Jess Irish: The Cost of Convenience (Event 1)

“My convenience contains an absurdity of time”, quotes Jess Irish in her film This Mortal Plastik. Endless years, days, and minutes of impossible decay wrapped up in the seemingly harmless clear, crinkly plastics that surround our everyday lives. In her film, Irish proposes an interesting question: “Why will ordinary things outlast us all – by generations?”. Why must we feel the need to constantly produce the endless mountains of plastic we use today as a building block for our society, no matter how unstable it is. And more importantly, how do we stop?

 

A Greenpeace Philippines representation of a dead whale from ingestion of plastic. The... [+] representation is increasingly becoming a reality.

(image from https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2018/04/09/yet-another-dead-whale-is-grave-reminder-of-our-massive-plastic-problem/?sh=31536fd56cd2


 

In her talk, Irish takes a deeper look into her interest on plastics to give us a better understanding of the effect they have on the world, and a little bit of a better understanding on how she became so connected to the issue. I especially liked her use of her daughter's fascination with whales as a way to encourage advocacy for plastics. As stated in her film, Irish’s daughter fell in love with everything about whales. In her talk, she went into more depth to help others better understand how encouragement and activism that begins young can actually encourage many others around them. When her daughter became interested in whales, she would come home with facts and statistics about whales constantly. In such a way, this “encourages us to care about our fascination”, and to become advocates for them. Whether it be whales or plastic, encouraging our younger generations to care about their actions, and giving them the facts so that they too can encourage others to become more interested in the issues that surround us may. As Irish stated, “Kids and the natural world is the perfect playground to get them invested in taking care of the natural world”, and teaching us how to continually hope for a brighter future. 

 

Plastic Plastic Facts & Figures - Plastic Soup Foundation

(image from https://www.plasticsoupfoundation.org/en/plastic-facts-and-figures/#productie

 

Another factor that was stressed in both the film and Irish’s talk was the growing rate of plastic use in our society. According to UCSB ecologist Roland Geyer, “the world has made as much plastic in the past 12 years it did in the previous half-century” (Zhang). The increasing rate of plastics found in our society leads to higher rates of plastic pollution, and since plastic does not break down for centuries, our pollution remains. Indeed, the history of a plastic society is recent. While the first modern plastic was made in 1907, it wasn’t until the 50’s and 60’s in which mankind was able to improve plastic production to make it more affordable (Plummer). Due to this emphasis of plastic in our society, we have become complacent with using cheap and foregetable objects and “awaying them” without a second thought. Just this year, 160,000 plastic bags will be consumed per second, many of which will simply be thrown away after a single use (The World Counts). And this trash does not go away. Now, to top it all off, microplastics make up 11 percent of total ocean plastic currently in the ocean, where it continues to find its way into our bodies, food, and water (Lay and Murphy).

 

How Long Does It Take for Plastic to Decompose? - The Earthling Co.

(image from https://theearthlingco.com/blogs/news/how-long-does-it-take-for-plastic-to-decompose


 

On the idea of our heavy reliance on plastics, the use of oil and fossil fuels in our society was brought up in Irish’s talk the other day. Our current society is built off of the idea that we have a continuous supply of fossil fuels and oil that we can use endlessly without consequence. While this idea makes for a great dream, the reality is far from it. Curious about why we continue to use oil so fervently, I asked Irish during her talk. According to her, “people want to go towards a known thing in crisis”, whether that be a person, place, or thing. In crises that relate to the environment, we turn towards the newscasters and information sharers as our sources. However, it is sadly the case that many politicians that are supposed to lead our society to a better future are heavily influenced by big oil companies (McGreal). Because of this, to actually make the change our society needs we need to take the risk as communities and come together for change.

 How Dependent is Society on Oil? - The Norwood Resource

(image from https://thenorwoodresource.org.au/article/how-dependent-is-society-on-oil/

 

The plastics we use are “a pause between time and no time” with our once-and-away mentality. However, as especially seen in Irish’s talk, we must emphasize the need to stop the pollution of our planet. When asked if we should still remain optimistic about this dire situation, Irish agreed. Now is not the time to lose hope, where we still have the chance to encourage generations to improve on our faults, and can still instill the fascination of things like whales and plastic pollution into them. At the end of the day, we can control how we want the future to look, and that depends on our determination to step away from pollution and towards a more sustainable society. 

 

(image from https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution



 

  1. Lau, Winnie, and Margaret Murphy. “Microplastics Are a Big—and Growing—Part of Global Pollution.” Pew.org, 30 Mar. 2021, www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2021/03/30/microplastics-are-a-big-and-growing-part-of-global-pollution.

  2. McGreal, Chris. “How a Powerful US Lobby Group Helps Big Oil to Block Climate Action.” The Guardian, 19 July 2021, www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/19/big-oil-climate-crisis-lobby-group-api.

  3. Plummer, Robert. “Plastic Fantastic: How It Changed the World.” BBC News, 11 Jan. 2018, www.bbc.com/news/business-42646025.

  4. The World Counts. “The World Counts.” Www.theworldcounts.com, 2022, www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/planet-earth/waste/plastic-bags-used-per-year/story.

  5. Zhang, Sarah. “Half of All Plastic Was Made in the Past 13 Years.” The Atlantic, The Atlantic, 19 July 2017, www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/07/plastic-age/533955/.

 

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