Good morning everybody.
My name is Paul Goettlich. I'm a writer and an activist. I focus on the health and socioeconomic effects of plastics, pesticides, genetic engineering, and so on—in a word, technology.
I’m a member of the Berkeley Plastics Task Force, the Sierra Club Genetic Engineering Committee, and an advisor to the Algalita Marine Research Foundation. I'm presently writing a textbook about environmental toxicants in society with an anthropologist. My own organization is Mindfully.org and we have a substantial website that is getting up to 6,000 visitors each day.
From a professional point of view, I know that many of you wish that plastic didn’t exist. There are many reasons for disliking it as a recycler, but in general, compared to other materials, it takes more work to do what is euphemistically called recycling. But, I'll leave that part to someone else.
I don’t have answers to the problems of plastics beyond not using it. But, I'd like to request that you help me by suggesting methods of dealing it. I'm interested in hearing what you have to say. I believe that each one of us holds the answer, and understands what needs to be done. But how do we find the strength and determination to do that?
I spent a couple years helping people at the Ecology Center in Berkeley answer environmental questions. One question that made me cringe when I heard it was “what’s the best plastic for storing food in?”
The answer to it, or any other variant, is that there is no best plastic with regards to health. However, there is a worst—PVC…. of course.
But no best? What gives?
After spending many years looking at the known effects of the constituent chemicals of plastics, I have no qualms telling you that there is no best, or even a good plastic.
HEALTH EFFECTS
So, what about the health effects?
Let’s look at this in a somewhat logical fashion by first defining what objects in our life are included in the category of plastics. There's the obvious, the millions of consumer products that surround us—the toys, computers, clocks, and bottles.
But we also need to include cosmetics, beauty aids, dental sealants, prostheses, can liners, bottles, pharmaceuticals, medical apparatus such as blood bags, tubing, and so on.
In order to be fair, we shouldn’t single out plastics as the demon. But plastics are definitely a major part of our health problems today, and it all matters. Each of the infinitesimally small doses we are exposed to matters in some way, and at doses that are well below anybodies radar screen—in parts per trillion, that’s one drop in 660 rail tank cars…..a train 6 miles long with one drop in it !
They act singly and together with any number of other toxicants that can create synergies with a myriad of effects on our health—physically, mentally, behaviorally, sexually, and so on. While there is a drastic increase in the number of cancers and chemically sensitive people, the effects we need to look for are in the next generation of children after the exposure.
And how about that new car smell?. There are over 100 volatile organic chemicals in the air within a new car, many of them are also found in pesticide-ridden air.
The chemicals of plastics are shared with other technologies such as pesticides. Monsanto's herbicide RoundUp is an excellent example of synergy. The active ingredient, glyphosate, has been linked to non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and the inhibition of steroidogenesis. This means that it is a carcinogen and an endocrine disruptor. But RoundUp's surfactant is more toxic than its active ingredient, glyphosate. In combination with glyphosate, the two create a synergy that is many more times toxic.
HOW MANY SYNERGISTIC COMBINATIONS ARE THERE?
There are between 85,000 and 100,000 chemicals in commercial production. If combinations of two or more can create a synergy, then there are approximately 1.064 x 10[to the 86,991 power] possible combinations that must be tested for synergy.
That’s basically 1 with 86,991 zeros after it.
What it tells us is how many tests are needed to begin to understand how many synergies might exist. Just for starters, the universe of variables is significantly larger than 1 with thousands of zeros after it, but our government doesn’t have enough money to make even a small dent in this number.
SO, IN COMES OUR GOVERNMENT TO THE RESCUE!
As mandated by the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA) in 1996, the EPA formed the Endocrine Disruptor Screening and Testing Advisory Committee (EDSTAC), charging the Committee to provide advice on how to design a screening and testing program for endocrine disrupting chemicals. The program was to be implemented by August 1999, and to report back to Congress by August 2000.
But even at best, only 6 mixtures were recommended for inclusion; Contaminants of human breast milk; Phytoestrogens in soy-based infant formulas; Common chemicals found together in 'Superfund' sites; Pesticide/fertilizer mixes; Disinfection byproducts; and Gasoline. To be scrutinized are the estrogen, androgen, and thyroid effects on humans.
Those three effects just tripled the number of tests required from 1, to 3 with thousands of zeros after it.
To date, the EPA has made glacial progress, and don’t expect any in the near future. The largest obstruction in this process is the inclusion of the regulated industries, which have been dragging their feet all along the way, kicking and scratching, making results utterly impossible. In the 7 years that it’s been going there have been NO results. That wraps up what the government has done to date—nothing. And with Herr Bush at the helm even less will be accomplished.
LIFE IS MORE COMPLICATED THAN observing a handful of chemicals acting upon a cell to see a few effects.
Each one of us metabolizes toxicants in their body differently. Each has his or her own body chemical load—much of it we got before birth. And each lives with different stresses—growth, emotional, as well as environmental conditions such as heat, light, humidity, and so on.
With each variable a new layer unknowns is added, and it too must be factored into the equation, which by this time, could be called THE MOTHER of ALL EQUATIONS.
We rely on scientists to explain and enumerate these variables.
But science can only attempt to address questions that have been asked.
Since we do not know what to ask, we will not get an answer.
THE CHIEF MYTH is that the products of the synthetic chemical industry are safe—plastics, pesticides, and the list that is essentially everything in our lives at home, work, and school. There is something that connects all of this stuff: a lack of science and logic. In order to be a scientist in industry, one must possess and use a good set of blinders so that the obvious may be overlooked or just shuffled to the side.
Everyone puts a lot of stock in the research of scientists. I do too. But not in the same way most people do. I rely on scientists to guide me, but not to tell me whether or not the plastic should be banned.
I recently came across an article entitled 78 Reasonable Questions to Ask about Any Technology. Those 78 “reasonable questions fit into 9 categories. I won’t read them all, but here are the types of questions that should have been asked before putting this stuff into our world.
Ecological, Social, Moral, Aesthetic, Practical, Ethical, Vocational, Political, and Metaphysical questions
Do we fare any better as a society using these synthetic polymers?
Well….. YES and NO
Yes, we have some immediate benefits such as life saving medical equipment, light weight vehicles, camping gear, and so on. But plastic is not a sustainable material. It creates many more problems than it cures. And it is denigrating the very essence of life at the genetic level.
So, my final message is that it all matters. Each of the infinitesimally small doses we are exposed to matter in some way. Our regulatory agencies look at each chemical for signs of toxicity. But unless and until they look at everything together, absolutely nothing will be proven.
THANK YOU.
REFERENCES
78 Reasonable Questions to Ask about Any Technology STEPHANIE MILLS / Clamor, i.18, Jan/Feb03 http://www.mindfully.org/Sustainability/2003/78-Questions-TechnologyFeb03.htm
Monsanto Roundup (Glyphosate) http://www.mindfully.org/Pesticide/Monsanto-Roundup-Glyphosate.htm
Identification Of Volatile Organic Compounds In a New Automobile Scientific Instrument Services 23dec99 http://www.mindfully.org/Air/2002/VOCs-New-Auto-Smell23dec99.htm
EDSTAC Review Davis Baltz / Commonweal 6may00 http://www.mindfully.org/Pesticide/EDSTAC-Review-Baltz-6may00.htm
THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD taken from the book Generations at Risk by Schettler, Solomon, Valenti, and Huddle. Chapter 2 The Role of Science and Public Health Decisions
Middlesex and the Limitations of Myth THEA HILLMAN / ISNA News Spring03 http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2003/Middlesex-Limitations-MythMar03.htm
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