Plastic is all around us. It is the defining material of the twenty-first century. The slow, toxic degradation of plastic waste in the environment is an epidemic hiding in plain sight.
But once you see it, you can't unsee it.
Microplastics have been found in every environment on the planet—including places humans don't even visit, like the bottom of the ocean, and places where humans don't live, like the top of Mount Everest. They are found in our food, in our drinking water, in our blood, in the placenta. They can breech the blood-brain barrier.
We don't fully understand the effects that microplastics have on human health, or on the health of our ecosystems, but—and this is just one man's opinion—I'm gonna say it's probably negative.
Bummer way to start off the blog. But I assure you, greencomber is not about alarmism—it's not really even about activism—it's about empowerment. It's not your fault or mine that plastics have become a global scourge, but as consumers, we do have a responsiblity to make informed, conscientious choices. That's not always easy. Greencomber wants to make it easier by finding non-plastic alternatives for the items you shop for online. We promise that every product we surface and suggest will not contain any plastic, ever.
It's a little exhausting today to keep track of the myriad pressing, worthy issues that demand attention. And, even within the world of ecological activism and climate awareness, it can feel overwhelming to bounce from cause to cause. But plastic pollution is both personal and universal; local and global. The bag of chips you tossed might get blown from the trash to the park. Or it might get hauled off, dumped in a landfill, and disappear from your sight—only to degrade and seep into the soil, only to make its way back into someone else's drinking water.
Why should we care? Because we're all part of this cycle of waste, and it's coming back to all of us, everywhere, the world over. No economic status can insulate you. It is exactly like greenhouse gas emissions in that way (a topic we'll surely cover in this blog).
Certainly there are great organizations doing commendable work by organizing clean-ups, raising money, taking the issue to city and town government. We want to be part of that community, too, and in the future we hope to make it part of our approach.
But for now, greencomber is committed to the supply-side of the problem: We have empathy for the consumer who wants to make environmentally sound choices but has been stuck in a pattern of online shopping that enables frictionless transactions and rewards a set-it-and-forget-it mindset. Let's reintroduce some friction into our decisionmaking. Let's consider carefully how we choose the products we use and throw away.
Disclaimer: I write all blogs the old-fashioned way—with my own brain, not with AI.