featheredvelociraptor:

validcriticism:

(This is a draft for an article I’m submitting (by request) to a Canadian Student Christian Movement website. I recently posted a version of it on Facebook and thought some of you might like to read it. The title isn’t great or original, and I’m looking for a more clever pun. Hmu.  

For the last couple of months, there’s been talk of a ban on plastic straws, or even all single-use plastics. The impetus was simple: plastic waste was a real cause of suffering and death for marine animals, and a threat to the general sustainability of life on earth. It’s production is a major factor in carbon emissions. No one was arguing that point. But there was a group speaking out against the ban that is often overlooked in these kinds of discussions. With the power of social media, they’ve made themselves heard: disabled people.

You see, when you have limited or no control over the muscles in your mouth or hands (or you don’t have the latter), drinking can be a hassle. Virtually the only way to drink unaided from a cup can be a bendable straw, which are currently made from plastic. Re-usable metal straws or compostable bamboo straws will benefit some people, but for others, their pointiness can be a hazard. Plastic straws are cheap and readily available everywhere, meaning that it is one of those accessibility concerns that rarely take a second thought. A ban on plastic straws would change that. And people with palsy, spinal damage and Parkinson’s disease were not shutting up about it. Amazingly the responses, if they came at all, were not always understanding.      

I’ve seen commentors on friend’s FB pages say things like ‘I’m not going to kill the planet for the convenience of some disabled people’ and I’m sure that’s not an uncommon sentiment. This ignores of course that a) drinking unaided is not a convenience but a source of dignity and a material need for most of us. And b) while the impact of plastic straws is bad and easy to personalize, they are hardly ‘what’s killing the planet’. 46% of the famous ‘Trash Island’ is composed of fishing nets. But so far, the fishing industry hasn’t had to deal with a ban.   

This is just the first time the concerns of disabled people have gained serious traction in a debate about saving the Earth. The pattern is typical though: a lot of environmentalism puts the burden of saving the planet disproportionately on the poor and disabled.This is not usually the result of malice, but rather ignorance (although persistent and, as in the example above, sometimes willful). Environmentally sustainable products are often more expensive and require more human power, time and effort to use. Resources the rich and abled simply have more of.

Interestingly, the poor and disabled rarely get credit for all the environmentally destructive behavior they can not engage in if they wanted to. Biking to work or not taking a plane on vacation is only considered an admirable sacrifice for the environment if you have the option of doing those things. But if you can’t do those things, but you also need a plastic straw to drink? Or you can barely afford food, let alone sustainably produced items? Or you don’t have the free time, money or hand-eye coordination to forgo any other convenient, cheap, ‘wasteful’ products? Then a lot of environmentalists will blame you, personally, for the destruction of the earth.

On balance, carbon footprint and negative impact on the environment correlate with wealth. Rich people are not only usually more wasteful than poor people (because they can afford to be, and live in places where the effects of that waste are not as noticable), they also by definition have more control over the industries and regulations that truly govern the amount of pollution, overconsumption and waste that ruin the environment. This is how places like Europe can enjoy a higher standard of luxury while still having stricter environmental and labor regulation than other places: we’ve outsourced the social and environmental costs to Asia, Africa and South America.  

Food waste is a political problem. Carbon emissions are a political problem. Child labor is a political problem. These are not personal moral problems that you can disinvest from and be done with it, judging everyone else.

The market will not ever solve these problems. They are a result of the market: they are byproducts of policies that are very profitable to rich and powerful people who can avoid these negative consequences. The market will only succeed in hiding the issue. Usually by relocating to a poorer place and some good marketing. The true solution will only come from a sense that we, as a global community need to reorganize the way we produce and distribute goods and services.

Small tasks are things like changing the rules about food waste so that corporations can’t just deliberately throw food away if they could just as easily have given it to starving people. Possibly setting up a distribution system to make that happen. Maybe disincentivize overproduction by farmers by changing subsidies. Making companies that use forced or inhumane labor practices criminally liable.

Larger things are like: how to transition to an economy that is not based on fossil fuels while minimizing the opportunity for massive poverty and violence. What are the alternative ways to produce energy and plastics? If there aren’t any feasible options, who has to sacrifice what? If we let the market decide, we already know the answer. And it will not be everyone equally.

The inevitability that our current way of life is going to become impossible means that we have to think of new ways of life, not just as individuals, but as a society. It would be really nice if it did not rely on everybody spending more money, and doing more stuff by hand. Not all of us have money. Not all of us have hands.

(for the record: I have both. That is not the point.)

Damage to the environment and unethical business standards are systemic and in the hands of very few people at top and large global businesses. At the individual level the impact we have is minimal but that does not mean that our choices do not matter.

I choose to buy cruelty free, ecologically friendly produced products and recycle. I do my best to keep food waste low and avoid excess packaging.

But I understand that these things are not easy for everyone to do. In fact what I do is limited by time, money and my mental health. The only way we can help reverse the damage we have done to the earth is to play our part as best as we can and understand that not everyone can do everything in the same way.

Flexible straws as an accessible element for those who require them is a tiny drop in the bucket compared to all the other things we can and should be doing to help the environment. And perhaps someone can find a way to make straws out of a fast biodegradable material with the same properties of current bendy straws? Rather than hurting members of our community we need to be focusing on the future with an eye on adaptability and innovation.

So if you don’t need a straw, refuse it. Otherwise leave those who do alone and go about your day conscious of your ecological impact and don’t forget that the biggest problem is a few filthy rich people and some giant corporations.