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TOM WHEELER:

Welcome to The EcoNews Report. I'm your host this week, Tom Wheeler, executive director of EPIC, the Environmental Protection Information Center. And I hope everybody had a great Fourth of July. This month, we are also celebrating Plastic Free July. And to join us to talk about how to take actions to remove plastics from our lives and from our environment is Jen Savage, senior plastic pollution manager at the Surfrider Foundation. Hey, Jen.

I always love having you on. You're one of my favorite people. So I'm thrilled to have this show and to be talking about plastic pollution in case someone is living under a rock. Can you kind of summarize the state of the problem here? Why is plastic bad? I thought it was just kind of like this inert substance. It's kind of like a rock. Is that not true?

JENNIFER SAVAGE:

Yeah, it's almost natural, except completely not. So I think that most people at this point are familiar with what a problem plastic is in our oceans. You hear about the plastic islands out there, the great Pacific garbage patch, you see the pictures of the birds with all the plastic in their stomachs and the sea turtle with And this is a huge legitimate problem for our ocean environment and the creatures who depend on it, of course. It's also increasingly more of a human health problem.

So for folks who haven't seen the stories that come out with horrific regularity, they're finding microplastics in our bodies more and more. So there's plastic in our blood, there's plastic in our lungs, there's plastic in breast milk for people who are breastfeeding, there's plastic in placenta, it's just sort of on and on and on. There's some recent story that is like plastic in testicles. So there's basically not a lot of parts of the human body that are untouched by plastic at this point.

WHEELER:

Jen, I'm glad you brought up that last example because I feel like men probably wouldn't care about like all of the first ones, blood, lungs, whatever, when you start getting into the testicles, then then people will take you seriously.

SAVAGE:

attention. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Having, having male body parts does not make you immune from the harm that plastic has caused. So, so you might really want to pay attention to how pervasive it is in our atmosphere. And there's additionally for people who live near facilities where plastic is being produced, you know, cancer rates are skyrocketing. You know, there's a section in Louisiana referred to as cancer alley. There's a similar region in Texas. That's the same way. It's a fossil fuel product. So it's a, it's an incredible contributor to greenhouse gases. And if we want to slow climate change, we have to stop plastic production. So that's the whole sort of big picture of some of the ways in which plastic is bad.

WHEELER:

All right. So let's talk about what individuals can do then to remove plastic from their lives. Or let's talk about this idea of plastic free July. What are we trying to do here? I think the name is somewhat obvious what we're trying to do, but you outline what this month is about.

SAVAGE:

Yeah, so this Plastic Free July, the concept was started by this woman, Rebecca Prince-Ruiz. She's founded Plastic Free Foundation. This is all happening in Western Australia in 2011. So, you know, it was before we had so much knowledge and momentum around plastics as we do today, but it was still an obvious problem even back then. And so the idea was like a lot of things to offer people a challenge, like can you make a change for 30 days or in this case, 31 days, I guess, and see how much better your life is and feel good about not contributing to this plastic nightmare that we are living in. And so it's, you know, it's an opportunity for people to make kind of a small commitment, but experiment with making large scale change in their own lives.

WHEELER:

I like it because it's it's actually a meaningful thing you can do. We have all of these other like no months, like no shave November or like there's some pun on January where you don't drink in January. I forget what that one's called. But yeah, exactly. So but this is actually going to be one that will benefit the environment and benefit probably your own health in the long run as we get plastics out of our environment. All right. So let's go into ways that individuals can take individual action to remove plastics from their life. And let's start with plastics in the home. The kind of most obvious category, the way that we individually use plastics. What are some tips and recommendations that you might have to help people move away from plastic? Because it's ubiquitous. It's everywhere. It's.

SAVAGE:

It's, yeah, it's really, really challenging. I mean, when you think about like your own home, what's the most challenging thing for you? Like if you're trying to do Plastic Free July and you had to buy the products that you need.

WHEELER:

So for me, it would be probably refrigerated products that I get from the grocery store that they just don't offer a glass alternative that and it's less of a big deal these days since folks like you helped to ban plastic bags in California. But plastic bags are still kind of a big deal because they're they're still somewhat everywhere, despite plastic bag bans. I still have a lot of them floating around my lives from takeout joints, which probably shouldn't be using them to the bags that you put your produce in at the grocery store. Those are pretty well everywhere.

Gosh, what else? And then the garden. I'm a big gardener. I have a ton of the little plastic start containers that break down so easily. And I know that there's a ton of plastic in my garden as a result because those things just UV biodegrade so quick and turn brittle and shatter. And I don't get all the pieces all the time. So those are, I think, my areas of plastic sin. Do those kind of line up with yours or do we have data about like how how plastics are in our lives, like where where they're the most prevalent?

SAVAGE:

Well, so what I would recommend people start with is like check out your trash, right? Check out your recycling. And we can talk a little bit about the fallacy of recycling as well. I mean, I'll just digress very quickly to say the only thing, the only kind of plastic you should put in your recycling is if it's one, two, or five. And if it's anything else, don't put it in there. It just gunks everything up. It just makes it harder. None of it's getting recycled.

I mean, most stuff that goes into the recycling stream in California goes down to Mexico and gets burned. So recycling is such a fallacy in so many ways. So recycle your glass, recycle your aluminum, recycle your plastic one or twos, but really don't indulge in wishful thinking that you throw something in the recycling bin and some sort of magic happens, right? So consider that trash and look at your trash and see like what is in my garbage and how much of it is plastic and then what can I substitute, right? So, you know, my, one of my hardest things is like I wear contacts, so you don't have to buy saline solution. It only comes in plastic. I maybe could find some TikTok instructions on how to make like homemade contact lens solution, but I haven't gone down that road yet. You know, and it's, it's kind of like, ah, to some degree like household stuff, there's a lot of options.

My, my thing that makes me crazy is when I buy something that's plastic free and then it doesn't work because then I'm like, ah, I'm trying to do the right thing, but I'm wasting money.

WHEELER:

Or the things that look like they're going to be plastic free. And you're like, I'm doing the right thing. This thing is like covered in like what looks like cardboard. I'm not sure how my laundry detergent is covered in cardboard and how it's staying in there. But, yeah, I'm doing this right thing. And then you like do a little bit more of an investigation. And it's just it's like greenwashed, right? They just put something over the the plastic. So you don't realize you're buying plastic. That's happened to me before. And I was so mad. Oh, yeah.

SAVAGE:

So it's just, and the greenwashing is intense. So you have to really be on guard, but to kind of steer back to positive, first of all, look at your trash, think about your routine, try to identify like where are the main places in my life that I am purchasing and consuming plastic and are there substitutes? So there's the really easy ones that I think a lot of people are familiar with, which is like have a, keep a reusable water bottle around. I have a number of reusable coffee mugs at this point. I have them like stashed in the car. I have one in my backpack. I have some in the house for when I'm taking coffee to go and just like make it as easy as possible. I also have a little silverware pack that I keep in my purse. It's just a fork and a spoon because I forgot there was a knife in there and they took it away at the airport, but I use it all the time.

So when I go out to eat, instead of having the plastic handed to me, I'm like, no, no, no, I'm on it. It's really simple. We live somewhere where there, there's a lot of options, say to buy food in bulk, to go to a farmer's market. You know, I think almost anywhere you live in Humboldt, unless you're way, way out in the hills, you can go to a farmer's market. And if you're way out in the hills, you're probably growing your own food and stuff anyway. But look at, look at the options. I think we talked about this before. I would rather make my own salsa or buy it in glass than buy salsa in plastic. I got so mad at my husband because he bought olive oil at Costco and it comes in plastic containers. And I'm like, you can buy olive oil in glass. Like, don't do this.

And so there's, there's lots of little things. Sometimes it's a little more expensive. I mean, there's trade-offs. I go to grocery outlet all the time to see what options I can find there. That's where I buy my olive oil because I can buy it in glass there and it's cheaper. But so, so really just kind of inventorying your own household and look for the easy ways that you can eliminate the plastic. And don't be afraid if you go to the co-op and you go to the deli and like, say like, oh, I have some beeswax. I have my own container. Could you put some tofu in there instead? I'm like going crazy every time I go to the co-op because the amount of plastic and all the to-go stuff, it's just like clamshells everywhere. I'm like, ah! So, okay.

WHEELER:

So it's something I've seen pop up a lot lately, and this appears to be again, maybe a greenwash is the bioplast.

SAVAGE:

Sorry

WHEELER:

Okay. Yeah. So, so it sounds like you have a well-rehearsed rant perhaps on, on Bioplast that you'd like to deliver.

SAVAGE:

This is one of the most infuriating situations that happens to me almost every single day, which is this innocent consumer who's trying to do the right thing and they see like biodegradable, compostable. Oh, this is good. It's like what you're talking about with your laundry detergent or something. You're like, I'm doing the right thing for the me and for the planet and for the whales. And then like, yay. Or things that say they're compostable. And we have yet to see any bioplastic, compostable, biodegradable, whatever, however it's defined, live up to the hype.

First of all, there's very little regulation. There's very little official definition. There are almost no facilities that take these as far as recyclability or compostability. So you think you're buying something that is better, but there's nowhere for it to go except for a landfill. And the production of these materials is largely still extremely toxic. And they still have plastic in them. And the plastic doesn't break down in the environment. There was a new study that came out a month ago, maybe six weeks ago, where they took fabrics, textiles, with recycled plastic textiles. And what happened when they exposed them to seawater over time, the natural part biodegraded and the plastic part did not. So it's still, yeah, it's not a solution. And it's like a huge distraction from the real solution, which is we need to stop buying and making unnecessary plastic.

WHEELER:

And those plastics, if they do biodegrade, are going to be biodegrading in a landfill where they're turning into methane and then going back into our atmosphere as a super greenhouse gas. So bioplast, not the solution. So solutions are glass. What are other alternatives to plastic? I think that you mentioned the beeswax lined canvas, which has been a discovery of mine that I've loved. What else do you use to to replace plastic?

SAVAGE:

I use, I mean, I use a lot of glass. I use aluminum, stainless steel. I mean, aluminum has some issues as well, but it's not as, I mean, we're to some extent consumerism in any form is harmful, right? We're extracting resources and turning them into something else and then creating waste, but you can, there's better choices to be made within that system. So I don't have, there's not an answer that I have for everything. And I want to get to that point after we get through some more of the things that people can do, but I like, I just save all my glass jars and I take them to the store and I put stuff in there when I go to the co-op, which is where I do most of my grocery shopping. Like I just don't use the produce bags. I just throw everything loose in my cart and wash the lettuce when I get home and try to buy stuff in bulk. And it's, yeah, it's not perfect. I mean, I just do what I can, but I also have a lot like over the years have accumulated like a number of stainless steel containers. And, and so I'll put things in that, like we went to the, we went camping and I put overnight oats in my steel container.

WHEELER:

There we go. Yeah. And individual efforts are going to cumulatively add up. And so I thank everybody for for doing their best this month. Take it seriously. See how much plastic you can remove from your lives for one month. And you can then judge whether you want to continue to do this into the future. The EcoNews report. We're talking about Plastic Free July with Jen Savage. But let's talk about other things that we can do during Plastic Free July to help celebrate a month free of plastic for for you as as a surf rider. I imagine that you think about plastics in the ocean a lot. And are there events going on, beach cleanups or anything like that? What can people do to help remove plastic from the environment?

SAVAGE:

Yeah, so perfect timing because we just had 4th of July, and I'm not sure if you're aware, but July 5th is commonly known in our beach environmental world as the dirtiest day of the year, because there's so much garbage everywhere after the 4th of July. And just for example, yesterday, 5th of July, I was hanging out with some women and one of them mentioned like, oh, yeah, like my neighborhood is trash, there's fireworks and solo cups everywhere, just like all over the ground. Another friend of mine went to a peninsula beach cleanup, sent some pictures from Samoa Beach of just the gargantuan mess there. And then there's just been like a number of other just people posting on Nextdoor about all the trash.

So even just like right around Humboldt County, it's just the mess that is left after the 4th of July is pretty profound. So there were some beach cleanups on the 5th, but that doesn't mean like if you missed a beach cleanup, that doesn't mean that you can't take part. And so on our Surfrider website, which is cleanups.surfrider.org, you can do a solo beach cleanup. So let's say like you go out for a walk on the beach, Tom, or anybody goes out for a walk on the beach, you can pick up some trash and just keep track of what you're picking up and enter that data into our database. And then that helps us when we go to say like we need more regulation around these kind of products because we keep finding them on the beach.

WHEELER:

I know there's another really cool Surfrider initiative that I want to highlight, and that's your ocean friendly restaurants. Can you talk about that real quick?

SAVAGE:

Yeah, sure. So this is one of my favorite programs because it involves the business community and it is a way for people to support the good work that's being done by doing something fun, which is going out to eat, maybe with some friends, maybe with family. And I mean, do you go out to eat, Tom?

WHEELER:

Of course I go out to eat. Shout out to Oaxaca Grill, which is my favorite place to go out to eat. If you haven't been to Oaxaca Grill, check them out.

SAVAGE:

Well, next time you're at Oaxaca Grill, you could suggest to them that they become an ocean-friendly restaurant. And so in short, an ocean-friendly restaurant is one that is committed to cutting out wasteful single-use plastics, right? And so we offer them like a really simple framework for how to be an ocean-friendly restaurant. We have a list of criteria, but in short, they shouldn't be using single-use plastics. So right now we have six restaurants in Humboldt, like I said. So we have Heddy's Pizza up in Trinidad, my favorite pizza in Oaxaca.

WHEELER:

It's really good pizza, really, really, really good pizza.

SAVAGE:

Yeah, it's really good. I went there the other day and I got a couple of slices and I was just driving down to the parking lot by Trinidad Head to eat them and I didn't even wait. Like I just ate them as I was driving. Like I couldn't even wait 30 seconds, but yeah. So Heddy's, Lighthouse Grill, also in Trinidad, our first ocean-friendly restaurant, Six Rivers Brewery, and then Salchi and Curtin Cookin' at the Redwood Curtin Breweries in Arcata and Eureka, and then Chippo's down in Southern Humboldt. So, or not Southern Humboldt. Oh my gosh.

WHEELER:

Humboldt. It's such a- Culture Cove is southern Humboldt. I'm not sure how much further south you could get in Humboldt County. Okay.

SAVAGE:

got in trouble one time for referring petrolias not they don't consider themselves yeah

WHEELER:

Petrolia, they have lots of thoughts about themselves.

SAVAGE:

I've gotten in trouble before for misdefining Southern Humboldt, but yeah, I think she'll do okay. Anyway, Chippewas Shelter Cove ocean friendly I mean

WHEELER:

Anything south of Eureka's, Southern Humboldt to me. That sounds like a lot of shade on Southern Humboldt. All right. So you have the ocean friendly restaurants. That's fantastic. We should all support ocean friendly restaurants. And as you said, if you have a favorite restaurant, you should be encouraging them to do better and to be an ocean friendly restaurant too. And when you're traveling, you can also check out other ocean friendly restaurants across the state of California. So tell me more about how we can find other ocean friendly restaurants.

SAVAGE:

Yeah, so we have an ocean friendly restaurant map on our website. So if you go to surfrider.org, you can find that, or I can send you a link if you want to put it in the show notes and it's super easy. I have it on my phone. So if I'm traveling, I can quickly look up what's an ocean friendly restaurant and then try to try to support those places because our values are aligned.

WHEELER:

So we've covered kind of individual actions that people can take to remove plastic from their lives. And as we've said before, the cumulative effect of a lot of individuals trying to do better adds up. I can kind of see this in my own life with me, my friends, my family, how much we've been able to reduce plastic through concerted effort. But it's not ever going to be enough. We can never have individual actions solve this plastic problem that we have. Do you want to go into some of the legislation that Surfrider is supporting or some of the ideas behind the legislation? How can we remove plastic at a more systemic level? How can we tackle this at a national or statewide?

SAVAGE:

So before I go into federal legislation that's being proposed, I want to mention the Global Plastic Treaty. So this is truly the best opportunity that we have to slow down and maybe solve all the problems that plastic pollution is causing. This is a treaty that, the treaty is not finalized yet, but the concept for it came into existence last year. The UN said we're going to have a Global Plastic Treaty. And so there's been negotiations underway. There's been two of five negotiating meetings that have happened so far. I actually attended the second one, which was in Paris, which is crazy.

WHEELER:

I remember emailing you and getting the auto response that I'm away from my computer traveling for work and then seeing on Instagram that you were traveling for work in Paris and was just so mad that Epic has never sent me to Paris for work. I'm sure that there are trees in Paris that I could go, you know, hug or something like.

SAVAGE:

There's a few, I saw a few.

WHEELER:

So I'm sorry, I just wanted to share how jealous I was that you got to go to this cool international treaty event. Tell us about how that second negotiating session in Paris went.

SAVAGE:

Sure. And that is not like a normal work trip for me, but we have affiliates, Surfrider Europe, and they have people in Paris and they've been very involved. So I was going there to support them because I'm a helpful person. I try to support my colleagues when given the chance. But yeah, it was, as most political things are, you know, a combination of like super interesting and, you know, a lot of moments of painful, boring procedural stuff and lots of hopeful moments because there were so many activists from all over the world representing all these different segments of society. They're unified against this problem. And then also like really disheartening because the United States is pretty terrible. Most countries have joined what's called the high ambition coalition, where they're acknowledging like we have to cut production, we want to make sure that a transition away from plastics is fair and equitable. We want to protect human health. We want to reduce climate, all these things, right? Like it's great. Yes. Whether or not the United States is part of it.

WHEELER:

I can almost assure you that we are.

SAVAGE:

not. No, we are aligned with Russia, Saudi Arabia and China.

WHEELER:

So that's the Low Ambition Coalition, is that correct?

SAVAGE:

You could define it that way. Yeah. So a lot of like highfalutin talk on the surface about environmental justice and commitment. And then when it comes to the actual nuts and bolts of a treaty, rejecting the notion that production should be slowed, rejecting the notion that there should be mandatory goals and binding measures. It's more like, no, no, we should do this voluntarily, nation by nation. That hasn't worked very well so far, historically. So we really want the United States to do better. And we have a great champion in Congressman Huffman. So that's good. He's been pushing the Biden administration to do better. Yeah. That's one place where people can really show support because if we could pull off a good global plastic treaty, then we could make global change, which is what we need.

WHEELER:

Are there countries that kind of have set the example of what post-plastic living could look like? Is there like the most advanced example of what we would want to strive towards? Like Estonia doing something really cool? That's a

SAVAGE:

Great. That's a great question. I, I need to get more familiar with, with what all the different countries are doing, because some of them don't get the same attention, right? Because the larger countries take up more space in the media, and the United States isn't really great, always about covering global, global news. But the European Union has done a lot of work and moved in a lot of really good directions to create a, like, reusable-based society, more reusable stuff, more refillable options, eliminating single-use plastics, having plans in place to eliminate single-use plastics that aren't outright banned yet. Some of the countries in Africa, for example, like, they are also striving for a reuse and refill-based systems, which is what it used to be before, like, we flooded everywhere with plastic. The problems vary so much from country to country, right? So, like, a lot of these countries, we are shipping all of our, quote, recycling to them, right? So they're being inundated. They're, like, their plastic problem is largely, like, us dumping plastic on them, as well as infrastructure challenges and, and supply challenges, a lot of things being, not access to safe water, things like that. So there's a lot of, a lot of examples of great actions within different countries, but is there one country that has figured it out and is plastic-free? Not yet.

WHEELER:

What's going on in the state of California with regards to plastics? What can people help support? What should we be talking to our assembly member Wood and our state Senator McGuire about? Yeah, well.

SAVAGE:

Last year, California passed this huge piece of legislation, SB54, which is being held up, as often happens with California, as an example the rest of the nation should follow. It was funny, having been working in California policy for so long, and even though we don't win everything, we still have a good shot at winning stuff. And then to go to the UN and be like, oh no, I'm suddenly, I'm on the team that isn't doing very well. I was like, is this what it's like to try to pass laws in Florida? Maybe.

WHEELER:

I feel like California should just run the country, right? Like we I feel like we've done so well as a state in the last couple of years, passing really good legislation that just give us the keys to the country. We'll take care of it.

SAVAGE:

We did pretty good on a lot of things. But this piece of legislation passed that is supposed to reduce single-use plastic use and production by 2030 in the state of California really dramatically. So most single-use packaging would be phased out over the next few years. The main thing people could do if they want to advocate at the state level is push Assembly Member Wood and Senator McGuire to make sure that that law is implemented well. So not very sexy or, you know, here's a fast action alert, but SB 54, implementation.

WHEELER:

Right. SP 54 implementation computers right now and write to them. Right. Yeah. Yeah. They'll, they'll wonder why all of a sudden 10 AM on a Saturday, they're getting a bunch of emails about plastic pollution. It's because of our loyal listeners.

SAVAGE:

Exactly. If people that listen to EcoNews Report can't make immediate massive change, I don't know who can.

WHEELER:

So I would love to hear, speaking of our listeners, if you are trying this Plastic Free July, I'd love to hear your success stories or the ways that you've struggled. I think that we could probably get a column in the next EcoNews Magazine about some of your success stories and lessons learned. Let's democratize this, collectivize this, and come up with some really good ideas on how to remove plastic from our lives. I'm sure we can all learn from each other. So if you have a good story of how you've succeeded or maybe failed, but you admirably failed, you failed in trying to do better, write those to me at tom at wildcalifornia.org. I'd love to hear them and collect them into a little package.

SAVAGE:

Oh, that's a great idea. I was going to say to people too, if you are trying to find something that you that you need, and it only comes in plastic, like take a picture of it, post it hashtag plastic free July tag, the manufacturer say like tag epic, you can say I need a I need an alternative here. What's where's the alternative?

WHEELER:

All right. It always goes quickly when we're talking to you. Any last advice on plastic free July before we part people.

SAVAGE:

might feel like individual actions aren't enough but it's so it is really important and it's like an opportunity to exercise power over your own life and your own choices and it feels so much better to eliminate unnecessary plastic as we're trying to make change on this global and national and state level. So yeah give it a try and there's tons of resources out there for finding alternatives and so just don't be afraid don't be afraid to try to make some

WHEELER:

I've always had the experience when I do something like this. I feel more empowered. I feel less hopeless in this world where things often feel beyond my control. There are things that we can control. So let's control those things in our own lives. Jen, I always enjoy talking to you. Thank you so much. This has been another episode of the EcoNews Report. Join us again next week on this time and channel for more environmental news from the North Coast of California.