Let’s live without so much plastic

Reading today about how Environment Illinois is finding plastic pellets in area waterways dovetails with a recent article in Audubon Magazine about researchers finding plastic in bird poop and nesting materials. These birds are common urban birds according to the article. I feel just like the guy who said it makes you feel overwhelmed.

Plastic is made from oil. Everything these days is either made from plastic or sold in plastic. Microplastics take centuries if ever to go away. With the price of oil going up now with no end in sight, and plastic pollution showing up in water, soil and most likely air, isn’t it time to consider a different way of doing things?

Those of us in the baby boom generation remember a different way of doing things. I am not saying we can turn back the clock, nor do I have nostalgia for a simpler time. I just know that human beings have done just fine before without all this plastic. We can do that again. Where there is a will there is a way. That’s what we need, the will.

Proposed legislation is a start, but I agree with Sen. Durbin in that this type of oversight needs to happen nationwide. What happens upstream goes downstream no matter what the state lines might be.

Nancy E. Degnan

Des Plaines