Four Convenient Ways To Destroy The World
If you’re like me, every time you go to the store, you think about dead whales. Maybe it’s some generic dead whale or a specific example like the twenty-nine sperm whales that were found in Germany and other shores of the North Sea. You think about those motionless giants because you know it’s our fault. You know that most of those whales were found to have suffocated because of plastic bags clogging their blowholes and stomachs. Hopefully, this is why you bring your reusable bags, cardboard box, or army of pack mules. It’s not enough though. Modern convenience has made it too easy for you and me to destroy the world, and here’s how.
How many straws do restaurants need to give us? It doesn’t change the flavor. Those straws, used or not, will be thrown away, almost certainly not recycled, and left to find their way to beaches around the world. According to National Park Service estimates, 500 million straws are used daily by Americans alone. That is a huge number of lightweight, brittle, plastic tubes that can turn up anywhere including down the mouths of fish and up the nose of a particularly unfortunate sea turtle. If you haven’t seen the viral video, it’s gross and difficult to watch. Don’t look it up. (Look it up!)
Someone might be thinking, “Straws are small and insignificant, aren’t there bigger issues?”
Well yes, person I made up for this argument, but that’s the point. Straws are an easy, achievable way to start fixing the problem. It’s something we can all opt out of and maybe save a turtle by doing so. Do it for the turtles.
Balloons often mean a clown is nearby so I’ve hated them for a while, but there are plenty of other reasons to nix the balloons at your next party. Whether on purpose or not, we have all released a balloon and wondered where it ended up. The answer, much like straws, could be anywhere. Balloons traveling thousands of miles is not unheard of and those are the ones that don’t get tangled around birds, trees, or like plastic bags, around or in marine life. Mylar balloons, because of their conductive properties, have been known to cause power outages and fires. Not to mention scientists are freaking out about all the helium, (a nonrenewable resource,) being wasted on birthday parties for 2-year-olds when it could be used for medical research.
“But Adam,” my imaginary friend continues to argue. “I don’t use helium and make sure to buy biodegradable latex.”
Conservative estimates have latex balloons decomposing after 4 years. That’s a lot of time to get accidentally eaten by a whale who thinks it’s a weird squid.
Now for a product that’s in everything from frozen pizzas to makeup, has been linked to cancer, and is driving orangutans, elephants, and tigers to extinction. Palm oil seems like it would be a pretty environmentally friendly product but because even biofuels are starting to use it, entire tropical forests have been leveled for oil palm plantations. If we keep using products with palm oil, the estimated 70,000 remaining orangutans are going to run out of forest. Add palm oil to gluten, “bad fats,” and all of the other things you check labels for. The orangutans would appreciate it. Besides, it might cause cancer.
“Hold on Adam,” this guy won’t stop. “I didn’t even know palm oil was a thing, let alone that it was killing orangutans.”
Right. That’s the point to this whole thing. As soon as you make ignorance of the world around you the convenient choice, destruction of that world becomes an equally convenient choice.
