Plastic Soup

Loser

One of the issues I grapple with most is how to approach the plastics industry in my book on the plastic soup.

When I started this project, after having spoken to Rinus van den Berg of DSM for the first interview, I told him that I did not want to attack anyone—didn’t want to point fingers at anyone. Instead, I wanted to write a book in which, together, all parties would look for a solution. However, in the course of talks I have had, and images I have seen, my attitude towards the global plastics industry has become less friendly.

We are all to blame for the problem. Rinus van den Berg said: “Naturally, we produce plastic and the consumer buys it. But we have never told them to throw it in the ocean!” That is true, but, on the other hand, producers of plastic do not tell you not to throw the material into the ocean. They don’t tell you how toxic it is and under what circumstances the various plastics begin to release toxic substances. They don’t identify which manufacturers they deliver to, or whether durable or disposable products are made from the plastic. They don’t inform us about the consequences of when these substances break down in the environment (ending up in our bodies). They don’t extensively cooperate in recycling programs. On the contrary, on a global scale, the plastics lobby is constantly busying itself in impeding measures and bills that could decrease the production of new plastic.

Jean-Michel Cousteau, (the son of the famous discoverer and oceans expert Jacques Cousteau), has accepted millions of dollars from the chemical industry to spread the message that the waste problem is not a problem of the producers, but of the people that do not discard the waste appropriately. It all sounds very logical, as in the words of Rinus van den Berg. Thus, everyone from the production end of the chain washes their hands of the matter, even though the polluting products wouldn’t exist had they never have been brought to market.

When I asked Charles Moore about the responsibility of this problem, he replied that everybody is partially to blame, but that we sometimes forget who plays a very large part in this: the marketing agencies. The billion-dollar think tanks proclaim to the world how indispensable the latest gadget is, how easy the last development was, and how we miss the boat when we don’t buy into the very latest trend.

Together with producers and the retail industry, the marketing industry has brainwashed us all. Why don’t we think twice before we buy something? Why do we need the latest cell phone every six months, when the previous one was still working fine? Why do we throw away a pair of sneakers that are perfectly comfortable, but haven’t got the right fashionable colors?

I feel uneasy when in this blog, I proclaim to the world to take a step back and take a closer look at our patterns of consumption (and to see in what crazy state we’ve ended up). I realize that the success of marketing agencies is to make a loser out of anyone who does not follow trends.

From now on, I am a loser, and proud of it!

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