“What’s styro-foam, Grandpa?”
Some day I’ll be an old guy, like my father and his father.
When that happens, I’ll tell them a story about Thursday night in Capitola, an idyllic central California beach town.
I’ll tell them about how plastic and styro-foam (expanded and extruded polystyrene) used to be everywhere on the land and in the ocean. I’ll tell them about how it used to strangle and choke animals like albatross and sea turtles.
Then I’ll tell them how people got organized, pulled together the best research and made smart changes to clean up our planet. I’ll tell them how scientists and engineers figured out how to make the same containers out of materials that turn into soil when we are done using them.
When I was a kid I would take bites out of my styro-foam cups and chew the stuff a bit. I probably even ate some of it. Then I’d take another bite. The texture was interesting. But I had the odd feeling that no matter how long I chewed it, it was still styro-foam. It didn’t dissolve and break apart in my mouth like food, leaves or paper. Then I’d spit the bright white foam blob into my hand and throw it away. It’s still out there, somewhere.
Thursday night at the Capitola City Council meeting I joined dozens of local citizens who spoke passionately and intelligently about banning styrofoam and plastic products from their city’s food service industry.
And I listened to the responses of the council: some measured and others rambling, but all deeply thoughtful in their own way.
It was heartening to hear true wisdom from elected officials and it was heartbreaking to hear some elected officials play into the plastic industry’s illogic, again.
But the heroes last night were the kids. They were brave, funny and articulate.
When I was their age I wasn’t speaking to the city council, I was chewing on styrofoam!
A young woman from Capitola stood in front of her city council and said: “Styro-foam and plastic are bad for us, they’re bad for the ocean, they kill animals, and they shouldn’t be in our food, what’s so hard about banning them from our town? Just ban them. It’s a no-brainer.”
She was right. It’s not hard to connect the dots. But the plastic and restaurant industries are big and powerful. They know that first it will be Capitola, then a few more towns. Then it will go beyond food service to packaging materials. Pretty soon we’ll have bans on all non-essential petroleum products.
The industry lobbyists tried to stop the ban on styro-foam and plastic. But on Thursday night, they failed. The ban was upheld and Capitola is becoming a cleaner and greener community.
Some day, we’ll live in petroleum-free communities. These first steps--these small revolutions--are building towards that vision.
June 29, 2007