The One True Solution to Plastic Pollution | Wellsley Brown | TEDxMidAtlantic — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:02[Music]
2. 0:11[Music]
3. 0:25[Music]
4. 0:27I want you to think of how you start
5. 0:37your typical day you wake up in the
6. 0:40morning wash your face
7. 0:43hopefully brush your teeth if you're
8. 0:46really trying to impress our dentist you
9. 0:48floss some of us might grab coffee to go
10. 0:52on our way to work and if you're a
11. 0:53horrible chef like me you run out and
12. 0:56grab lunch now picture this sequence
13. 0:59again but this time think about the
14. 1:02items that you touch and are surrounded
15. 1:04by and just how many of those things are
16. 1:07plastic your bottle of face wash your
17. 1:11toothbrush your tuba toothpaste
18. 1:13your pack of floss the lid on your
19. 1:16coffee cup the container holding your
20. 1:18lunch and the plastic utensils they
21. 1:21probably gave you to go with it
22. 1:22all of these plastic items and I did not
23. 1:26even walk us down an imaginary aisle in
24. 1:28the grocery store because with that list
25. 1:31and some of the most creatively
26. 1:32ridiculous uses of plastic you would be
27. 1:36sitting here listening to me all day
28. 1:37I mean seriously whose idea was it
29. 1:41individually plastic wrap potatoes
30. 1:46companies want us to believe that
31. 1:48there's no way to break society's single
32. 1:50use plastic habit but that's because
33. 1:53right now companies give us little
34. 1:55choice it's nearly impossible to find
35. 1:58plastic free versions of your everyday
36. 2:00items and the average store which means
37. 2:03going plastic free often involves making
38. 2:06your own toothpaste deodorant and so on
39. 2:09if you can't manage this you're stuck
40. 2:11purchasing the plastic wrap versions
41. 2:13companies push into our hands enough is
42. 2:17enough
43. 2:18until companies stop using so much
44. 2:20plastic a toxic wasteful and persistent
45. 2:24pollutant to our planet this problem
46. 2:26will not go away seventeen point six
47. 2:30billion pounds that is the amount of
48. 2:34plastic scientists estimate enter the
49. 2:36oceans every year
50. 2:38what a seventeen point six billion
51. 2:41pounds even look like well it's roughly
52. 2:44equivalent to dumping a garbage truck
53. 2:47full of plastic into the oceans every
54. 2:49minute you might be thinking well I
55. 2:53recycle so if everyone recycled like I
56. 2:56do our oceans wouldn't be choking on
57. 2:58plastic and that is exactly what
58. 3:01companies producing and using tons of
59. 3:03plastic seem to want you to think now
60. 3:07that companies have finally started to
61. 3:09acknowledge their role in the plastic
62. 3:10problem due to the fact that their names
63. 3:13are found washing ashore on plastic food
64. 3:15wrappers and plastic bottles they're
65. 3:18proclaiming recycling as a solution to
66. 3:21our problem
67. 3:21but their recycling promise won't cut it
68. 3:25here's why out of all plastic waste ever
69. 3:30generated all six point nine billion
70. 3:33tons of it
71. 3:34guess how much was actually recycled
72. 3:38nine percent that's it that means the
73. 3:43vast majority a whopping ninety one
74. 3:45percent was either incinerated sent to a
75. 3:48landfill or ended up polluting our
76. 3:50natural environment including our oceans
77. 3:54everywhere you look there are countless
78. 3:56items packaged in plastics or stray bags
79. 4:00floating through city streets the
80. 4:02reality is plastic is everywhere it's
81. 4:06been found floating at the surface of
82. 4:08the sea washing up on the world's most
83. 4:11remote coastlines melting out of Arctic
84. 4:14sea ice and even sitting at the deepest
85. 4:16point of the ocean floor nearly seven
86. 4:19miles beneath the surface plastic has
87. 4:22become an unavoidable part of life not
88. 4:25just for us the humans that introduce
89. 4:27plastics to the world but for marine
90. 4:29life as well and the list of marine
91. 4:33animals harmed by plastic pollution
92. 4:35grows all the time
93. 4:56just recently there was a report of a
94. 4:59whale washing up dead in the Philippines
95. 5:01after ingesting 88 pounds of plastic and
96. 5:05this is far from the first time
97. 5:07something like this has happened
98. 5:09scientists estimate that over 60% of
99. 5:12whale and dolphin species haven't jested
100. 5:14plastic debris along with over half of
101. 5:17the world's sea turtles and 90% of
102. 5:19seabird species even zooplankton tiny
103. 5:23marine organisms that form the base of
104. 5:25the ocean food chain are eating plastic
105. 5:28after ingesting microscopic bits of
106. 5:31plastic in the ocean some are eaten by
107. 5:33larger creatures like fish which is how
108. 5:36plastic can work its way up the food
109. 5:38chain and onto our plates but even if
110. 5:42you're not a fan of seafood plastic is
111. 5:44still finding its way into the things
112. 5:46that you eat everything from salt to
113. 5:50honey to water it's a beer
114. 5:53has been found to contain microplastics
115. 5:55we are eating plastic we are drinking
116. 5:59plastic that much is undeniable but
117. 6:03there are still questions that remain
118. 6:04like just how much plastic are we eating
119. 6:06or even more concerning how is our
120. 6:10plastic diet affecting our health
121. 6:13scientists continue to study the
122. 6:15potential health effects that plastics
123. 6:17and their associated chemicals are
124. 6:18having on us and the problem with
125. 6:22plastic is that it never really goes
126. 6:25away although it may fragment into
127. 6:27smaller and smaller pieces once it's in
128. 6:30the environment most never fully breaks
129. 6:32down so how do we keep plastic this
130. 6:37source of pollution that never really
131. 6:39goes away out of our oceans we need
132. 6:43companies to make less of it
133. 6:46unfortunately industry doesn't want to
134. 6:49make less plastic it wants to make more
135. 6:51using the promise of recycling as its
136. 6:54excuse but the truth that companies
137. 6:57don't want you to hear is that relying
138. 6:59entirely on recycling without reduction
139. 7:02just won't work let's think
140. 7:05hypothetically
141. 7:07if every single person recycled every
142. 7:10single plastic item you'd think that
143. 7:12plastic wouldn't still end up in our
144. 7:14oceans right
145. 7:15if only here's what you may not know
146. 7:18about recycling not all plastic that
147. 7:22goes into the bin actually gets recycled
148. 7:25some is but a lot of what's recycled is
149. 7:28actually down cycled or turned into less
150. 7:30valuable products some is disposed or
151. 7:33lost in the process and some is exported
152. 7:37exported from countries like the u.s. to
153. 7:39others whose waste infrastructure is
154. 7:41considered less robust than our own
155. 7:43which means the plastic we thought was
156. 7:46being recycled here in the States could
157. 7:48end up in a landfill or in the oceans on
158. 7:51the other side of the globe why because
159. 7:55it's cheaper to ship the problem to
160. 7:57distant shores than to take
161. 7:59responsibility and manage it at home we
162. 8:02export so much plastic that some
163. 8:05countries are no longer accepting our
164. 8:07low value plastic waste they have enough
165. 8:09of their own to deal with companies know
166. 8:12this they also know that their
167. 8:15anticipated production rates will
168. 8:16outpace recycling the amount of plastic
169. 8:19going into our oceans will increase and
170. 8:22it will accumulate relying entirely on
171. 8:26recycling to fix this problem we've
172. 8:28created would be like bailing out a
173. 8:31sinking ship without even bothering to
174. 8:33plug the hole the fact that tons and
175. 8:36tons of plastics are entering our oceans
176. 8:39is proof that our current system is
177. 8:42broken plastic production has far
178. 8:45outpaced waste management's ability to
179. 8:47keep up how could this have happened
180. 8:50because plastics largest market
181. 8:54packaging a sector that grew rapidly
182. 8:57when industry decided to shift from
183. 9:00reusable to single-use containers
184. 9:02starting in the 1950s the beginning of
185. 9:05throwaway living around 40% of all
186. 9:09plastic produced today is used for
187. 9:12packaging to create items labeled as
188. 9:14disposable single-use plastics but
189. 9:18single-use class
190. 9:19our flawed by design they use a material
191. 9:22made to last forever to produce items
192. 9:25designed to be thrown away think about
193. 9:29that for a second it just doesn't make
194. 9:32sense using a material engineered to
195. 9:36last forever to produce an item designed
196. 9:39to be thrown away and single-use
197. 9:42plastics have consistently ranked among
198. 9:44the top 10 most commonly found items
199. 9:46collected at cleanups worldwide that
200. 9:50list includes plastic bottles and caps
201. 9:53plastic bags straws takeout containers
202. 9:56our plastic wrap world is clearly
203. 10:00unsustainable
204. 10:02we need industry to break their single
205. 10:05use plastic habit now that doesn't mean
206. 10:10that we can't do our part to minimize
207. 10:12our individual plastic footprints we can
208. 10:15and should refuse single-use plastics
209. 10:17whenever possible I mean at the very
210. 10:21least choose the potato that is not
211. 10:24wrapped and plastic but have any of you
212. 10:28ever requested a drink with no straw and
213. 10:31received one anyway I have and I'm known
214. 10:36by my friends and family as the plastics
215. 10:38police even actively trying to avoid
216. 10:41plastic doesn't always work individual
217. 10:44action just isn't enough to solve the
218. 10:47problem since I began speaking to all of
219. 10:51you around 300,000 pounds of plastic has
220. 10:55entered our oceans that's equal to the
221. 10:59weight of a blue whale the largest
222. 11:01animal to ever exist on planet earth
223. 11:04made entirely of plastic until companies
224. 11:09change the way they produce packaged and
225. 11:12sell our products societal change will
226. 11:15slowly lag behind and more plastics will
227. 11:17enter our oceans companies can start to
228. 11:21solve this problem by giving us plastic
229. 11:24free choices and not forcing single-use
230. 11:27plastic into all our lives and you can
231. 11:30help with this too by joining groups
232. 11:32like
233. 11:33seanny and demanding that companies
234. 11:34break free from plastic a global
235. 11:38movement dedicated to stopping plastic
236. 11:40pollution and some companies are
237. 11:43starting to listen to our demand for
238. 11:44change by moving beyond recycling
239. 11:47commitments and eliminating single-use
240. 11:49plastics or implementing reusable and
241. 11:53refillable delivery systems just imagine
242. 11:56if every container currently used once
243. 11:58and then thrown away could instead be
244. 12:01returned washed and used again and again
245. 12:05the opportunity for innovation is vast
246. 12:09limited only by company's willingness to
247. 12:11change of course I hope that you feel
248. 12:15inspired to take action and reduce
249. 12:17single-use plastics in your daily lives
250. 12:20but if we want a real large-scale and
251. 12:25lasting reduction and the devastating
252. 12:27effects plastics are having on our
253. 12:29environment if we don't want to continue
254. 12:31to see news of whales washing up bellies
255. 12:34filled with plastic bags if we don't
256. 12:37want to see entire coastal communities
257. 12:39and countries drowning and plastic waste
258. 12:42if we want our oceans to have a future
259. 12:45if we want to have a future we must
260. 12:48demand corporate change thank you
261. 12:53[Applause]