Are Plastic and Pollution Imperialism? If not, why not?
Regular readers know I haven’t filled a load of garbage since 2019.
The most common reactions are surprise, asking me what’s in my garbage, and calling it “extreme.”
Being five years into a habit, it doesn’t feel the least bit extreme any more. On the contrary, since what motivates me is alleviating suffering in the people in whom I would increase it for my lifestyle, not acting to pollute much less seems extreme to me.
The name for the emotion behind that motivation is love. I once read a book that suggested loving one’s neighbor as oneself. I think it more than suggested it. I think it commanded it, but I guess people decided to let it slide or considered it unimportant. Or maybe they feel like if someone lives far away, they aren’t neighbors.
But I’m digressing from the point of what I’ve learned from avoiding packaging, deliveries from Amazon, takeout, and other comforts and conveniences. I know even if I buy something in bulk, they still used packaging to deliver it and so on. I don’t see how I can lead others without first learning to lead myself, so I’m on it. I also know how much trash is produced around me. Just donating blood leads to the nurses throwing away a few pounds of garbage, which I feel responsible for even though they don’t end up in my trash (I asked and they wouldn’t let me, citing “medical waste” rules).
I started wondering if I could go the rest of my life on this one load. I doubt it since at some point I’ll probably throw out my mattress when it gets too old or renovate my apartment or other things. Even if I made it on this load the rest of my life, what I generated would still make it to a landfill.
I wondered if I should have it buried with me. Well, I’d probably have my body composted or dropped in the ocean, but hear me out. I realized:
What trash we create that doesn’t biodegrade ends up affecting other people and wildlife. It destroys life, liberty, and property of people and wildlife who don’t consent.
There’s a name for one group taking the land of another: imperialism.
It sounded odd to me just to think it at first, but plastic is imperialist: for whatever benefit it brings you, even if you keep it to yourself your entire life, it eventually ends up imposing on other people’s life, liberty, and property without their consent. There is simply no two ways about it.
Maybe one day someone will find a way to make it decompose. Even then, it will be a lot longer until they can fix the unbelievable amounts distributed throughout the biosphere (also in orbit and probably outside the biosphere below oceans by now).
Such is the case with all long-lived pollution, including forever chemicals, heavy metals, and greenhouse gases.
I’m sharing some thoughts I haven’t vetted, but so far, they keep seeming compelling. Can anyone prove me wrong, that pollution and plastic are, by appropriating others’ land and bodies without their consent, imperialist?
Look at this picture. Do any of the people who created this trash expect to keep it to themselves? No, they expected someone else to stick others with it. That’s how people in the home market of an empire think and act.
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