Sustainable choices and tough questions

A plastic pollution researcher's honest reckoning with everyday choices

I recently stayed with my aunt, Tía Tina, in New York City. She had just watched the Canal+ documentary on the Henderson Island expedition that I had joined and had a question for me.

The movie is incredible; it shows the challenges of getting to a remote, polluted island, the hard work of cleaning up a sweltering beach and includes some delightfully cinematic moments of plastic sailing over a coral reef carried by a pink and purple parasail (check out the trailer below). I’ve been both proud and squirmy about sharing this movie with friends and family. Its pretty epic to see yourself cinematically portrayed, but so cringey to hear your own voice. There’s also one scene where I have a big verbal slip-up. The first time I saw it, I had to turn the movie off and come back to it, I was so embarrassed. But I reminded myself that most people wouldn’t notice this small error, and the movie as a whole makes up for it in spades with impressive shots of the tropical Pacific and powerful images of seabirds nesting amongst plastic.

All this to say, Tía Tina was moved by the film and after seeing her niece on the silver screen and being awed by the visuals, she asked me ‘so what can I do in my daily life to reduce my impact?’. I had spent 4+ years doing a PhD on plastic pollution and solutions. I have contributed to over 10 papers on the topic, I’ve been invited to webinars, to conferences and journalists have reached out for my expert opinion on the topic. Yet this was the first time my aunt had earnestly asked what she could do to personally reduce her plastic impact. I was taken aback by the question. Not because I never expected her to ask it, but because I didn’t have an answer. In fact, I was stumped.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Plastic

For someone who has spent years studying sustainability, learning about the plastic waste crisis, researching solutions and advocating for stricter plastic regulations - I had no easy answer for my aunt’s simple questions. Sure, I could tell her to completely eradicate plastic from her life, but I myself haven’t done that (and haven’t even tried). I could go into a whole spiel about how, for plastic, there is the good, the bad and the ugly, an intro I’ve used in many a webinar on plastic.

The Good - Applications that are useful and make sense, plastic used in cars make them lighter, so they use less fuel, plastic in electronics make them durable and affordable, plastic in healthcare and that preserves food

The Bad - Unnecessary products, those likely to end up as litter or with no good recycling options. Think single use plastics, styrofoam, fast fashion, crappy products that seem designed to brea

The Ugly - The really bad stuff. Plastics packed with harmful chemicals, products shedding microplastics that absorb toxic chemicals and end up in the environment, the food web and us

But that wouldn’t give her a clear answer, either. Its not so easy to see a product or packaging and immediately know how to categorize it as ‘good’ or ‘bad’.

My brain was going in roundabout circles trying to land on an answer, something simple, that she could do, that would have an impact of note, not too inconvenient…. I hemmed and hawed as I wracked my brain, surely there was a research paper somewhere that I had come across with an answer? My mind flitted over the life cycle assessment study comparing reusable tote bags to single use plastics, noting that you’d have to use the tote bag 7,000 times to make it more environmentally friendly than the plastic. Next, a recent article suggesting reusable glass drink bottles had more microplastics than their single-use plastic counterparts. I thought about my ongoing internal debate on cucumbers wrapped in plastic; seemingly superfluous plastic use, yet I know the plastic film prevents spoiling and can lead to an almost 5% reduction in food waste…

The student becomes the teacher

I left New York without giving my aunt a clear answer. A few days later, I met with a Master’s student I was supervising. Her thesis studies which packaging Dutch grocery stores could choose to be more sustainable and meet upcoming EU regulations. She felt overwhelmed by all the conflicting information she was finding from literature and through interviews. Any time a solution would emerge, a different article or person would offer a completely different perspective (sure, paper is recyclable, but if we switched all plastic to paper, there would be no more trees). She was stressed that she would be unable to answer her research question and come up with a clear recommendation, there were too many caveats andchallenges. I had to gently explain to her that in fact, she was on the right track, and being overwhelmed trying to balance conflicting information meant she was accurately understanding the situation. Heck I’ve been working in this space for almost 10 years and I couldn’t come up with an answer when asked! Trade-offs are inherent, no single solution exists, and most of us are just trying to do our best.

I then heard one of my favorite podcasts tackle the issue of packaging complexity. I swear, it was like the universe was coalescing around this unanswerable question - forcing me to confront it. The podcast host noted that ‘there are no human activities that are good for the environment. It’s always a question of trade offs or doing less bad.’ So what are we mere humans to do? Knowing that each choice we make is basically bad, yet wanting to do good. Even if its starting small, even if its just slightly less harmful, even if its not that great.

Untangling the mess

So I thought about it. Really thought about it. I tried to synthesize the years of sustainability research, the hundreds of papers I’ve read, the internal dilemmas I’ve pondered. I considered the hardcore activist’s agendas, the cynics’ perspective, the realists propositions. I recalled the many (many) listicles on 10 ways to reduce your plastic or 5 ways you can help the environment, 15 tips to travel more sustainable and 20 easy swaps to reduce plastic in your everyday life. I balanced this against weighty corporate interests, government regulatory power and market forces. I thought about myself, about how I move through world, trying to do less bad for the planet. How I keep climate guilt from paralyzing me and also feel good enough to sleep at night while fires rage, temperatures rise and floods increase.

I haven’t figured it out by any means, but I do stand firmly behind three tips, and try my best to implement them in my day-to-day life;

1. Waste less

2. Choose local

3. Don’t beat yourself up in the process!

So stay tuned for my next post where I dive into these tips (the last is very important) and how I enact them in my daily life. Such a tease, I know, but I want to give myself the time to honestly reflect on these recommendations and what they mean to me. Because trying to do this whole ‘sustainable living’ thing ain’t easy and to sit with trade-offs and complexity is as much an emotional process as it is a scientific one.

As my wise mother once said - and I often repeat to myself as a reminder that I’m not unique nor alone in my struggles - ‘life is a series of tough choices’.

P.S Yesterday marked the start of ‘Plastic Free July’, a global initiative to encourage better plastic choices! There are tons of resources and ideas on how to get started, if this post inspired you and you want to make some sustainable swaps, here are some resources:

• Plastic Free July - take a quiz to understand plastic use, pledge to use less, find resources for your home, business, school

• Plastic Pollution Coalition - resources, webinars, pledges and guides

• Beyond Plastics - 30 day plastic free July calendar, with tips for every day of the month!