By: Julia T.
MARY ALTAFFER | AP | SHUTTERSTOCK
“It’s time to go on a low-carbon diet,” What is that even supposed to mean? BP Oil announced in 2006. Maybe this sounds a bit odd coming from the world’s 6th largest polluter.
Enter: “The Carbon Print Calculator” designed and marketed by BP to help individuals reduce their impact on the planet, because consumers are the ones directly responsible for the 200 million gallons of crude oil in the Gulf of Mexico… right?
What if I told you that your recycling ends up in landfills, paper bags are worse than plastic, and plastic straws aren't killing the oceans? Living in a disposable society can be frustrating and guilt-inducing. We often forget that corporations are not afraid to exploit this.
Years ago when I first started taking interest in the environment, I attended a presentation about ocean life. To my dismay, I ended up learning about the one unfortunate turtle that got a straw stuck up its nose. I ran home and vowed to never use a plastic straw again. Using non recyclable-plastics posed an immediate threat to all sea life, so the obvious choice was to stop. I cut out the single use plastic and tried to recycle everything I possibly could.
A significant aspect that the presentation failed to mention was that approximately 46% of the 79 thousand tons of ocean plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is made up of industrial fishing nets. Not plastic straws. In fact less than 0.025% of plastic waste in the ocean are actually straws. Corporate fishing with loose environmental regulations are the villain- not the people who put a straw in their Starbucks sippy lid.
Photo from: Amy Hudak on Facebook
Months later I encountered a new sustainability controversy surrounding paper and plastic bags. While a little less known, this one is a favorite. Innocently listening to a Freakonomics podcast, I was ambushed with the information that paper bags are worse for the planet than plastic. Paper bags are resource heavy and take about 4 times as much energy to produce, significantly increasing their carbon footprint. So the obvious next thought is that your trendy and practical cotton tote bag is the perfect option! Organic cotton bags need to be used 20,000 times to equal the environmental impact of a plastic bag (Cho, 2020).
The personal revelations just kept coming. After barely processing the shopping bag controversy, I was confronted with the state of America’s recycling program.Broken- as you may have guessed. Up until about six months ago I was what I like to refer to as an ‘obsessive recycler’: one who recycles everything and anything they can. It essentially became one of my personality traits to carry around plastic as I accumulated it throughout the day. Once I got home, I knew I could properly recycle it in our bin. I didn’t trust the bins on the corner of busy Chicago streets; people throw everything and anything in there without thought. I was confident that at least my plastic waste was getting disposed of properly.
In one swift New York time headline, recycling too had been ruined for me,“Plastics and papers from dozens of American cities and towns are being dumped in landfills after China stopped recycling most ‘foreign garbage’”(lbeck-Ripka).
So at this point, you're probably wondering why most major cities have a plastic bag tax. Why Starbucks vowed to leave plastic straws in 2020. Why have we been conditioned to think one shopping bag is more eco friendly than the others? The simplest answer is consumer- feel-good- sustainability. It feels good to ‘take control’ and choose to ‘be green’, even if it's only at face value- we have been conditioned to feel like this.
Profit always comes before people and the planet in corporate America. In 2006, BP invented and marketed their term “carbon footprint”to help individuals mitigate and monitor their contribution to climate change, effectively shifting the blame to consumers. As a global polluter, BP has managed to remove themselves from the narrative and provide us with superficial calls to action such as recycling or going zero-waste. If you have ever felt yourself feeling overwhelmed or guilty about using too much plastic or not riding your bike enough - congrats you are a victim of BP’s years of marketing and propaganda. We live in a disposable society, and have to function in it somehow. This is not your fault.
With all that being said, this is not a get out of jail free card for individual sustainability. Being an educated and engaged citizen and making an effort to lower your carbon emissions is something that everyone should consider. It is most important however, to remember that this is not the only solution to tackling climate change. Systemic reform is truly the only way to make the drastic carbon emissions cut that we need to reverse climate change, through policy that creates green jobs and implements stricter emissions regulations. The best way to take action in support of these things is to vote. Vote for leaders that have plans to tackle these obstacles and put people and the planet first.
BP’s marketing for the ‘Carbon Footprint” spread around as quickly and silently as their oil spills do. Why are we surprised this time around?