We weren’t born to ‘shop and toss’ – we’ve had to learn how to throw so much away. In the 1950s, after the first water fountains with plastic cups were installed in offices, workers carefully washed the cups in their kitchenettes. So too with plastic bags, they could be seen everywhere hanging on our clothes lines. We had to be taught to throw them in the bin. And, the message came through loud and clear. In 1955, Time magazine ran a major feature with the somewhat celebratory title “Throw Away Living” – it seemed humanity had entered a decadent Golden Age. Cleaning up after ourselves was just one more antiquated waste of time, while throwing out more and more disposable items symbolised modernity and efficiency's triumph over the drudgery of the past. And plastic was at the forefront of modernity. Plastic fantastic!

 

We’ve learned how to waste only too well! We’re told we should demand a life so convenient that we can slump on our couch and summon a beer and dinner via an app on our phone. That we are so busy that we need to rush through the supermarket, flinging individually packaged snacks, pre-made meals and plastic-festooned food into our trolleys.

 

Every year, an adult in a developed nation throws away an average of 329 plastics items, a couple, 658 and a family of four 2,764. Where does it all go? You’ve probably seen a least some of it in our oceans, along our shorelines, in our river systems, forests and parks. Or you might have seen the tragic, graphic footage of birds cut open filled with plastic or of choking turtles or sea lions. What you can’t see is the infiltration of microplastics into our ecosystems and food chains as mountains of plastics break down into ever smaller pieces; with as yet unknown consequences. On current trajectories, there will be more plastic in the oceans be weight than fish by 2050.

 

Globally, the use of plastics has increased twenty-fold over the past fifty years and nearly all the world’s plastic packaging – 95% - is discarded after a single use. The average supermarket plastic bag is used for only 20 mins, then tossed, mostly into landfill, where it takes over 500 years to breakdown. Australians alone use 13 million new bags a day. Globally, 40 billion dollars is lost every year to plastic waste, in terms of materials squandered and environmental damage. That’s not so say plastics aren’t useful, essential, even life-saving – such as in medical devices. But, we can get by with a fraction of what we use today, and we can better manage the plastics we can’t avoid.  

 

What if we want to change the way we live? In a consumer culture hooked on plastics, how can we reduce the plastic in our lives?