My War On Plastic
Each and every day, the people of my country Iraq use and abuse plastic without thinking about the dangerous effects it has on the environment. Perhaps this is because they are unaware of them or that it has not been focused on as a problem. The threat of plastics on the environment, people, plants, and animals is something that is swept under the rug and ignored. On the contrary, plastic is taken for granted and is seen as being an essential part of the progress of human civilization without thinking about its long term effects. This unfortunate reality has come into being due to the lack of any campaign to raise awareness about the issue from governments to non-governmental-organizations (NGO’s). Rather than focusing on this environmental concern, they are busy devoting all of their time to issues that are considered to be crucial such as the war on ISIS and war on corruption just to name a couple. These issues remain to be the existential ones, while the war on pollution and plastics is ignored.
To better illustrate the lack of concern for excessive plastic usage in my country, let us consider a couple of examples.
Whenever I purchase something in a small shop or at the market in my country, no matter what it is, I am handed a single-use plastic shopping bag whether I need it or not. Even if I am purchasing something as small as a butter bar, the shop worker will reach his hand into the plastic shopping bag to open it in order to promote me to put my purchase inside as a gesture of gratitude. On top of this unnecessary use of plastic, I will often be handed several single use bags for several small items and then a larger single use plastic bag to carry all of the little bags together. To go even further, if I am purchasing cleaning supplies, those will get yet another single use plastic bag to keep it separate from the food items. So in all reality, I could easily walk away from a small shopping trip with a minimum of two and possibly even six or seven single use plastic bags! Of course, the shop workers bag everything in such a way because they are trying to simplify my carrying of the items home. However, if I choose to politely decline the “generous offer”, the vendor will always ask me why and sometimes they even insist that I take the bag by keeping it open and giving it a shake. If I still chose to decline the offer, I will often notice that the vendor will take offense to my refusal. Quite often, I can get away with not taking the plastic bag by explaining to the vendor that I do not have a basket on my bike or that my house is close by so I will not be needing the bag. Other times, I will just give in and accept the bag in order to create harmony but never do I voice my true concern about being mindful of caring for the environment. I don’t go into it because I feel like they either won’t understand or care and will just add fuel to their fire of harsh judgment of my refusal. I figure it is simply outside of the realm of their interest, or anyone’s interest in Iraq for that matter.
As another example, within my family, over the past few years, my father has developed the habit of consuming only bottled water. This started when we moved out of Mosul due to the invasion of ISIS. His explanation as to why he will only consume water in disposable plastic water bottles is that he says he does not like the water where we currently live outside of the city which, to me, seems like a bit of a nostalgia thing. On top of this, my father also thinks that he has stumbled upon one of the greatest human inventions in his lifetime: a disposable plastic water bottle that holds the precise amount of recommended water in one serving. After he drinks this one serving, he throws it away, creating a great amount of waste in just one day seeing as he drinks several per day. He also discovered another “great” trick with these water bottles through the internet: he drinks the water and then proceeds to squish the bottle, let the air out, and puts the cap back on in order to save space in the trash, obviously not considering the fact that it is still a huge waste of plastic.
After he saw how much space this technique was saving in the trash, he began preaching this method to anyone who would listen. After hearing the grating sound of plastic bottles being squished over and over throughout the day, some of my family members began to get annoyed and upset. This is when I decided to step in and show my father some videos that demonstrate the dangers of plastic on marine life. After he saw some of these, he became more aware of what his habit was doing to the environment and promised me that he would install a water filter instead, which I have yet to see, although he has stopped squishing the bottles.
For me personally, I became aware of the dangers of plastics on our environment many years ago. This is because I have a good understanding of the English language and am therefore able to notice the campaigns enacted by people and organizations around the world in order to raise awareness. As a result, I have been trying to do my part by taking up countless personal recycling projects over the past few years which I am happy to showcase below.
This first pictures shows a wooden shelving rack that I saved from the dumpster. While I was walking through the neighborhood coming back from the city center, I saw a bunch of people collectively trying to get rid of what appeared to be a disassembled chest of drawers. I saw women and children dragging pieces of wood through the streets. For a while, I stood and watched them while they passed by me, lugging one piece at a time. I then continued my walk home but turned back several times to see if they had finished. After about a half hour, when the sun was setting and the streets began to empty, I walked back to the dumpster only to find several pieces of wood in perfect condition and drawers that what suffered some damage from frequent use. I decided to take the pieces home, a few at a time, and with the help of my father, I was able to restore them into these lovely and useful shelves that have withstood two house moves and have become a key piece of furniture in our home’s kitchen.
This next picture is a plastic chair that I also recovered from the dumpster. The photo shows my second attempt to fix it using plastic thread since the first attempt proved successful a few months back but had since worn out. The chair has a second lease on life and is perfectly safe to sit in, despite the need to straighten out the broken leg sometimes. Every time I sit in this chair, I feel a sense of contentment that I an unable to put into words.
Thirdly is pictured a plastic stool that has only a minor break in it which was also recovered from the dumpster. I usually use this stool as a base for my water purifier bucket.
Here is another picture of one of my projects which is a compost bin also recovered from a nearby dumpster. The bin had a large crock in it but I remedied through the use of plastic thread. I discovered through my research that the cracks are actually good in this particular case because they are supposed to provide optimal air flow to the compostable materials within the bin. After this discovery, I decided to drill around two dozen small holes in the plastic in order to create even more airflow. Although I have zero knowledge when it comes to growing plants, I decided to prepare the compost as an experiment as per some instructions on found on some specialized YouTube channels. After putting my findings to use, I still was unsure about whether or not the experiment was a success so about one month ago, I tried mixing the dried not-so-great-looking product in the bin with some of the soil from our garden in a small corner. I then went to a gardening store and asked for “the seeds that could grow right now”. They gave me said seeds and I put them the soil. Unfortunately, just as I expected, nothing happened. In the end, this was a failed experiment for which I have not bothered to learn more about since I am spending my time learning about other things. For now, I do not intend on trying to learn more on this particular topic seeing as vegetables are fairly cheap and readily available anyway.
This next picture is of me holding a Styrofoam mat that I also saved from the dumpster. This mat was possibly used to wrap an electric device of some kind. In any even, I fell in love with it the moment I saw it and am currently using it in my daily in-home fitness routines. Thankfully, it is holding up quite well which I honestly did not expect seeing as I first pick it up almost one year ago. Although it cannot be folded like a typical training mat, I am quite happy that is saved me around $15 and opened up my eyes to the possibility of in-home training which was an idea that is not incredibly popular around here.
In these pictures, you will see a couple different plastic basket towers. One of these is utilized as shoe storage for my daily use while the others are used to keep various home maintenance tools. My family members like to refer to the tall black ones as “the towers” and, despite the lack of actual resemblance, specifically call them the “Burj Khalifas”. This is because they say the towers resemble the famous landmark of the same name in Dubai. This landmark is familiar to us a family because we visited it together back at the beginning for 2014. As you can see in the picture, both have a black exterior. In my culture, it is common to exaggerate and amplify similarities when making a comparison, as you can see with my family’s nickname for my recycled plastic bins.
Lastly, here is another small example of how I try to not only save money, but save the environment from plastic waste. When I feel as if I’ve squeezed the last of the toothpaste out of the tube, I will cut it in half to get to the leftover toothpaste inside. If you try it, you will be amazed at how much toothpaste is still left in there! You just have to put your toothbrush into the tube and move it around to get lots of toothpaste on the brush to ensure a good cleaning session. One issue with this comes with warmer weather. In the summertime, the toothpaste tends to dry out in the short amount of time before I am able to finish whatever is left in the tube. However, during the winter time, I am able to stretch a tube of toothpaste at the least four days longer by using what is left in the tube. الربح من الانترنيت
As you can see, these projects of mine are not going to change the plastics problem of my country as a whole. My hope is that by doing such things, I am able to make an impact on those around me so much so that they will give the use of plastic a second thought. If we all come together, we can make a big impact.
This piece is written in conjunction with American freelance artist Suzanne Griffin.
