Life in the time of COVID
The virus is dominating our lives - still or again - and form the look of it, it will continue to do so for some time to come.
Summer was all but canceled, except for the sitting around in the sweltering heat part and most of us can’t even remember the last time they went to a restaurant for a sit down dinner. Face masks are mandatory in our beautiful state and I am proud to report to those of you who do not live in the Bay Area, that people here are actually following the rules. I have yet to see a single person without a mask in a store and have yet to witness any of the ugly scenes we see way too frequently in social media. I am not saying, they don’t exist - but they seem to be rare.
FabMo has, obviously, suffered the same fate as any other non-essential business: for weeks we couldn’t collect materials, couldn’t even enter the facility except for a quick once weekly check to see whether everything is alright. You don’t want to come back after weeks and find a water pipe burst. We are back now in a limited manner, with a few volunteers at a time, social distancing across sorting tables and strict appointment rules for our events. Everybody is always wearing a mask, no exceptions. Rooms have occupancy limits and we have a check in desk with touchless temperature checks.
As we go through this global pandemic we see people react in many different ways, some remain fearful and withdrawn, others are pretending that things are back to normal. Some can’t wait to get out and make up for lost time, others have noticed that, maybe, they really don’t miss all the frantic activity as much as they thought they would.
With so much going on and so many different ways this virus has affected all of our lives it is difficult to focus on one thing to write about, but after writing and rewriting this blog for way too many times I have settled on a topic that has been weighing on my mind: resources. Specifically wasting them.
Back to single use?
Single use is suddenly everywhere again: take-out containers, plastic cutlery, masks, gloves, even the stupid thin, useless single-use plastic bags have made a come back in some stores. Part of me understands, part of me not. During the first fearful weeks of the pandemic, when we didn’t know how long the virus remains active on various surfaces I saw the point. But now? I can take my messenger-bag-sized purse into the grocery store but not my tote? How does my reusable produce bag that touches nothing but my hands endanger others more than the plastic bags in the store that many people touch? Why does my (infrequent) take-out order include plastic cutlery, napkins, mini salt packages etc even if I specifically state that I don’t need or want them? What is the danger associated with me bringing food containers to the Indian take-out place and have them use those instead of the ones who have been standing there for hours?
Convenience vs sustainability
What I am really worried about is that we’ll loose momentum when it comes to conserving and reusing resources in the long run. Because it is so convenient to use those stupid thin plastic bags and throw them out after one use, because, really, who can be bothered taking a reusable mug to a coffee store when we can have those plastic coated paper ones complete with a plastic cap and straw? Why wash a bunch of fabric napkins when you can just toss the paper ones and why clean plastic cutlery when single use is cheap and easy?
We have been brainwashed for a very long time to believe that convenience trumps everything. That we deserve pre-prepared food that has more packaging than food, that everything needs to be wrapped and double-wrapped, that taking a glass bottle back to the store for reuse (and recovery of a deposit) is onerous, unacceptable and somehow uncivilized - or just for environmental crazies.
Let’s put this in perspective and remind ourselves what is really going on here: we humans use heavy machinery to dig up oil that for millions and millions of years has been sequestered away binding huge amounts of CO2. We transport that stuff absurd distances, a process that on a regular basis results in spills and environmental disaster.
Then we use that oil together with other chemicals that are toxic to us and the environment to make stuff like plastic water bottles. Those plastic water bottles are then shipped, wrapped in more plastic, halfway across the world so you can buy them, drive them home and empty the bottle in three big gulps and then grab another.
The plastic gets thrown out after a few minutes of use and is either burned generating more CO2 and toxic byproducts or ends up in a landfill.
If you have 20 minutes I suggest you watch this video, called The Story of Stuff.
But we aren’t done yet: in the landfill the plastic will break down into smaller and smaller pieces but not go away. We don’t know who long plastic takes to truly degrade, if ever. You read all sorts of numbers, somewhere between never and a few hundred years and, of course, it depends on the type of plastic. Let’s just say 450 years for that plastic bottle (I did not make that number up, the WWF Australia is using it).
Here is a historical perspective on what that means. 450 years ago, in 1570, the first modern atlas of the world was published. North America has a curiously chubby shape, South America is missing its bottom part, Asia is way too small and Australia doesn’t exist. In other breaking news, Pope Pius V excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I of England for heresy. Had Elizabeth, hearing the news of her excommunication, grabbed a glass, a bottle of gin and a plastic bottle of tonic water to calm her nerves with a G’nT and then thrown the bottle out of her castle window that plastic would likely still be around.
In tiny pieces, in the soil, the water and in the bodies of animals and humans.
That image of Elizabeth I and her tonic water bottle haunts me every time I remove the plastic film of a box of cookies, then open the cardboard box to find a plastic tray wrapped in plastic and, in especially bad cases, the cookies wrapped in plastic again.
We need to change our ways
Life is stressful right now. I know, and I don’t even have a little kid with no daycare option, still have my remote job and nobody I know has died of COVID yet. I understand how compelling comfort and convenience is, after all, I am really looking forward to the one night a week we get take out (we have decided as a family, that we cannot justify the plastic waste take-out generates more than once a week) and don’t get me started on cookies (though never wrapped individually!).
But hopefully it is also the time to reflect on our “old life” , the good, the bad and the ugly. COVID shows us the value of community, family, friends and how much we miss them when we can’t see them. It shows us that life is precious and fragile. Let’s extend that concept not just to humans but to the planet as a whole. Can we really not be bothered with putting a cup in the dishwasher instead of using plastic? Is taking our trash home instead of dumping it (don’t get me started on littering) really a hardship? Is it asking too much to not consider clothing single use but to buy something decent that will last?
(On a side note: I just read in a German weekly that the city of Hamburg is decommissioning all its clothing collections bins (over 100) because the quality of the clothing deposited there has deteriorated so much, that there is no way of recycling or reusing it. Clothing has literally become the equivalent of a take out coffee cup: one use and into the landfill.)
I know, changing behaviors now might feel like trying to loose weight while also trying to stop smoking. But it is really not. The pandemic has changed everything and will continue to impact our lives for some time to come. Let’s use this time of change to implement some lasting adjustments to our unsustainable life style. Let’s focus on the central lesson of this pandemic: it’s our connections, our communication and community that really matter, not more stuff.
So let’s buy less, be more conscious about what we buy, take better care of it and seek reward in community (socially distanced for now) rather than a new T-shirt.