Plastic: The feel-good fix that distracts us from our problems

By Erica Cirino, Safina Center Launchpad Fellow

I’m running with Sabi, a rescued Portuguese street dog pup, around Copenhagen’s central lakes. Her long pink tongue lolls with exhilaration as she gallops by my side. While she’s keenly eyeing the coots, geese, swans, mallards, gulls and grebes who’ve made a pit-stop here on their summer migration route, I’m looking for plastic.

Sabi on the run. Photo: Erica Cirino

While I tell Sabi to “leave” a hissing mama swan alone, I notice the great white bird is nesting on a bed made of both vegetation and garbage. A blue paper-and-plastic mask is crumpled beneath her black webbed feet.

Swans and plastic in Copenhagen’s lakes. Photo: Erica Cirino

Mallard ducks and plastic in Copenhagen’s central lakes. Photo: Erica Cirino

In the age of COVID-19, these masks—along with plastic gloves and bottles of hand sanitizer—have become ubiquitous symbols of our collective attempt to escape a possibly deadly infection. While preventing infection is a great intention for most people there are other ways to do so than with single-use plastics, which, I can tell you, often end up in the environment where they imperil wildlife and contribute significantly to the world’s plastic pollution load.

Yet another mask. Photo: Erica Cirino

Sure, in some cases these single-use plastic products can be an efficient way to stave off disease (if used correctly, especially by medical professionals caring for ill people). Of course, even the World Health Organization says most people do not even NEED single-use masks, gloves and hand sanitizer to avoid getting sick, so long as we adhere to adequate social distancing guidelines, stay home if we’re feeling sick, and wash our hands frequently. Plus, reusable natural cloth face protectors can be just as safe, or even safer—more on that later.

Do non-healthcare workers really need plastic masks? Photo: Erica Cirino

In a small city of almost 800,000, social distancing—one of the best ways to prevent infection—can be hard to do. Sabi and I lope through thick throngs of people on our run. I turn my head away when I feel we cannot maintain at least three feet of distance between us and other people. I’m counting the number of masks, gloves and empty sanitizer bottles I see. About halfway through our four-mile run, my tallies stand at: seven masks, 10 gloves, and two sanitizer bottles. I don’t pick them up because I can’t be certain they aren’t contaminated, even though cases in this country are pretty low.

I’ve been living in Copenhagen on and off for several years as I’ve covered the story of plastic pollution globally. Early on, I ran the lakes with a different dog, my late malamute Foosa. Unlike Sabi, Foosa was less interested in birds and more interested in what scraps of food she could try to inconspicuously swipe on our route. Back then, being a photojournalist focused on plastic, my eyes were still focused on the garbage that wound up in our local running spot. But back then, I didn’t worry about picking up the trash. These were the “pre-corona” days. 

Foosa, resting after a run. Photo: Erica Cirino

Despite the fact that COVID-19 is still circulating, Copenhagen feels fairly normal these days. With summer finally breaking in this region known for its long gloomy winters, there are many people outside—often drinking and eating together in groups. People have largely returned to their work places, with few still choosing to work from home. Schools have been open since April. You can get haircuts and tattoos and eat in cafes and restaurants, which are bustling due to city-dwellers’ pent-up hunger for prepared food and socialization.

A local bar, closed at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Life in Copenhagen is much different today, with businesses open and people back at work. Photo: Erica Cirino

My husband, who is Danish, and I have been holed up here in a country where healthcare is free for all residents and citizens. We had planned to return to the U.S. to build a writing cottage in the woods in a small sailing village. But, like most plans these days, we’ve put them on hold. My friends and family back in the U.S. say the situation is much different, with most people still self-isolating, or at the very least wearing masks when in public. Most people I know in the U.S. are still working from home, and many do not dare eat or order out, even where it is now permitted (though as you may know, some states are paying for opening up prematurely with an uptick in COVID cases and deaths).

Denmark is different. Where there is free healthcare for all, people seem to trust they will be taken care of. Most Danes also benefit from significant state support when unemployed or furloughed from work. While many people back in the U.S. saw their savings disappear after layoffs or illness caused by COVID, people here have grumbled about disruptions to their daily life—but are mainly just fine.

 When I try to explain the hardships of life in America exacerbated by COVID-19 to my husband and Danish friends, they say, “Maybe you should have elected better leaders.” (Cue: Trump.) Well, certainly. But I also think us gritty Americans are used to following a much harder road. Struggle is engrained our national identity—so we don’t think of what else could be. But we also must acknowledge, our political system is in dire need of reform. Politics in Denmark are much less partisan—though terrible, racist and corrupt politicians, like Rasmus Paludan, still exist even here in the “Happiest Country on Earth.”

Of course, not everyone benefits in Danish society. Immigrants—mainly from Eastern Europe, Africa and the Middle East—who live on the fringes of Danish society—are more likely to be sickened and killed by COVID-19. We see the same familiar pattern in the U.S., where long-marginalized groups like African Americans and immigrants are more likely to suffer medically, emotionally and financially from this pandemic.

Now this brings me back to plastic, the cheap and now-ubiquitous material that’s polluting our planet. If you traced the disposable masks and other human-made debris back to its source, you’d eventually end up at an oil or gas refinery. The same companies that pad many American politicians’ pockets to help sway energy and environmental policies in their favor are running these refineries.

Plastic is made from the same fossil fuels that are turning our planet into an increasingly uninhabitable rock floating in space. And plastic itself—the more than 8.3 billion tons we’ve created, mainly to make single-use items, since the 1950s—is entangling, choking and sickening animals as it breaks up into infinitely smaller pieces capable of passing from the bloodstream into the brain. We don’t know very much about how plastic hurts people—we are a complicated species to study. But we do know it’s killing wildlife, and so, since we’re animals too, it’s probably harming us. We also are keenly aware that healthy ecosystems are better at preventing diseases like COVID-19 from spreading than are polluted ones. Yet we continue to use plastic.

Grebe on nest, in Copenhagen’s central lakes. Photo: Erica Cirino

The corporations who pull oil and gas from the Earth and sell its refined byproducts to make plastic have only one thing in mind, and that one thing is to make money. In a crisis, they have come up with a snake-oil solution, and that is to make more masks, gloves, sanitizer bottles and other single-use plastic things that people will buy to feel safer. And because we want to feel safe, we buy these things. This, despite the fact that research shows the virus can survive three days to a week on plastic items, while just a day or two on paper and cloth.

Sabi and I make it home and wrap up our run with a game of tug-of-war with her favorite rope toy. In total, I counted 14 masks, 22 gloves and 9 bottles of hand sanitizer. That’s in addition to the countless plastic bottles, cups, food containers, bags, straws, clothing, and other items discarded or lost in or around the lakes. I realize, in a moment, that plastic is just a quick, feel-good fix that distracts us from the real problem: ourselves. Stepping up to be more responsible, caring, and active people who challenge the status quo rather than run with it may be the salve that spares us from further devastation, inequity, and of course, plastic pollution—a problem that harms us all.

Post-run play session. Good pup, Sabi! Photo: Erica Cirino