Plastic: Can We Have Too Much?
The North Pacific Subtropical Gyre: one of five high pressure zones in the earth's oceans where large swaths of plastic accumulates
Following our class discussion:
Please post comments about the text (perhaps themes or issues it evokes) and answer the following questions. Also, Free write for at least five minutes about something in the article that you think is important (something the article discussed or possibly left out).
Can we survive without plastic? What sorts of plastic are necessary or essential? What sorts of plastic can we live without?
Finally, a bit of rhetoric...how does Susan Casey appeal to audience? List how she appeals to ethics, logic and emotion. What are other ways an author might try to appeal their audience within this topic?
I feel Susan Casey did a great job grabbing my attention especially through the use of pathos. She got me worrying about the future and the possible threats that this plastic dump is having on us. One issue that kept bugging me is that Susan never talked about who was causing this plastic dump. It would be interesting to find out exactly who is at fault. Maybe it is our own government that is causing this problem and that is why no solution is being brought up to solve this issue right away. If it is another nation, how are we going to tell them to stop?
ReplyDeleteI think it is possible that we could survive with out some plastic products, although it would be a very different way of life considering plastics are involved in almost everything we do today. Plastics have led to enormous leaps in health care, so much that it is difficult to conceive what the world would be without them. There are certainly plastics which we could do without such as solo cups and ping-pong balls, but even those are essential parts of many lives.
ReplyDeleteCan we live without plastic?: People are so relyant on plastic that I don't know if we will ever be able to get ourself out of the habbit of using plastic. I know that there are biodegratable alternatives for plastic that everyone should be using. For awhile Baker was using biodegratable corn based forks, knives, spoons, and straws. I think that everyone should get in the habit of using alternatives like this.
ReplyDeleteWhat sorts of plastics are necessary?: I don't believe any type of plastic is necessary. I think that we can find a biodegratable alternative to using plastic in all cases.
What sorts of plastic can we live without?: Like I said before, I think we can learn to live without any plastic. We just need to come up with more alternative substances that can be easily recycled. If we dont chance the cycle of using plastic soon, we are eventually going to be living in a huge dump.
How does Susan Casey appeal to audiences?: I think that Casey is too harsh with her metephones which makes her seem like she is exaggerate in her article. I also feel like the flow of the article wasn't very smooth. Though I don'f feel like the article was written in the best way possible, the topic trash in the ocean is something people should start to be more concerned about. She got me thinking about how I can try and make a difference (though she didn't mention how to make a difference in the article).
Overall the article was an eye eopener to me. I didn't realize that there is so much stagnant trash in some areas of the ocean. This stagnant trash is affecting everything from the environment to animals health to humans health. This topic needs to be more exposed to the media so that more people are aware of the severity of the problem.
I feel that this article really brings to mind the issues that plastic waste is having. It made me more conscious of the need to be less wasteful and to conserve and reuse what I already have to keep new material from needing to be made. I feel that the audience is very easily pulled in but left with no hope for cleaning things up and making the future a better place.
ReplyDeleteSusan Casey relates to the audience and appeals mostly to peoples ethos and pathos. She shows us images of animals and the results of this waste on them to spur your living connection. This also appeals to peoples morals since people are being wasteful and showing that you need to be more aware of where your waste is going and the effects that it has.
I feel that in our current state we are unable to survive without plastic for we rely on it for many things. We can move towards a new material or better ways to refine and reuse the plastics that we have. Today plastic is a need, in the future it does not have to be and should not be.
It is obviously possible to maintain human existance without plastics, as this was the case for thousands of years prior to its invention. However, it is a decision that must be based on cost and benefit of continuing the use of plastics. I cannot say which plastics are good and which are not worth continued use because the toxicity and medical effects of each are so varied. I simply do not know enough about what it is doing to us. As for the number of different applications, these could potentially be reduced without need to consider the specific qualities of the different types of material. Packaging may seem excessive, but it is very necessary to have. It has made proliferation of fresh foods possible. Anything disposable in design and nature should be at least modified to have only non-plastic disposable parts, to reduce the quantity of plastic in garbage.
ReplyDeleteCasey uses a great deal of pathos, but perhaps not great enough detail in logos in my opinion. The data she provides is vague at best and does not directly cite the specific studies mentioned in every case. This makes information finding more dificult for the curious. In the situation being presented it would be very interesting but very difficult to show a universal (international) ethical ruling or suggestion on this type of topic. It helped the urgency of Casey's work to avoid that kind of topic but it may be worth a separate work.
The author of the article is certainly trying to make a point on what is going on in our oceans, and giving indirect advice on what can't continue happening if we're trying to help our environment. I don't think trying to get rid of plastic is or should be an option, instead possibly come up with new ways to take care of recycling or decomposing of hazardous materials. It should almost be a global awareness. I think she should have given where she got her information and maybe ellaborated on it
ReplyDeletePlastic has become an essential part of our survival much like oil, gas, water, and other resources in the world. However, I am a firm believer that there is always safer, more natural alternatives to the things we use and need everyday. Over 144 years ago we didn't have plastic yet mankind was still striving and making gains in technology and better life. Of course this will take the creativity and careful thinking on the part of all the peoples of the world. It's hard to say what plastics we can or can not live without, but I know I can do without plastic bags at grocery stores, plastic water bottles (although convenient), and plastic packaging material (via mail). Where my fear lies is without plastic more trees would be used to make a plethra of materials thus leading to this same type of article years down the road except now we would be dealing with low quantities of trees, lack of oxygen and whatever other troubles we may face. (too be continued...)
ReplyDeleteI liked some of the phrases used in the article, such as "once inside the body of a bigeye tuna or a king salmon, these tenacious chemicals are headed directly to your dinner table", and "25 percent of our planet is a toilet that never flushes". Along with the statistics and data, they made me more aware of the magnitude of the problem. The information about nurdles and how we are all exposed to it everyday was shocking. Clearly, it needs to be fixed.
ReplyDeleteAs a student in a research lab, I think that way too much plastic is being used in experiments. I think that some other possible alternatives should be looked into.
Susan Casey appeals to the audience by using statistical data and describing human conditions such as endocrine system problems; these appeal to the readers' emotions.
It certainly won't be easy to fix this problem, and the fact that only 3 to 5 percent of plastic is recycled makes it all the more difficult. Susan Casey did not present any possible measures that can be taken to help solve this problem in her article. Perhaps all we can do is try to reduce the use of plastic as much as possible.
From the perspective of nutrition demand of human survive, we can definitely live without plastics but I am not sure people will get used to the reality that being without plastics because it's absolutely necessary for everyone in their daily lives like plastic which we used to hold mineral water and also the container which is for medical usage. If we could find out a material which can take place of plastic and doesn't cost so much , we can definitely live without plastic. Casey did a lot of pathos like the turtles defected by the plastics and also other animals like the birds which could remind people think about the image of it and feel emotionally and also morally which belongs to Ethos. Also in the logos Casey point out that the plastic will finally affect the food chain and cause serious problems and I think that's kind of logic there. I think Casey create the problems there but doesn't give a clearly solution on how to work that out.Those animals' death which associated with the plastic pollution is warning people to protect our nature and environment. If we won't pay attention to the plastic pollution, the plastic pollution will finally affect to human being deadly.
ReplyDeleteExcellent comments so far!
ReplyDeleteI really liked the information about how deep the plastic "toilet that never flushes" goes down into the ocean. The article mentions how plankton sized bits of plastic reach down below the garbage patch up to 100 meters! That's a logical appeal as well as an ethical appeal. It's ethical because I feel humans are the only animals capable of being stewards of the environment and it's up to us to maintain the health of this miraculous planet. While disposable plastic water bottles and cups can be replaced, the integrity of our ecosystems cannot. With just a little effort, consumers can reject disposable plastic for reusable plastic and think of metal or wood alternatives if possible.
Citing Moore, Susan Casey asserts, "every year, we churn out 60 million tons" of plastic (3). This is both a logical and ethical appeal because it gives quantity and it seems like figures that are not sustainable. If plastic has been around for 144 years, we probably have much more than is necessary.
Eject it into space? Uh...let's not create content for a "plastic meteor" article for someone to write.
Finally, Casey claims that "More than a million seabirds, 100,000 marine mammals, and countless fish die in the North Pacific each year, either from mistakenly eating this junk or from being ensnared in it and drowning" (2). While this is a logical appeal, we should be careful about what we make of it. Making claims like "countless fish" is not the best way to bolster your credibility because it shows you are fabricating figures. State approximately if you must.
Susan Casey bring up a very good issue in this article that I feel that most Americans are unaware of. You wont turn on the six o clock news and hear them talking about how much the plastic pile in the north Pacific has grown that week. I feel that this issue is an out of sight, out of mind thing for the majority of citizens in this country. I think this article is great because she is trying to get this issue into the foreground because this is a global concern.
ReplyDeleteI think that humans can no doubt survive without plastic. We will just have to go back two hundred years and use glass and other things, or find new alternatives to substitute for plastic. I feel there are some plastics we can live without. For instance, plastic milk jugs, a reasonable alternative is to go back to glass milk jars. On the other side, I also feel there are some plastics that are necessary. For example, hospital rooms with MRI machines. That machine is just one giant powerful magnet so there can't be any metal in the room, everything has to be plastic.
I feel that to get her point across in this article, Casey mainly used ethos and pathos. There were lots of examples about animals dying from plastic consumption, pictures, one of a turtle stuck in a plastic ring. She talked about how humans could be ingesting plastic from the fish and seafood they eat. There weren't a lot of numbers and statistics in this article, it tried to pull more on the readers' emotions.
Another way an author might appeal their audience with this topic is to bring in more statistics and numbers. They could talk about the amount of plastic and garbage that is being added to this pile each year. They could talk about how much more expensive it would be to produce a good without the use of plastic versus with plastic. The author could really break it down to economics, simple dollars and cents of how much it would cost to substitute something for plastic, versus how much it will cost us to clean up the oceans. Especially living in the U.S., the only thing people will listen to is money.
One theme for this article was that our world is depressing and getting even more so becuase the destructive features of plastic are affecting so many living creatures in a negative way. I don't think that we can survive without plastic. We are too dependant upon it for everything. There are alot of types of plastic that we can live without by being less lazy and cheap, but I think those qualities will only get worse.
ReplyDeleteSusan Casey appeals to the audience using fear mostly in the form of pathos and ethos. The pictures created more emotion within me than the words, and the pictures are what made me want to keep reading. Another way an author could appeal to their audience is using logos in the form of statistics and graphs, but this could vary depending on the subject and what responses the author is trying to get out of their audience. Also, I think that this works well only if the author has credible sources that are cited or a really gullible audience.
I don't think we humans could give up using plastic ever cause it's an important substance that has the ability to be formed in any shape or form. Also makers become so reliant on it so they heavily using it that no single piece in our homes lacks plastic. We in fact, are surrounded by plastic, and the reason for that is because there so no alternative substance that could substitute plastic for the time being.
ReplyDeleteI remember taking chemistry classes before and from what I know, the substance itself is processed with others elements that gives it many of it's properties that make it last and resist corrosion. So why don't scientist look for an element or a way to make it completely recyclable? in stead of just trying cease its usage? In that way, the production of plastic would be limited, and the increment rate of plastic on our world would be static therefore less harm to the plant and its living.
As for Casey usage of rhetoric, the quote “Fertility rates have been declining for quite some time now” which she referenced from Mark Goldstein seems to provoke some logic (logos) and emotions (pathos) at the same time, as she talks science (logos) and support her claim by a specialist and then makes the reader think about the future which provoke fear for the up coming generation, so pathos.
The invention and use of plastics is an enormous leap in todays industries. It has significantly reduced cost of manufacturing many devices we use today, as metal and other materials are just not as practical in this day in age. Look at computers for instance. Every college kid has one and would more than likely say they need it. Well without the use of plastics they would either be not affordable or way to impractical to own. So to answer the question about living without plastic, well yes of course we could, but it would be very hard after being introduced to its positive affects it has had on us all.
ReplyDeleteBeing an IT major I have a great respect for the use of plastics as they not only have cut costs in manufacturing but also have made the whole manufacturing process so much more efficient. They also have given us products that we could only dream about before the invention. This article was a great eyeopener to see the other side, the negative side. Susan Casey really opened our eyes with her use of pathos affecting our emotions. It is embarrassing to us all to see just how careless we are to this planet. To know that there is a spot in the ocean over the size of Texas just littered with toxic plastic waste. Casey uses many figures to reinforce her argument with many numbers and statistics. This article makes one want to change and make things better, but we are not quite there yet. Plastics are so new and unknown that its pretty hard to understand just what to do with them. Biodegradation is thought to be the great new fix to this all, but is it really. In fact it could be just as bad. Landfills are meant not to biodegrade at all, so what negative aspect will this have if they start showing up at the local landfill. It would be an amazing invention if everyone recycled, but this is not the case. Also do you want a hip replacement that is biodegradable or a plastic structure that was contaminated by misrecycled biodegradable plastics. There has to be a fix out there. The fact that the Cuyahoga river caught on fire and is now making a great comeback shows that our waters can get contaminated to the extreme, but can be fixed. Casey gives us this feeling that we are screwed when in fact if this terrible problem just reached the media a bit more things could take a great turn for the better. I wish she would have included a more positive possibility in her article. Maybe this article was meant to scare the hell out of us to force us to fix this problem, but in reality I can make a safe bet that not many people will ever see this article. I think this issue needs to get out there, but until then it will not be getting fixed or looked at as much as some of these less significant issues out there that we spend billions on are.
When it comes to plastics it is a catch-22. Many will say that the Native Americans or the Romans survived without the substance so therefore so can we. Both of those groups had no computers, no forms of rapid transit, and no on-demand refrigeration. Although the world would undoubtedly be a better place without these “advances”, we now have an incurable addiction to the substances. The only thing we can do at this point is eliminate non-essential forms of plastics and strive for advances in the creation of the substance. We must enforce regulations on how plastics are created, transported, and disposed of. Instead of just letting them freely float around the ocean why not develop a way for them to be formed into some type of artificial coral reef? It is all about creative solutions…
ReplyDeleteI think Casey does a good job of presenting her point and grabbing the reader’s attention. She relies heavily on pathos, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but in this type of article one would expect more use of logos. She refers to studies but does not really elaborate as much as she should. Anybody can just say a study was done but to gain credibility with the audience you should say when, where, by who, exact results etc… I think she also could have used more ethos. She never really demanded a call for action. She did however gives us examples of what is being done. Overall I think it was a captivating, eye-opening article!
This article really hit home to me regarding plastics negative affect on the marine life and other animals. I am a huge animal fan and get upset whenever I see animals suffer because of our poor choices and decisions. The picture in the article of the turtle and reading about the birds and whale made me really upset. I do not understand how these animals’ habitats are being completely taken over by our waste products? If our actions continue at the pace they are we will no longer have an environment safe for all animals, let alone us humans. I wish there were someway we could keep plastics and harmful chemicals from affecting these animals’ habitats. I agree that it would be hard for us to completely get rid of plastics all together but there has to be some other way to come up with a "safe" type of material that can be used like a plastic. I agree with the comments before talking about coming up with creative ways to use plastics in a positive way. The choices we make can either be a positive or negative one, so why not change this problem and somehow turn it on a more positive course? This is one point that the article failed to bring up. Change can happen.
ReplyDeleteI thought the author did a great job of bringing this issue out of the dark and further into the public eye. She targets the ethical and emotional factors by showing the effects of plastic on animals, as well as the even more horrifying effect which would be placed on the human race The author even includes statistics in the form of charts offering an additional source of information for the reader. Even though the author does touch on certain events taking place to solve this problem, she does not introduce any ways in which the audience can help with the problem.
ReplyDeleteWhen I began to read the article, I have to admit that I thought it was a joke. In today's society with all the talks and concerns about climate change and greenhouse gas emissions, how could there be a floating plastic landfill twice the size of Texas in the Pacific Ocean that almost nobody seems to know about? The more I read the more I began to realize that it was not a joke. She does a great job of bringing out the facts and presenting the information in a way that the readers can comprehend.
ReplyDeleteThe class discussion got me to think about this situation more. How can we possibly stop this from getting worse? People(including myself) felt that she left us with no solutions to the problem. We could as individuals recycle more, but only a small percent actually gets recycled. We could stop using plastic all together. Good luck its everywhere! We have to be held accountable for what is going on, but most importantly the problem needs to be presented to the world just as global warming has.
Humans won't stop using plastics until plastics are no longer affordable. Plastics are too ingrained into modern society to be dropped for the sake of some turtles and seabirds. Fortunately, plastics are petroleum based and their cost will rise just like oil and conventionally grown food.
ReplyDeleteThe biodegradable plastics don't show better prospects. These "eco-friendly" alternatives are made from corn, potatoes, and other food products which will in turn raise the prices for the unprocessed versions people want to eat.
People won't stop using plastics until they are no longer affordable.
The waste isn't going anywhere; nor can it be launched into space at $15,000 per pound. Susan Casey makes a valiant effort to bring the amount of waste to public light, but fails to provide much credibility to her article. The article reads more like the rants of a College Green protester than a peer-reviewed journal. This is the same case that most people won't care about the waste until it winds up in their back yard.
It's sad to think that there will still be pairs of Huggies rotting in landfills five thousand years after the apes discover the Statue of Liberty oxidizing on a beach.
Ha! Nice Planet of the Apes reference!
ReplyDeleteMike,
I think you're on to something. There's no way we can live without plastic, but can we live differently with it? Perhaps less wastefully? What are the latest advances or studies in plastic technology/research?
I really enjoyed this article. She really grabbed my attention and made me think about the consequences of waste. First it is awful to think that all these animals are being injured and dying as a direct result of carelessness and through no fault of their own. I for one love going to the beach, and this article really painted an extreme picture of what could happen if things continue they way they are. It also made me think about what I eat everyday and what I throw away. I avoid certain habits that could be dangerous to my health and I never really thought about some of the health consequences that they equated to plastic use and abuse.
ReplyDelete