Fossil Plastic?

RENEW REBUILD & REPURPOSE can be added to the 3 R's (reduce, reuse, recycle).

More people are becoming aware of the swirling mass of plastic stuff that carousel's around in the Pacific Ocean, in a vortex created by spiraling ocean currents (called the 'Pacific, or Eastern Garbage Patch- there is also a western one, between Hawaii & Japan). These 'patches of floating debris' are created wherever the currents act on the waters in a vortex.
BOTTOM LINE: Every piece of plastic trash we create is destined to one of these fates: 1. landfilled (limits biodegradability of items buried beneath other items) 2. incinerated (causing pollution in the form of burned stuff) 3. recycled (less than 5% of total amounts) or 4. it is making its way into a waterway; via storm drain, stream, river, and ultimately ends up in the ocean.

Maybe reclaiming this 'trash' will become a 'treasure' one day; just as decomposing dinosaurs currently fuel our motorized and mechanized lives. While doing so the unintended consequence is accelerating pollution and depletion. So, it is not unlikely to imagine a day when someone will find the huge amounts of plastic waste a resource. To be alchemized to who knows, maybe fuel or building materials. The stuff exists. It got made. Not by nature but by mankind. Nature can't use it. We better find a way to.
Most plastic currently being made isn't even made with a 'second or multi-life' purpose. It is made as 'one time use then dispose.' We are coming to regret the term 'dispose' since our sheer numbers make an excess of everything, with the intent to sell as much as possible to as many people as possible, hence, doing business for profit rather than for the good of all.

Every 'cure' for our waste creating addiction has problems. About recycling Paul Hawkens writes,"All the recycling in the world doesn’t change the fact that doing business in the latter part of the 20th century is an energy intensive endeavor that gulps up resources. "

Resources that are finite. Or non-biodegradable, if you factor in the longevity of manufactured plastic. It is this material that will become a raw material, like we treat fossil fuel as. Imagine. Fossil Plastic. But reclaiming and converting it to something else may well prove to be an 'energy intensive endeavor' prohibitively gulping up resources that won't exist in the volume needed to be successful.

For today, in our little lives, we are tasked to think more responsibly about what we buy, use and (especially) eventually throw away. Repurposing as much as we can.
Renew and rebuild instead of replace.
We will begin to re-appreciate the lost trades; SHOE SHINE & REPAIR; Knife & Scissor Sharpeners and Repairers; SoapMakers; Weavers, BeeKeepers and Village Elders (this group being us and we have limited skills to pass on in this way. Ironically, it will be the next generation who will have to gain and pass such skills on to us. Cobblers unite!!

Peace, Cindy