Earth Day 2018 calls for less plastics

Message is good, but problem exists on massive scale

Today marks the 48th anniversary of the Earth Day movement, and during that time, much has been accomplished. There has been a gradual yet steady improvement on taking better care of our environment, cleaning up our air, our water and our lands.

Now, Earth Day organizers are taking on a new goal: ending plastic pollution. Their website notes, “Our goals include ending single-use plastics, promoting alternatives to fossil fuel-based materials, promoting 100 percent recycling of plastics, corporate and government accountability and changing human behavior concerning plastics.”

The goals are noble, but achieving them will be an especially tall order. There have been countless reports about the plastic pollution poisoning our oceans and wildlife, for example. I spent some time digging into the ocean pollution, and I found a variety of seemingly credible sources, which all gave different reasons why the ocean has plastics pollution: abandoned fishing gear, careless people, poorly managed municipal waste programs, developing countries who might throw away trash in the ocean, tsunamis, natural disasters … the list goes on and on. How does one fight back against that? It takes changing human behavior on a global scale.

And not all plastics are evil. I researched “benefits of plastics,” out of curiosity, and found several reports pointing out the advances in the medical field, for example, thanks to plastics. We have disposable syringes, sterile packaging for medical instruments, bandages and prosthetics — and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

As always, the situation is a complex one. There are good plastics, and good uses for plastics, and there are bad plastics and bad usage of plastics. Navigating that field is a challenging one, and it can be difficult to sort fact from fiction.

Given all that, it can be tough to decide how to approach plastics in one’s day to day life. What does one do to be a good steward of the planet? The best bet is to take it one step at a time, and set realistic goals at home. Change takes time, but eventually, those goals will make a difference.

Unsigned editorials represent the viewpoint of this newspaper rather than an individual. Columns and letters to the editor represent the viewpoints of the persons writing them and do not necessarily represent the views of the Yuma Sun.