Plastic's presence

Have you found a piece of plastic in either of the gardens? I would assume the answer is unanimously, yes. What we do to this plastic is selfish. We pick up the plastic and place it a foot away, outside of our garden bed. Or, we hide it so nobody else will see that we didn’t throw it out. We view it as unusable and dirty. We want nothing with it because it’s not new. I feel that our generation has taken the ‘out of sight out of mind’ phenomena to an extreme. When in fact, the plastics that are were produced after World War II, 50 years ago, are still in natural form somewhere on Earth. It is unknown how long it takes for plastic to photodegrade, the breaking of the long polymer molecules into smaller segments.  The presence of this plastic is terrorizing Earth’s natural system. Now, obviously our planet is coping with the material, but imagine 10 million square miles in the Pacific Ocean entirely surfaced of plastic, nearly the same size of Africa. If you don’t think a continent of plastic is harmful, causing air pollution problems, aiding to global warming, and just a negative impact to the environment, I suggest you may want to find interest. Now lets say your thinking, which we all admittedly have, “well the plastic that I just placed outside my garden bed, in say Bethlehem, PA, will take years to reach the Pacific and its so small”. There are approximately 6 other major tropical oceanic plastic garbage dump gyres being made in the world’s oceans. With no filtration system to catch little granules in your Colgate toothpaste or exfoliate body wash (only two of the million plastic products), these small materials end up remaining in the environment, to later intrude a marine animals digestive tract.

Think of it like this: We, humans have built our cities near a water source for the obvious basic need it provides. This water source is the vital organ that connects us to the rest of the world. Whether it be through it rains and enters sewer or goes down a faucet, this plastic reaches our oceans. We as a society need to pay much more attention to our own waste and what we do with it. In the case of agriculture, one is able to generate their compost over the years. In the case of finding plastic in your garden, make sure there is a liable source to recycling for your whole community to use.

If you have ever found a bottle cap: (I would be surprised if you never have!)

http://www.cityfarmer.info/2011/04/04/urban-gardening-in-bottle-caps/

Now if you realistically want to plant in plastic, or any container, you should read this : http://urbangardenmagazine.com/2011/02/clever-containers/

(specifically: What’s Wrong with Standard Containers, Air Pruning and Root Trapping)