that we always use that word right exactly.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: Uh so this large scale mind and media manipulation is
Speaker 1: quite successful today. A lot of people still don't know
Speaker 1: that Keep America Beautiful to your point, Noal was founded
Speaker 1: by that industry and through twisting the narrative right of littering,
Speaker 1: which you shouldn't litter that's that's not even a hot take,
Speaker 1: put stuff in trash cans. Through that, through that Pavilian's move, Uh,
Speaker 1: they were able to get public support. Even though Keep
Speaker 1: America Beautiful was founded to prevent state bands on single
Speaker 1: use plastic packaging like it was it was founded to
Speaker 1: keep the one time use fork spice flowing the lack
Speaker 1: of a better word. Yeah, and we know this because
Speaker 1: there are documents from these companies.
Speaker 2: That's right. You know, it's sort of like it reminds
Speaker 2: me of the story we did on the material that's
Speaker 2: in nonstick pans with the lawyer who kind of spearheaded
Speaker 2: the whole investigation into uncovering very similar kind of secret
Speaker 2: documents about what they knew, when they knew it and
Speaker 2: how they essentially colluded or you know, yeah, that's that's
Speaker 2: probably accurate to cover it up and to keep it
Speaker 2: from the public. And this is no different. So what
Speaker 2: they did was they did, like you said, Ben, manipulated
Speaker 2: this narrative to they did have a solution at least
Speaker 2: to the whole like making everyone sad, about making the
Speaker 2: Indian cry and about feeling this guilt of all this
Speaker 2: stuff they've been pumping out into the world. No, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: there's another way, folks. It's called recycling, and it's something
Speaker 2: that you too can be a part of and making
Speaker 2: America beautiful, keeping America beautiful. You can be a part
Speaker 2: of it. How cool is that? Man? That's like, you know,
Speaker 2: they're literally selling you a gold star, the ability to
Speaker 2: feel like you're doing your part. Not only can you
Speaker 2: have your cake and eat it with a plastic fork too,
Speaker 2: you can then turn that plastic fork into another plastic
Speaker 2: fork or whatever else its upperware. The sky's the limit
Speaker 2: recycling plastic.
Speaker 1: And it feels good to do it too. Right where
Speaker 1: you are, somehow, you are, somehow more aware, you're a
Speaker 1: better steward of the planet. That's the idea that they're selling.
Speaker 1: And if recycling worked the way that they described it,
Speaker 1: then this would to a large degree be true. But
Speaker 1: the problem is multiple internal company documents have indicated that
Speaker 1: this was a move of self preservation on the part
Speaker 1: of the plastics industry. They needed to make people leave
Speaker 1: plastic was sustainable. When I throw that fork in the
Speaker 1: right bin, then I am really just giving someone else
Speaker 1: in the future another fork, or another jug of milk
Speaker 1: or something like that. The lobbyists in the plastic and
Speaker 1: oil industry fought very hard and quite successfully to mandate
Speaker 1: that triangle recycle symbol, you know the one.
Speaker 2: It's like the ecological uroburros, but like in a good
Speaker 2: way where it kind of like feeds back into itself.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean, so it's what could this
Speaker 2: It says all you need to know. It's like, hey,
Speaker 2: you can be part of this amazing continuum of manufacturing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was thinking ecological illuminati. I think both answers
Speaker 1: are acceptable. I would even say, you know, all of
Speaker 1: the above there. It did make an impact because it
Speaker 1: gave us this belief that all of those items bearing
Speaker 1: that mark could potentially be turned into new products. The
Speaker 1: thing is, the vast majority of them were not turned
Speaker 1: into new products. The vast majority of them are still
Speaker 1: not turned into anything new. They can be we have
Speaker 1: the technology. There's just not a market for these things.
Speaker 1: It's not a market for this recycled plastic, and in
Speaker 1: many cases there's not a compelling financial reason to make them.
Speaker 1: And that's because recycling has problems when we talk about plastics.
Speaker 1: They are huge problems with recycling.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, remember we were talking at the top
Speaker 2: of the show about how like this one particular type
Speaker 2: of plastic might you know, be able to hold acid,
Speaker 2: and there's other types of plastic that can hold rubbing, alcohol, etc.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, typically polymers are versatile and non
Speaker 2: reactive in that way. But to your point, Bend, there
Speaker 2: are different ones. There's a bunch of different ones, and
Speaker 2: so you know, they don't all necessarily play nice together
Speaker 2: because you would actually have to combine them and they
Speaker 2: would have to gel chemically and in order to be
Speaker 2: repurposed into something else. And so all of the plastic
Speaker 2: that this that would be needed to do this properly
Speaker 2: or effectively would have to be sorted by hand to
Speaker 2: separate out this is this type of plastic, This is
Speaker 2: this type of plastic. This is this type of plastic.
Speaker 2: They can't commingle, So consumers don't know what that is, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, that's not and there's not enough bins in
Speaker 2: a recycling you know, container to even deal with that
Speaker 2: on the front end, right, So that means it's way
Speaker 2: expensive to sort all of the plastics to make new
Speaker 2: plastic from old plastic. Then it would be just to
Speaker 2: make it from oil.
Speaker 1: Yep, just make new stuff. It's true that this is
Speaker 1: the episode of where we're somewhat ruined recycling, So.
Speaker 2: That's the subtitle. That's the sub But I mean this
Speaker 2: isn't to say that no plastic is recycled, right, Ben.
Speaker 2: I mean we if you read about usually kind of
Speaker 2: bespoke products often that are more expensive to buy to
Speaker 2: the consumer, that are in fact made of all recycled materials,
Speaker 2: are all recycled plastic. But you're paying a premium for
Speaker 2: that privilege of knowing that you're buying something that was
Speaker 2: made with recycled plastic. That's because it takes more work
Speaker 2: to make it that way.
Speaker 1: It has to be sorted by hand, you know, Like
Speaker 1: you said, you have to find the plastics that play
Speaker 1: well together. And then just for an example, yeah, there
Speaker 1: is there is actual recycling a plastic. Sometimes it's sold
Speaker 1: it at a premium, as you mentioned, but the stuff
Speaker 1: that's recycled is often not used in the ways you
Speaker 1: think it would be used. Like take a plastic milk chug.
Speaker 1: Don't with your plastic milk chug. You wash it out
Speaker 1: because you don't want it to smell up your house
Speaker 1: or your trash bag. And then while you're doing that,
Speaker 1: you say, oh, wait, I recycle, so I'm going to
Speaker 1: put this in the blue the blue receptacle, and then
Speaker 1: you think, okay, off on your journey. Well, plastic jug, bro,
Speaker 1: I wish you luck in this your secular version of reincarnation.
Speaker 1: That plastic jug can only get recycled a few times
Speaker 1: because it degrades in quality every time it's recycled. So
Speaker 1: this means it can only happen it can only be
Speaker 1: recycled a finite number of times. So what happened to
Speaker 1: the used plastic? Well, in the US, we did something
Speaker 1: that's very popular in a lot of disposal strategies of
Speaker 1: this country. We shipped it somewhere where we couldn't see.
Speaker 2: It, you know what I mean, out of sight, out
Speaker 2: of my like a child. It's not I can't see it.
Speaker 2: It's not there anymore. We Yeah, Unfortunately, that is an
Speaker 2: all too common thing that we as Americans fall a
Speaker 2: victim to. And to your point, Ben, like even like
Speaker 2: the idea, this is interesting to me, and this is
Speaker 2: maybe more of a question than I have if it
Speaker 2: can only be recycled to a number of times, Like
Speaker 2: how do you know when you're done, when you've no
Speaker 2: longer got a viable product? Isn't that something you have
Speaker 2: to track as well?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I mean that's a really good point because then
Speaker 1: we have this whole logistic aspect to it, right logistical
Speaker 1: aspect to it, where we can't just do our best
Speaker 1: to recycled stuff. We also have to make sure that
Speaker 1: we're recycling something into something viable. The complications alone could
Speaker 1: cripple the entire project, So shif it off to China. Right.
Speaker 1: For a long time, labor was cheaper there. Also, environmental
Speaker 1: laws were lacks right, or at least on paper. The
Speaker 1: US laws were more strict the country of China and
Speaker 1: businesses in China. Eventually, we're no longer able to find
Speaker 1: uses for all of this discarded plastic, so now they've
Speaker 1: largely stopped accepting it. There's just not much of a
Speaker 1: market for this recycled stuff. And that means that a
Speaker 1: lot of the plastic in this country, in the US
Speaker 1: ends up getting discover and it piles up, piles up,
Speaker 1: And I don't know about you, this gives you an
Speaker 1: existential crisis. There's there's a question I have to ask
Speaker 1: at the very.
Speaker 2: End of this. Yeah, and you know, and maybe you
Speaker 2: can answer this, Ben, I know, you know, And I
Speaker 2: live in Decatur, Georgia, and the city of Decatur has
Speaker 2: been plagued with corruption in terms of like you know,
Speaker 2: overcharging people for utilities, and there was like a big
Speaker 2: lawsuit all this stuff. But I've also heard rumor that
Speaker 2: my little blue recycling bin hopper that I you know,
Speaker 2: roll out kick onto the curb every Monday, that that
Speaker 2: just ends up in the landfill more often than not.
Speaker 2: That a lot of municipalities don't do a good job
Speaker 2: of recycling, even when you think that's what you're doing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's true, and that's that's something that is unfortunately
Speaker 1: not historically uncommon, you know what I mean. Like, consider
Speaker 1: a lot of office buildings where you know, people think
Speaker 1: they are throwing that aluminum can, that plastic bottle into
Speaker 1: the recycling bin, and then night, maybe you're working late,
Speaker 1: then you see that the people who do custodial services
Speaker 1: in that office just throw it all in the same place.
Speaker 1: And then maybe you tell yourself there's a magical Sussian
Speaker 1: sorting machine that handles everything like a.
Speaker 2: Harry Potter had of some sort.
Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, but it goes to trash hat.
Speaker 2: But it goes to the whole point that we started
Speaker 2: with here, is that it's all about optics. It's all
Speaker 2: about selling you the dream. It's not actually about the practice.
Speaker 2: It's more about like the image. Right. So what happened
Speaker 2: as as this continued, you know, especially after China's sort
Speaker 2: of rejecting this material, I believe that that study reference
Speaker 2: earlier about birds having plastics in their stomachs. I think
Speaker 2: the number then was about five percent. But by the eighties,
Speaker 2: and you know, in true eighties excess fashion, that number
Speaker 2: increased to eighty percent.
Speaker 1: Eighty percent of birds in a similar study twenty years
Speaker 1: later had plastic in their stomach And now as we
Speaker 1: record this, multiple studies indicate that almost ninety seven percent
Speaker 1: of all birds have some sort of plastics somewhere in
Speaker 1: their system. Today, as we record this, about a million
Speaker 1: birds going to die this year due specifically to their
Speaker 1: stomachs being stuffed with plastic.
Speaker 2: Man, a good way to go. And you know, my
Speaker 2: qualms with the bird population been but even I don't
Speaker 2: think they deserve to go out like that. Agreed.
Speaker 1: And so you know, the one thing you want for
Speaker 1: an enemy you respect, I would imagine from your perspective,
Speaker 1: nole is to is that they have an honorable death right.
Speaker 2: I mean, at least, let let it be spectacular. Let
Speaker 2: their stomachs explode from eating wedding rice or something. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm kidding, And bird people out there, please don't don't
Speaker 2: cancel me. I'm very much kidding, But no, it turns
Speaker 2: out that the concept of recycling as it's been sold
Speaker 2: to the United States public and other places around the
Speaker 2: world is at the very very least misleading. Is an
Speaker 2: optics first kind of thing, as opposed to, like, what's
Speaker 2: the actual end result of this whole operation?
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, exactly. I like the way one industry insider
Speaker 1: put it. They said, selling recycling sells plastic. And then
Speaker 1: there's an interesting statement by a guy named Larry Thomas,
Speaker 1: who's a former president of the Society of the Plastics
Speaker 1: Industry which today is known as PIA Plastics Industry Association.
Speaker 1: He was at the helm at, one of the most
Speaker 1: powerful trade groups for the industry in DC, and he
Speaker 1: said that if the public thinks that recycling is working,
Speaker 1: then they are not going to be as concerned about
Speaker 1: the environment. And to be fair, the industry's current position
Speaker 1: is that there is no conspiracy afoot I wanted to
Speaker 1: give voice to the other side, to their perspective. Guy
Speaker 1: named Steve Russell, a representative for the plastics industry who
Speaker 1: was for a while the vice president of Plastics for
Speaker 1: the American Chemistry Council, says the industry has never intentionally
Speaker 1: misled the public about recycling and that they're committed to
Speaker 1: ensuring one day that all plastic is recycled. And he says,
Speaker 1: you know, public commitment to recycling programs, public pressure, and
Speaker 1: evolving technology will all play huge roles in helping recycle
Speaker 1: all plastic. Essentially, he's saying, no one ever intentionally misled anyone,
Speaker 1: and maybe one day recycling can do what the industry
Speaker 1: for decades claimed it was already doing. Just think about
Speaker 1: the double think in that statement. It's Orwellian.
Speaker 2: Yeah, kind of mind blowing. I don't even know how
Speaker 2: to respond to that, Ben.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're not saying, we have to be clear,
Speaker 1: we are not saying recycling is anything other than an amazing, awesome,
Speaker 1: potentially world changing, world saving concept.
Speaker 2: Do you remember, though, Ben, like being a kid and
Speaker 2: going to like the recycling center and getting a tour
Speaker 2: and all that stuff. I mean, it was something that's
Speaker 2: sold to you as early as as ah, you know,
Speaker 2: elementary school, recycled, reduce, reuse, all of that stuff and again,
Speaker 2: and we're gonna we're gonna continue on. But I do
Speaker 2: want to say, like recycling paper it's great, recycling paper works.
Speaker 2: You can smush all that stuff together and make all
Speaker 2: kinds of cool stuff, uh, you know, and pulp and
Speaker 2: you know make You can even buy recycled paper for
Speaker 2: your copy paper if you want. There's all kinds of
Speaker 2: uses for recycled paper. But the plastic part just a
Speaker 2: much more tricky. Let's call it supply chain problem, right.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And again, like I I'm conflicted about this because I
Speaker 1: love the idea of recycling, and I love the idea
Speaker 1: of individual people being able to make a fundamental difference
Speaker 1: in the world around them, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I love the power of the individual. But what we
Speaker 1: are saying here is that the idea of recycling in
Speaker 1: the world of plastic the way it's been practiced is
Speaker 1: not near as widespread as the plastic industry would want
Speaker 1: you to believe. And this will probably continue to be
Speaker 1: the case until there's some revolutionary technology that Harry Potter
Speaker 1: trash hat which is a great phrase, until it comes online,
Speaker 1: or until it becomes somehow more profitable to recycle and
Speaker 1: reuse plastic rather than to make new plastic. Neither of
Speaker 1: those things have happened yet, neither of them. And to
Speaker 1: compound the issue here, we are still learning the full
Speaker 1: scope of this problem. We may not know the long
Speaker 1: term consequences of this issue for years and years and
Speaker 1: years to come, And that doesn't mean it doesn't affect us.
Speaker 1: It means that we don't know what's going to happen,
Speaker 1: has never happened on Earth before, We have no idea
Speaker 1: what plot twister ahead.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean each year human beings produced three hundred
Speaker 2: and sixty million tons of plastic, and according to one study,
Speaker 2: around eight million tons of it enters the ocean, and
Speaker 2: until recently, the fate of what's called microplastics, which is
Speaker 2: plastics that contain particles less than five millimeters in size
Speaker 2: in the ocean has been unclear, But to your point,
Speaker 2: been a recent study. We're at least starting to get
Speaker 2: a whiff of what these microplastic particles are doing when
Speaker 2: they settle in marine sediments, following the pattern of a
Speaker 2: lot of other pollutants. So we're not just talking about
Speaker 2: like hard goods that stick around. We're talking about the
Speaker 2: chemical impact of plastics and how it can actually saturate
Speaker 2: and contaminate soil and water and beyond.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're right, nol microplastics and nanoplastics, which are they
Speaker 1: have a diameter of less than point zero zero one millimeters.
Speaker 1: Both of these form from the abrasion of larger pieces
Speaker 1: of plastic dumped into the ocean, so the stuff keeps
Speaker 1: kind of breaking itself into smaller and smaller chunks, and
Speaker 1: research in wildlife and in laboratory animals has established some
Speaker 1: pretty compelling links between tiny plastic and infertility, inflammation, even cancer.
Speaker 1: Microplastics have polluted the entire planet, from the Arctic to
Speaker 1: your neighborhood park to the depths of the ocean. Like
Speaker 1: you probably saw not too long ago, scientists being startled
Speaker 1: to get to a very remote part of the world
Speaker 1: under the ice in Antarctica and then see that there
Speaker 1: was plastic there. This is happening.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you ever heard you ever thought of the concept
Speaker 2: of airborne plastic ben Again, this the old school model
Speaker 2: of plastic pollution is much more just a nuisance, right
Speaker 2: or like, okay, it gets in birds, The physical chunks
Speaker 2: of things get in birds and like choke them or
Speaker 2: caused them to have a horrible digestive problems that can
Speaker 2: ultimately kill them. But yeah, airborne plastic Apparently, human beings,
Speaker 2: according to a previous study that we found for this episode,
Speaker 2: have shown people eat and breathe in at least fifty
Speaker 2: thousand particles of microplastic a year, and that MicroPlace plastic
Speaker 2: pollution is absolutely just raining down upon city dwellers, and
Speaker 2: it's not going away anytime soon.
Speaker 1: No, it's not, which means that to a large degree,
Speaker 1: this conspiracy was successful because the profit margins stayed consistent.
Speaker 1: But now it's coming to a head, and we have
Speaker 1: to ask ourselves what does this mean for the future.
Speaker 1: We'll tell you after a word from our sponsor. We've returned,
Speaker 1: and let's open this segment about the future with a
Speaker 1: quote from Rolling Stone that gives us a troubling summation
Speaker 1: of the dilemma we face. No could I ask you
Speaker 1: to do the honors here?
Speaker 2: Absolutely, sir. Rolling Stone puts it out like this. More
Speaker 2: than half the plastics now on Earth has been created
Speaker 2: since two thousand and two, and plastic pollution is on
Speaker 2: pace to double by twenty thirty. At its root, the
Speaker 2: global plastics crisis is a product of our addiction to
Speaker 2: fossil fuels. The private profit and public harm of the
Speaker 2: oil industry is very well understood. And again this is
Speaker 2: all quote from this Rolling Stone article by Tim Dickinson,
Speaker 2: which absolutely recommend fully reading. Let's continue, oil is refined
Speaker 2: and distributed to customers who consumers rather who benefit from
Speaker 2: gasoline's short useful lifespan in a combustion engine, leaving behind
Speaker 2: atmospheric pollution for generations. By the same pattern, and the
Speaker 2: same tragedy of the commons is playing out with another
Speaker 2: gift of the oil and gas giants whose drilling draws
Speaker 2: up the petroleum precursors for plastics.
Speaker 1: Yep, yep. It's they're troublingly similar cycles, right, and you
Speaker 1: know the proof is out there. Companies knew about the
Speaker 1: issues with fossil fuels dating back to the seventies and
Speaker 1: didn't say a word about it.
Speaker 2: So that's where we're at.
Speaker 1: Since nineteen fifty, the world has created six point three
Speaker 1: trillion kilograms of plastic waste. Ninety one percent of that
Speaker 1: has never been recycled even once. This trend is only
Speaker 1: going to accelerate as emerging economies increase their plastic consumption.
Speaker 1: Like think about this. In twenty eighteen, advanced economies in
Speaker 1: the world were using twenty times more plastic than per
Speaker 1: capita than consumers in places like Indonesia or in India
Speaker 1: and now people are on the way up right, there's
Speaker 1: a higher demand for plastic, and the industry itself, Big Plastic,
Speaker 1: is counting on that growing demand to keep selling stuff
Speaker 1: even though a great deal of it will still be
Speaker 1: around long after and probably long after everyone listening to
Speaker 1: this podcast or watching this YouTube clip today has been
Speaker 1: long dead. And this is that existential crisis. I wanted
Speaker 1: to ask you about this. Everyone, you know, you doc,
Speaker 1: all of us listening along at home or in our
Speaker 1: cars are counting the pieces of plastic around us. Do
Speaker 1: you experience existential dread when you hold like a plastic
Speaker 1: fork and realize just how much longer it will be
Speaker 1: around than you, how much more permanent it is in
Speaker 1: the scheme of things than you, a living being that
Speaker 1: it bothers me?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it bothers me too, And you know who else
Speaker 2: it bothers ben kids who, as you well know, kids
Speaker 2: these days. I say that as someone who's potentially becoming
Speaker 2: an old grandpapa. But kids these days are what the
Speaker 2: kids these days call pretty woke. They are hip to
Speaker 2: all these societal problems, political and environmental and otherwise. And
Speaker 2: you know else, kids like legos and apparently a lot
Speaker 2: of kids who are fond of Legos begged the Lego
Speaker 2: Corporation in the form of letters that they wrote to
Speaker 2: the company to stop using single use plastic bags in
Speaker 2: their packaging. So Lego heard that. The Lego Group Chief
Speaker 2: executive Officer Nils B. Christiansen said, we have received many
Speaker 2: letters from children about the environment asking us to remove
Speaker 2: single use plastic packaging. We've been exploring alternatives for some time,
Speaker 2: and the passion and ideas from children inspired us to
Speaker 2: begin to make changes. So apparently they are looking to
Speaker 2: roll this out in the very near future and it
Speaker 2: will be replaced with paper, which again, like we said
Speaker 2: earlier in the episode, is much more viable as a
Speaker 2: recyclable good for single use materials. It's investing four hundred
Speaker 2: million dollars over three years to improve its sustainability efforts overall,
Speaker 2: the Lego Corporation. Unfortunately, you know, legos themselves made of plastic,
Speaker 2: but at least kids aren't throwing their Legos in the ocean.
Speaker 2: Presumably it's something you keep around and pass down to siblings,
Speaker 2: and you know, so that's I think that's fine. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean they're so expensive, they are quite expensive.
Speaker 1: You're a parent. You're aware of that.
Speaker 2: I am aware of that. They're also murder on your
Speaker 2: bare feet, as every parent knows when you're walking around. Thankfully,
Speaker 2: my kids more into bracelets than she has legos. But
Speaker 2: that's plastic beads. But again, those are meant to be
Speaker 2: kept around and given to friends and hopefully not just chucked.
Speaker 2: But yeah, our super producer Doc Holliday off Mike just
Speaker 2: kind of during our ad break exasperatedly exclaimed, Oh, this
Speaker 2: is depressing, you know, And then you're not wrong, Doc,
Speaker 2: You're not wrong. But hopefully we can sort it out
Speaker 2: before we wreck the planet entirely, not to sound too
Speaker 2: tree huggry about it, but sure feels like we're hitting
Speaker 2: a tipping point with all this stuff.
Speaker 1: It's not a look. Extinction doesn't care about vague, the
Speaker 1: vague stories we have made up for ourselves. Extinction does
Speaker 1: not care about political leanings. It doesn't care about religion.
Speaker 1: It doesn't care about money the economy, which again is
Speaker 1: just another religion. I put out the clarion call a
Speaker 1: long time ago. I don't think anybody has successfully proven
Speaker 1: a difference between the concept of an economy and the
Speaker 1: concept of a religion. But there is one fascinating point,
Speaker 1: and I appreciate it so much man, that you brought
Speaker 1: a little bit of light here. There's one fascinating point.
Speaker 1: The plastics crisis is different from climate change and the
Speaker 1: way it's been treated. Remember, like I mentioned, oil corporations
Speaker 1: put a lot of money into denying the concept of
Speaker 1: climate change for a very long time. But the folks
Speaker 1: over what we call big plastic, and to be fair,
Speaker 1: there are a lot less like two separate entities and
Speaker 1: a lot more like fingers on the same hand. But
Speaker 1: whatever you want to call big plastic, they are not
Speaker 1: denying the problem anymore. They're seeking to convince consumers and
Speaker 1: regulators that despite the fact they put all this pollution
Speaker 1: out on the planet, they can be the trusted experts
Speaker 1: to make plastic use sustainable. It's something they call a
Speaker 1: circular economy, so that plastic does actually get recycled continually
Speaker 1: and doesn't degrade. The cynical way to translate that, honestly,
Speaker 1: is this recycling?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 1: For real?
Speaker 2: This time? Sure, I like that it's got a nice ring,
Speaker 2: not on a down note, but it just somebody just
Speaker 2: popped into my head that we hadn't even talked about
Speaker 2: what about plastic garbage bags? Like, I mean, don't they
Speaker 2: just end up in like landfills? Like that's a question forever.
Speaker 2: I don't know. It's I'm sorry. I took us down
Speaker 2: a peg. You brought us up a peg and no, no,
Speaker 2: it took us right back down. But what I don't know?
Speaker 2: Are there any environmental scientists out there? Any polymer scientists
Speaker 2: out there? You know, Lego's talking about exploring alternatives even
Speaker 2: to the plastic bricks.
Speaker 1: What does that look like?
Speaker 2: Why are we so hooked on plastic?
Speaker 1: Let us know, Yeah, let us know, Let us know
Speaker 1: how you think this is going to work out. We
Speaker 1: are all ears, honestly everybody should be. We cannot predict
Speaker 1: the future, but we do see troubling trends and we
Speaker 1: want to hear from you. You can find us on Instagram.
Speaker 1: You can find us on Twitter. You can find us
Speaker 1: on Facebook. We love to recommend our favorite page on
Speaker 1: the good old inter and that is our Facebook community page.
Speaker 1: Here's where it gets crazy. But wait, you can find
Speaker 1: us as individuals too, should the spirit move you to
Speaker 1: do so, you certainly can.
Speaker 2: You can find me exclusively on Instagram where I am
Speaker 2: at How now? Noel Brown. You know, I post a
Speaker 2: lot of like crazy cosplay videos from my kid, who's
Speaker 2: a delight and also very much into the environment, and
Speaker 2: you know, cooking experiments under lockdown, occasional drumming exercises, and
Speaker 2: I'm starting to get into yoga, Ben. I just did
Speaker 2: like three days straight of a beginner yoga YouTube video.
Speaker 2: Starting to really enjoy that. So maybe you'll see me
Speaker 2: in cow pose or I don't know the names yet,
Speaker 2: but you could see that. Where are you Ben on
Speaker 2: the internets?
Speaker 1: Uh, you know, it's interesting mentioned the yoga stuff. Nol
Speaker 1: my Pale, Alex your pal as well. It's got super
Speaker 1: into yoga recently.
Speaker 2: He's the one who told me which videos to watch
Speaker 2: yoga with Adrian for anyone else out there that's trying
Speaker 2: to dip their toe in the yoga pool.
Speaker 1: Nice credit to you, Alex. If you're listening to this show,
Speaker 1: if you're already on the internet, you can find me
Speaker 1: having any number of misadventures on Instagram where I'm at
Speaker 1: them bulling, and can find me on Twitter where I'm
Speaker 1: at Ben BULLINGHSW. You'll recognize it's me because you'll see
Speaker 1: a tweet that I wrote before I came into this episode,
Speaker 1: saying that the research really got to me. The plastic
Speaker 1: is everywhere. I will aim to make less depressing tweets
Speaker 1: in the future.
Speaker 2: It's when you started getting into the airborne plastic that
Speaker 2: it really started getting dark. This is all pretty dark,
Speaker 2: but I don't know. It's always darkest before the dawn.
Speaker 1: How far away are we from children being born with
Speaker 1: plastic in them? Anyhow? Tell us about it. You can
Speaker 1: also give us a phone call if you are not
Speaker 1: the type to sip the social needs.
Speaker 2: That's right, We're one eight three three STDWYTK. Leave us
Speaker 2: a voicemail memo message. Try to keep it concise. Much
Speaker 2: more likely to get on one of our handy dandy
Speaker 2: listener mail episodes if you do that. But if you
Speaker 2: got something that needs to be broken up into a
Speaker 2: couple of these, I think what's the limit been a
Speaker 2: couple of minutes for each of these. Feel free, but
Speaker 2: you know we may have to condense it a little bit.
Speaker 2: And also please let us know if we can use
Speaker 2: your name on the on the show and.
Speaker 1: Get weird with it, you know what I mean. My
Speaker 1: favorite listener mail is still that guy with a uniquely
Speaker 1: infectious laugh. If you're listening, sir, you made my day.
Speaker 2: The truck driver, the kookie truck driver with the Hong
Speaker 2: Kong Yeah.
Speaker 1: Morfect residents, check it out. That's somewhere in the title
Speaker 1: of that episode.
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