Dark Alchemy: How Plastic took us to a horror ride through the Capitalocene

Excerpt from Roland Barthes' text on plastic

It was 60 years ago that Roland Barthes heralded the expanded use of plastic as a magic moment par excellence. The cheap, transmutable material captured the imagination of those pushing boundaries in the heroic days of the modernist era. Barthes reached out to the commonplaceness of the debased by the bourgeoisie material as a metaphor that suited a fight against exclusion. Uncannily versatile, plastic was spread to the point of being practically unseen. This was democratic magic, the everyday access to a corpus Hermeticorum, to science and its amazing possibilities. 

CUT to the 21st century [and I would suggest that Rolling Stones music enters for the dive into how modernity’s promise for clean accessibility and abundance rotted]

Chris Jordan’s photographic series “Midway: Message from the Gyre” captured in 2009 the indestructible plastics that outlived the carcasses of the albatross that had digested them. 

In our new, and not so brave world we may all be progenies of a toxic metamorphosis as we are feeding on mutated by plastic organisms: Alas, Barthes was right, life itself has been plasticised and we have to deal with the monstrous reality of the Plastisphere and economies that support and perpetuate it.

"Plastic Geoengineering"

In Figures

>  The world is choking in plastic. In 1950 the world produced roughly 1.9 million tonnes of plastic. This figure mounted to 330 million tonnes in 2013. This is expected to double within the next 20 years and potentially quadruple by 2050.

>  The 5 Gyres Institute published its research findings conducted over 6 years in December of 2014, estimating that 5.25trillion plastic particles are floating on the surface of the sea.

>  Only 5% of all plastic is effectively recycled.

>  There will be more plastic than fish in the sea by 2050.

Images such as this and this and this are becoming the new normal. Before humanity began seriously investigating the health, environmental and economic repercussions of plastic usage, the problem was primarily one of aesthetic dimensions.

And although plastic-littered towns, shores and beaches can have tangible and practical negative impacts (for example on tourism), on purely ideological levels, are we ready to accept these images as the new normal? Is it worth the convenience of the disposable morning latte coffee cup to pervasively pollute every single ocean, from the Arctic to the Antarctic?

"Plastic Invasion"

What is clear

Plastic can persist in the environment for thousands of years. In this gradual process of degradation, large plastic pieces (macroplastics >5mm) tend to break down to microplastics (<5mm) through various processes, most markedly photo-catalysis by exposure to solar radiation. Microplastics, found in cosmetic and household cleaning products, are also released into the environment due to improper filtration of sewage waste.

Microplastics invade marine food webs at all levels, from plankton to seabirds and fish, some of which are also consumed by humans. Consequences of plastic ingestion for wildlife include starvation, reduced food consumption, intestinal blockage and even death.

Plastic debris also readily accumulates harmful chemicals from the environment, which have the potential of adsorption upon ingestion. In humans these chemicals can be taken up by lung and gastrointestinal tissues and have been associated with tumors. Even without chemical abetment, plastic nanoparticles can “induce immunotoxicological responses, alter gene expression, cause cell death” and pass through the placenta and the blood-brain barrier in humans.

During periods of warming organisms tend to move polewards to stay within their functioning thermal ranges. In previous interglacial periods these movements were restricted due to lack of vectors for transportation. Due to the current expansion in maritime travel and the vast amounts of plastic debris floating in the world’s oceans, novel communities of invasive species are created, threatening native biota and exacerbating the biodiversity crisis.

What is less clear

We are uncertain of how much plastic actually exists in the ocean, as it is impossible to calculate microparticle/nanoparticle load. We do not know how this plastic is distributed through time and space and cannot account for temporal variation in its transportation. The long-term effects on human health are still being investigated.

We also do not know how this novel entity will interact with other planetary boundaries in the long run. As discussed above, plastic debris facilitates species invasions, which are already increasing due to climate change and have an adverse effect on biodiversity. This compromises the integrity of the Earth System as a whole.

"Plastic Invasion: The Sequel"

A little less doom to your gloom?

Despite plastic pervasively encroaching in every aspect of our lives and being the defining material of the Capitalocene (Yarsley and Couzens first coined it as ‘Plastic Age’ back in 1945), experts agree that more research is needed to be certain of the negative effects, while proposing for ‘sustainable’ solutions like more efficient recycling. Even if we momentarily forget that plastics are made of fossil fuels – which need to stay in the ground anyway – it is hard to fathom the grit of the green-capitalist sentiment in proposing ‘better recycling’ or ‘reusable bags’ as the answer to the world’s plastic problem (or maybe it’s not that hard when you factor in the lobbying by an industry that’s worth 1 trillion dollars in the US alone to governments, but let’s not allow the conversation to stray away).

So yes, as long as there is still research underway on the adverse effects of plastics, start-ups in California coming up with cool-tech-solutions for plastic ocean clean-up and scientists in Japan discovering plastic-eating bacteria, we can keep on being complacent (you can turn off the Rolling Stones now and play a more relaxed tune).

Mika Rottenberg "Minus Yiwu”, 2017 commissioned by curator Nadja Argyropoulou for PCAI

Installation shot from the exhibition Paratoxic Paradoxes. photo by Y.Yerolymbos

In all seriousness, this crisis –just like any other before it- presents us with this unique opportunity in human history to fundamentally reevaluate our individual and societal behaviors.

Plastic creates expendable, external and cheap natures. It propagates our reliance on fossil fuels and destroys ecosystems through extraction of raw materials and accumulation of waste. This waste is then dumped in developing nations (external in regards to the operational heart of capitalism in the West), where it originated in the form of cheap labor. We still have not invented effective ways to process plastic waste, locking us deeper and deeper in a form of ‘waste-debt’ to future generations, solidifying our legacy of narrow-mindedness.

We need to radically reconfigure this ‘throw-away’ culture, of which plastic is quintessential. It is a laudable first step to ‘refuse the straw’, but we fundamentally need to organize and reignite forgotten concepts, such as those of a ‘care-economy’, where durability and longevity of products is imperative and citizens are actively encouraged to repair and look after their belongings. On a social level we should start seriously looking into the concepts of co-operatives and co-ownership, as a way to embolden community spirit, while battling overconsumption. And finally recognize the battle for what it really is: One of political determination. From classifying plastic as a ‘hazardous’ material to banning fossil-fuel lobbyists from being present at official political gatherings, there is a lot of work to be done.

As always, to exit the ‘Plastisphere’ we’ll need to stay alert, active and engaged. We’ll need to stay with the trouble.

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Photo Credits (unless stated otherwise): Tassos Vrettos