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#paganblogproject, 2013PBP, beach pollution, conservation, consumption, disposable plastic, pagan blog project, plastic pollution, recycle, refusing plastics, trash
Not quite two years ago, I wrote this really long post on why replacing disposable plastic matters, and ways that they can be replaced in the home. I’ve also written a bit on how we pick up trash at our stretch of beach, as an active devotion to the place where we live (since we worship it as if it were a deity).
A few weeks ago, I was reminded of why this matters.

On a recent beach clean-up, this is what my children and I found. This particular day, we picked up more than usual–we filled one and a half 55 gallon drum trash bins.
If it comes in a single use, disposable container that isn’t reusable (or that you won’t end up reusing), biodegradable, or recyclable (or that you won’t end up recycling), you can refuse it.
The simple fact of life is that plastic ends up in the ocean. From here on out, every time you see a juice bottle, a soda bottle, a water bottle, a container of body wash, a milk jug, shampoo and conditioner, throw away lunch containers, Styrofoam, lighters, shopping bags, produce bags, or anything else you can think of, I challenge you to think the following:
This is going to end up in the ocean. If I were an albatross, would I want my baby to eat this? If I were a minnow, would I want my stomach full of this? Do I want my food chain filled with the same chemicals parent’s won’t allow in a container their child drinks from? Should our children (or ourselves) have to play on polluted beaches, building castles from plastic sand? As a Pagan, what kind of reverence am I showing (and teaching my children) for the home of the gods we worship (not to mention the home we share with every other living thing)?
I get it, sometimes its just not convenient, efficient, or effective to eschew the plastic-wrapped whatever. I’m certainly not perfect–I’ve been known to pick up individually packaged applesauce for pint-sized guests (less dishes, and apple sauce containers make awesome jello molds and paint containers). And sometimes there’s just no alternative–I’ve yet to find certain products that aren’t in plastic packaging (medication) or I can’t afford the alternative as part of my shopping habits (milk in glass bottles is about twice as expensive as milk in a plastic jug). Just as often though, its an easy change to make–pick up the eggs in the cardboard carton instead of the plastic or Styrofoam one (plus, when you are done with them you can make fire starters from your dryer lint in them or use them for noise reduction).
But I think that as Pagans, we have the duty to be what my bloggy friend Deb calls “lessatarian”. To examine our privilege and its accompanying consumption habits (as individuals and in our communities), and to make conscious decisions about the resources we use and the waste we create. If we don’t do at least that, how can we claim to either be revering the Earth itself or celebrating the cycles of the Earth? How can we claim to be paying homage to the Spirits of a place we’ve treated like a dump? How can we claim to honor the Spirit of the Bear or the Fox or the Turtle, etc when we are destroying the habitat and poisoning the young of bears and foxes and turtles? How can we claim to be respecting our ancestors when we fail to preserve a legacy for our children? How do we claim to be worshiping gods that represent the forces of this world, our world, if we aren’t respecting that world?
We need to start asking ourselves: Is this necessary for our physical existence? Is it necessary for our mental or spiritual health? Is this a luxury that is worth the cost of its production? Can we get it used? Is there an alternative with less packaging, or more product for the package? If there is not a feasible alternative, is it reusable? Is it recyclable, compostable, biodegradable? If not…why the heck are we buying whatever it is? And if we aren’t buying it because of how its made and how its packaged (or if we have no choice), why aren’t we letting the company in question know?
I’m not calling on us to be perfect. I’ve already admitted that I certainly am not. I’m not pointing fingers, and I’m not making any claim to moral or ethical superiority. I am calling upon us to do better when and where we are able. I’m calling upon all of us (myself included) to be honest with ourselves, to admit when and where we are being hypocritical, and to commit to a future where our purchases are made with more than just ourselves and our convenience in mind.
What you’ve written here reminds me of the blog “Zero Waste Home” at http://zerowastehome.blogspot.com/. I’m also glad you are willing to say we don’t have to be perfect, but at least be better. As much as I’d like to eliminate the waste coming out of my home, I’m not its only inhabitant, so we’ve made compromised in some areas. For example, I’d prefer to switch to using only cloth rags and napkins, but my husband can’t imagine a home without paper towels. So, I use cloth most of the time, but there are 100% recycled paper towels around when he needs them.
Paper towels were a tricky one for me to get my hubby to buy into also… I’ve gotten him to “try on” quite a few things by saying “it will save us money, and if you really don’t like it, we can try to find a greener option that isn’t going to break the bank.” Once I bought a drying rack, a bucket, and two packs of 20 wash cloths (we have a drawer full of washcloths, and a bucket under the sink with water, lemon vinegar, lavender oil and liquid soap, I toss whatever washcloths I use over the course of the day in the bucket, and at the end of the day, wring them out and hang them to dry, and put them back in the drawer once they are dry or, if they are still icky or dirty they go in the dirty wash), and he figured out it wasn’t any more difficult, he gave up on the paper towels… The biggest thing to get him on board with is giving up the soda, which is more economical in 2 liter bottles than any other way–he’s majorly addicted to Mountain Dew. Although, we haven’t had to buy planters for growing things in quite some time, reusing those…and we’ve made worm farms and all sorts of science projects with them, before recycling them.
Thank you for posting this. You phrase things in a way that I’ve been trying to articulate. I don’t get why this is a hard concept to grasp, particularly for people who consider themselves earth-centered. The things we use, are destroying the animals, plants, and ecosystem around us. We are poisoning ourselves, we are poisoning our children.
And yeah–it’s tough to switch to a less convenient option. Gods know it’s taken me a decade to reduce my consumption, and I’m still consuming more than I’d like.
I think it’s so important to continue to speak out about this. Words are magic. Thoughts are magic. Words and thoughts change reality. They are the precursors to action, which physically changes our reality. That’s the essence of magic. And…sadly, it’s going to take a lot to change our culture before we Darwin ourselves out of existence by through poisoning ourselves.
“Words are magic. Thoughts are magic. Words and thoughts change reality. They are the precursors to action, which physically changes our reality. That’s the essence of magic. ”
I love this! I completely concur with this idea. And I have to say that I loved your blog post on Pagan Activist. One of the things I’ve never understood are people that say stuff like “But I’m not Earth-centered (Earth-based, a Nature worshiper, etc) Pagan, so this isn’t important to me” and my response is sort of dumbstruck–really? Do we really think that whatever deities and spirits we are worshiping don’t care that we are ruining their material world?
I think I mentioned when I commented on your blog as well, that I do Civil War reenacting…and there, plastic ware is a no-no because its just not historically accurate. Instead, its BYOT (bring your own teacup), and wash your dishes after you eat on them (and they are communally washed). As a result, among people that often don’t care and/or aren’t concerned about the environment at all, most reenactors are fairly green.
hey thalassa, thanks for the shout out! 🙂 we are so on the same wave length. i have been collecting plastic bags all month preparing to write a post about disposable plastic in the house. you’ve hit the nail on the head here and i’ll definately link back to you when I write about it. I esp. like your question: “Is this a luxury that is worth the cost of production?” There are so many things we can easily do without, but they’re so engrained in our culture, we just don’t think about it. One thing that really gets me is plastic chip bags. ugh. how to get rid of those!
“i have been collecting plastic bags all month preparing to write a post about disposable plastic in the house”
OH! What a great idea!! We are getting ready to move to a different apartment, so we are about to have our annual clean and purge of extemporaneous things. We thrift, craigslist and freecycle most of that stuff, but there is inevitably things that we throw away. And I’ll be plenty honest–its usually plastic (though often second hand, now broken plastic stuff).
I look forward to reading it!
Tonight I’ll be on Pagan Musings Podcast talking about my recent blog post on Styrofoam cups in rituals, and talking about lots of other environmental stuff besides, and I’ll be bringing up some of the excellent points you make here.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/pagan-musings/2013/04/14/pmp-environmentally-conscious-pagans
Thanks for the shout out! I’m listening to it now, and there are so many great point you’ve all brought up.
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