The Economic Injustice of Plastic
After the distressing images published this week across the internet and print media, showing the Caribbean Sea plastic engulfed in a ‘sea of plastic’, I wanted to share with you all in this blog post a topical TED talk.
Premise of the talk:
The TED talk here comes from Van Jones, who was President Obama’s Special Advisor for Green Jobs. During the talk, Jones provides a comprehensive overview surrounding the ‘global economic injustice of plastic’. Jones makes the contention throughout the talk that our modern economic system is built upon the pretext of endemic plastic disposability, similarly aligned with previous blog posts and academic considerations. This disposability is attributed by Jones as disproportionally impacting the ‘poorest people of the poorest countries, first and worst’. The premise of the talk later expands upon the solutions offered for the resolution of disposability. A humorous insight into the virtuous notion of recycling is offered through the analogy of using the affective pride we all experience after recycling our plastic Starbucks cups.
Premise of the talk:
The TED talk here comes from Van Jones, who was President Obama’s Special Advisor for Green Jobs. During the talk, Jones provides a comprehensive overview surrounding the ‘global economic injustice of plastic’. Jones makes the contention throughout the talk that our modern economic system is built upon the pretext of endemic plastic disposability, similarly aligned with previous blog posts and academic considerations. This disposability is attributed by Jones as disproportionally impacting the ‘poorest people of the poorest countries, first and worst’. The premise of the talk later expands upon the solutions offered for the resolution of disposability. A humorous insight into the virtuous notion of recycling is offered through the analogy of using the affective pride we all experience after recycling our plastic Starbucks cups.
Figure 1: TED talk
‘The economic injustice of plastic’ from Van Jones, presented at the Great Pacific Garbage Patch event
(Source: TED talks)
Applications to wider literature:
The opening of the TED talk is commendable for raising
some moral questions regarding our own rational
economic choices involving plastics. Jones is effective at helping to craft a narrative
that positions the economic system as one built upon the foundations of ‘throwaway
ideals’. These foundations are referred implicitly as being exasperated with the consumption of plastic material and its endless disposability. The main interesting
caveat from this talk I found was regarding the need for an emergent economic paradigm
shift, with an emphasis upon zero-waste production as an innovative solution to the plastic endemic. The
suggestion of a new economic shift convergences with recent literature of
the ‘doughnut economy’ (Raworth, 2017) which recommends radical overhauls of the
inner-fundamental mechanics of how our economy operates, to ensure the future protection of our planet.
Figure
2: Doughnut economics (Cambridge University Press)
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