Despite the advice given Dustin Hoffman’s character in The Graduate, plastics have always been a favorite environmentalist whipping boy. Way back in 2010, the New Yorker ran an article by physician and scientist Jerome Groopman titled “The Plastic Panic.” Before that, I was writing a series of articles debunking myths about bisphenol A, an industrial chemical that has been used to make certain plastics and resins since the 1950s. It was being blamed for everything from obesity (convenient) to shrinking alligator phalluses (make your own joke.)
Environmentalists have never liked plastics, and why should they? There’s no better metaphor for “man-made,” which is always bad, and depending on your definition, plastic is a petroleum product. Fossil fuels or other substances we know are evil. Therefore, it was just a matter of time before we were told not just that plastic is packing landfills (true, but irrelevant since there’s plenty of landfill space), posing harm to marine creatures in the form of six-pack holders and other ways (sometimes true), but they actually may be killing us. Emphasis on “may” because it appears nobody is actually saying they are. Turns out there’s a reason.
>
Despite the advice given Dustin Hoffman’s character in The Graduate, plastics have always been a favorite environmentalist whipping boy. Way back in 2010, the New Yorker ran an article by physician and scientist Jerome Groopman titled “The Plastic Panic.” Before that, I was writing a series of articles debunking myths about bisphenol A, an industrial chemical that has been used to make certain plastics and resins since the 1950s. It was being blamed for everything from obesity (convenient) to shrinking alligator phalluses (make your own joke.)
>
Environmentalists have never liked plastics, and why should they? There’s no better metaphor for “man-made,” which is always bad, and depending on your definition, plastic is a petroleum product. Fossil fuels or other substances we know are evil. Therefore, it was just a matter of time before we were told not just that plastic is packing landfills (true, but irrelevant since there’s plenty of landfill space), posing harm to marine creatures in the form of six-pack holders and other ways (sometimes true), but they actually may be killing us. Emphasis on “may” because it appears nobody is actually saying they are. Turns out there’s a reason.
(post is archived)