Plastic is everywhere. We pump crude oil from the ground and then process it into just about anything we want.

It’s on and in all your electronics. Kitchens and bathrooms are mostly coated in it. Around 60% of all clothing is technically considered a type of plastic. Then there’s furniture, cars, ships, and even the internal coating of drink cans.

Our world is inundated with plastic, not just in our surroundings but also in our food and bodies. About 300 million tons of plastic are manufactured each year, including a mind-boggling five trillion plastic bags and 583 billion plastic bottles.

That’s about 650 plastic bags per person annually, each taking about 1,000 years to disintegrate. All that plastic breaks down into microscopic fragments that can quickly enter our bodies.

Studies show that microplastics can enter our bloodstream and even end up in our brains, causing inflammation, neurological disorders, or even neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s.

But there’s plenty of action being taken to try to change our addiction to plastic. The End Plastics Initiative, part of the Washington, D.C.,-based Earth Day organization, aims to reduce our dependence on plastic by 60% over the next 16 years.

Reckon spoke with Aidan Charron, the director of Earth Day’s plastic initiative, about what’s happening in that world and how we can cut back.

Reckon:

There still seems to be a lack of public awareness about plastic. Some people don’t believe it’s harmful. What strategies do you use when encountering people who have no idea or are reluctant to think this stuff is bad for us?

Aidan Charron:

That’s part of the reason we wrote the Babies vs. Plastics report. There’s a main group of people that are saying they don’t want to believe the big issues we’re having with plastic. That’s hard to do when faced with all the evidence. If you don’t want to believe that oil is killing you, you have to understand at least that there are 16,000 possible chemicals and only 4,200 of them are non-toxic, and that’s only because those are the only ones that have been tested. I tell people to look into some of these chemicals and what they can do to our bodies and the environment.

Why did you call it babies vs plastic?

We wanted to convey the idea that plastic affects all of us and isn’t just floating in the sea far away.

But it’s also not just hurting minority groups, like indigenous populations and Black and brown communities. It’s affecting everybody, including those in the frontline communities dealing with the most pollution types. We chose the name because we wanted people to know that our children are also being exposed to these chemicals among groups most of us don’t think about.

Given that plastic is used in our clothes, phones, laptops, advanced medical devices, and even inside our bodies, is ending plastic a practical vision?

We’re not completely crazy. We know plastic will never go away completely. That’s why we came up with the 60% reduction by 2040 goal. We do see that as feasible because 50% of all plastic is single-use. So if we phase out single-use plastic and make sure that all the materials are reusable, that requires us to transition backward even to some materials that are actually inert, like glass or aluminum, and in a lot of cases, stainless steel.

We can go ahead and cut off 50% of our production right there. That involves coming up with alternatives to the plastic we put in laptops and, for example, building materials that don’t use regenerative materials. PVC piping, a widely used building material, is one of the most dangerous types of piping out there. If we can transition away from those things, that will eventually lead us to that 60% reduction goal.

Is there a new technology out there that could replace plastics?

We’re a little hesitant to talk about it because sometimes, the new technology or material in five years turns out not to be so great for the environment or people. The ones I’ve seen are pretty cool and are things like mycelium or mushrooms to replace  Styrofoam packaging. The question with things like that is, is it scalable? Is it expensive? What investments do we need to make to get it going?

Then there’s hemp, right? Hemp is an extremely versatile material that we seem to ignore.

The alternatives to fast-fashion clothing are well known, and it’s a sector where we can easily progress in replacing it. That would be organic hemp, organic cotton, and wool, which are all regenerative. It’s just better than wearing stuff that could also power a car. It’s wild to think we are wearing oil.

How can regular people like me and my neighbors cut back on our plastic use?

Every environmentalist you talk to will tell you to use more renewable and reusable materials. And that is really the simplest thing to do: use reusable water bottles, preferably made of glass, stainless steel, or aluminum.

Transition away from Saran wrap to tin foil or aluminum foil if you can. I also use cotton and beeswax materials to cover my food. Plastic Tupperware has inserted itself into every part of society in the U.S. Switch to glass. By heating plastic food containers in a microwave, you’re exposing yourself to the plastics of the container and the microplastics already in your food.

Many of these big plastic-using companies, like Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and Nestle, go to great lengths to greenwash us. And yet, I know they hire highly intelligent business executives and creatives who surely know the products they manufacture harm people, wildlife, and the environment.

Do you ever think about who these people are, what they stand for, and how it would be much easier if they admitted what we already know about their products?

Yes, it would be much easier if they were honest. Then, I wouldn’t have to work as hard to ensure that at least somebody’s being honest. Part of my job is talking to government officials and getting them to be honest about plastic use.

Companies are a little bit more complicated. I understand they all have families and their living expenses. But it’s hard for me to think what the price is for someone to sell their soul and the souls of 8 billion people. I get it. A CEO making $200 million a year is a lot of money. But then you go down the line, like, you are a chemical engineer for Coca-Cola developing a new set of plastics for $80,000 a year. That’s all it took for you to sell out?

Do you think that has to do with the fact that plastic is such an enormous and useful part of our culture and is elevated above how we feel about garbage, sewage, and littering? How might that change?

I also think that. Hopefully, in my lifetime, more burdens will be placed on these companies regarding the damage they’re doing. Plastic is cheap and quick. But then there’s all the underlying health costs that producers don’t have to worry about.

Plastic and its additive chemicals cost the healthcare industry $250 billion a year because of the different health issues it causes. That’s just in the U.S. Plastic producers don’t have to pay anything towards those costs. We’ll see big plastic changes if the healthcare industry becomes involved.

In the same vein, do you think those big plastic producers will have to bear some legal responsibility for the health issues and pollution they cause in the same way the EPA is gradually going after companies that put chemicals forever in our food and water?

For a long time, I felt like the EPA wasn’t doing nearly enough, and I do think it can do a lot more. However, I’m glad to see they’re starting to target some of these chemical companies, which makes me think it will eventually pivot to the plastics industry. We also have the global plastics treaty, which we hope can bring greater awareness and policy.

I’ve also seen many more rules and regulations coming from the EPA, but I fear it’s all for show since the agency can’t enforce what’s already on the books.

Honestly, I’ve been feeling the same way. It sucks because that’s what we’re relying on to fight these battles. The EPA has been heavily underfunded for years and still doesn’t have the funding to put toward lawsuits like petrochemical and chemical companies do. It’s hard to go up against some of the most profitable businesses ever, even for the government. Then, you get certain administrations coming through that gut funding, which makes auditing and environmental regulation much harder.