Waste challenges

The Jan. 28 Diana Nelson Jones column, “Group Calls for an End to Plastic’s ‘Great Future,’” focuses on the global challenges associated with plastic-based waste. It raised a number of valid points about the need to improve the recyclability of plastic in all its forms and the need to research alternatives to many of the typical consumer products packaged in some form of the material.

What cannot be lost in the debate over the future of plastic is the invaluable benefits it provides to meet a number of our everyday needs, and especially its role in the advancement of medicine and health care.

The examples are almost too numerous to recite. It is estimated that more than 6,000 consumer goods are derived from the processing of oil and natural gas.

Performance and coldweather clothing, as well as most of the components of athletic shoes, are derived from petroleum. Many of the materials that make up our computers and laptops are made of highdensity plastic.

The use of plastic in automobiles has made them far safer and improved gas mileage dramatically, from energy-absorbing bumpers and dashboards to the plastic in air bags that have saved thousands of lives.

One visit to the hospital for a diagnostic test or emergency room visit will put the value of plastics in their full light: intravenous fluid bags and tubes, endoscopes, pacemakers, bandages, artificial joints and limbs. Modern medicine would be impossible without plastic.

We need to constantly rethink our reliance on single-use plastics, while also recognizing the ways the material improves our lives every day. DOUGLAS BERKLEY

Cranberry