the myth of 'eco-friendly' consumerism
"The junk merchant doesn't sell his product to the consumer, he sells the consumer to the product. He does not improve and simplify his merchandise. He degrades and simplifies the client." - William S. Burroughs
I’m standing in the tampon aisle at the grocery store, requiring some kind of barrier between my cream-coloured trousers and my sudden menstrual cycle. The flimsy dam I’ve improvised out of single-ply toilet paper doesn’t suffice. In my perusal, I prefer to avoid plastic products, if I can. I have in the back of my mind a picture of the devastation of plastic pollution: a bloated whale corpse washed ashore, its innards oozing, ravaged by soda bottles and grocery bags, carelessly tossed away by the likes of my peers. I want to avoid culpability for this fate. I’m scanning the shelves, but I don’t see what I’m looking for. In front of me are a hundred little tampon boxes, each brightly colored with buoyant silhouettes of imaginary women breezing through life, promising to unburden me from my feminine curse, but every single one of them is made with plastic.
Glancing at that shelf and its myriad of colors, I’d’ve thought I had at least a dozen options to choose from, but I merely had the illusion of choice. I’ve internalised a certain brand of guilt I think is endemic amongst socially conscious youth, about the destruction of the environment. We’re so often told that it’s on us, as consumers in global industrialised North, and our consumption choices to alleviate the devastation of plastic pollution. “You vote with your dollar!” we’re told by sustainability-minded peers, as we’re guilted into sorting our recycling and shamed when we opt for a plastic bag at the grocery store. I feel that we’ve really been propagandised into feeling this way, tricked into bearing the brunt of the climate crisis because of our guilty collective tendency towards convenience over principle. Corporations prey upon this, actively weaving the myth of the “eco-friendly” consumerism through clever marketing strategies. This narrative conveniently deflects from their role in putting that plastic junk into our hands.
Every single-use plastic we throw away that ends up in the belly of a marine animal was manufactured by a corporation. A little over 10 multinational corporations are responsible for the four million tons of plastic debris that we see entering our oceans each year. And this only increases exponentially as the years progress: new plastic production is projected to increase by some 40 percent over the next decade. Even scarier, scientists estimate that by 2050, there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish. This means more torn-apart whales washing up on our shores, more guilt-ridden photos of marine wildlife in varying states of decay, and still no substantive action. In response to these ecological crises, the top three global producers of single-use plastics - Coke, Pepsi, Nestle - have all vowed to make their products 100% ‘recyclable’ or ‘compostable’ by 2025. However, since only 9 percent of all single-use plastics are ever recycled (the other 91% ending up in landfills or burned or scattered in the wild), this does not bode well for the reliability of ‘eco-friendly’ consumerism on solving the climate crisis. Perhaps, the devastation of plastic pollution would be reduced if these corporations didn’t manufacture single-use plastic in the first place.
It’s very apparent that the upward trajectory of plastics production, coupled with growing consumption, is not sustainable. And I don’t believe the solution simply lies in us all collectively ‘recycling more.’ Market forces, motivated by the inexorable pursuit of profit, will continue to externalize environmental costs at the expense of our environment, regardless of consumer preferences. After all, “[t]he junk doesn’t sell his product to the consumer, he sells the consumer to the product.” By and large, consumers are easily seduced by advertisements and not every shopper has the wherewithal to vet the ethics behind every purchase. It’s not reasonable to expect the majority of consumers to opt-out in a world so inundated by single-use plastics. If our goal is to avoid plastic pollution, we shouldn’t rely on everyone conducting themselves according to the categorical imperative by religiously sorting their recycling, but in banning the manufacturing of single-use plastics altogether.
This is not to say we shouldn’t recycle. We should, things being as they are. But we shouldn’t necessarily have to. And we all should be pissed about that, as I was when I was forced to buy generic brand plastic tampons. There’s no reason we should be sipping smoothies out of PET bottles, or carrying out takeaways in plastic bags, where glass and paper work just as well. Single-use plastics unnecessarily proliferate every aspect of our material lives. If we allow corporations to sell us the idea of “progress” as wedded to material gains, our environment continue to will suffer.
It’s time we hold the real culprits to account.