The Life, But Greener Newsletter – Seven Parts on Plastics, How to Reduce Your Eco-anxiety and Reduce Your Role in the Climate Crisis

CNN has a newsletter called Life, But Greener. Our seven-part guide helps you minimize your personal role in the climate crisis — and reduce your eco-anxiety.

The life cycle of plastic can be traced back to the time when oil and gas were being pumped underground. These fossil fuels are then refined in facilities, using extreme temperatures and significant amount of water and energy, where they are transformed into pellets that are eventually melted and molded into things like water bottles, packaging, garbage bags and clothes.

And plastic recycling doesn’t work, Enck said, because most of what we think we’re recycling just ends up in the landfill. It doesn’t address emissions that come from making it in the first place

It is the same amount as the average emissions released by power plants in 2020, according to the report. The same amount of cars as it is, according to the EPA. And more plastic-making facilities continue to come online.

Judith Enck, a former Environmental Protection Agency regional administrator and president of Beyond Plastics, describes plastic as the “new coal”. The use of coal to generate energy is being phased out. It is likely plastic will stay in place for a while longer unless consumers cut back on their use, said Enck.

“Remember that when you’re making plastic, there’s the greenhouse gas emissions, but these facilities also emit massive amounts of air toxins and particulates,” Enck added. It is a health threat.

“When the bathtub is overflowing, you don’t want to just run for the mop; first, you want to turn off the faucet,” Savitz said. “Recycling is the mop. You’re not going to get very far, if the faucet is still on. So what we have to do is reduce the amount of plastics that we’re producing at the source, and that’s turning off the faucet.”

You can’t change things until you take stock. Make a note of the things in your home. Most of the single-use stuff you’ll find around the kitchen and the bathroom. You can start to make replacements with a list of places you use single-use plastic the most.

Buying in bulk reduces plastic waste since nuts, rice and beans are not in plastic bags. Bring your own reusable containers to fill with your favorite bulk foods. Before you begin filling them, make sure to destroy the scale so you won’t pay for the weight of the container.

Choose paper (or no) packaging over plastic — If you’re looking at two versions of the same product and one is packaged in paper or cardboard and the other is in plastic, then the choice is obvious. And look for plastic-free options like bar shampoo.

If you refuse to use plastic utensils, take your own utensils with you. Or, if you’re ordering takeout, tell the restaurant they don’t need to add it to your bag.

Ultimately, Savitz said consumers need to continue urging major corporations to provide plastic-free solutions and help support refill and reuse programs to encourage society to shy away from plastic use and stave off the worst impacts of the climate crisis.

“Our country is burning and flooding and hurricanes are coming earlier and earlier,” she told CNN. “I really think it’s shocking that one of the things that’s really leading to that is plastics, and it’s hurting us in other ways, too. If we were able to reduced our production of plastic in this country and around the world, we would be helping to mitigate the effects of climate change.

There is no idea how harmful microplastics are to human health. It is possible that there has not been much so far, but some correlations should make us worry. (Rising obesity, asthma, and mental health issues, while they clearly have other causes, might also be partly due to microplastics.)