I am the Product of Capitalism

I have a big canvas bag, like twice or maybe even thrice the size of a regular canvas tote bag. Every week or week-and-a-half I take it down chock full to the street-level recycle bin that serves the apartment building where I live. 

I can't believe how much recyclable plastic I accumulate in a week; it dwarfs by volume the glass and tin I toss into the bag, the daily newspaper I read too.

I buy a lot of berries, salad and fruit juice. All come in high-quality recyclable plastic containers. So while I might eat a healthy, organic diet, I am spewing out a load of plastic on a regular timetable.

I know intuitively that this augurs ill if not outright doom. How can one modest single person -- I only eat one full meal a day! -- produce so much plastic waste? Multiple that by billions and you have a classic case of overshoot.

And make no mistake, waste it is. Ninety-one percent of plastic is not recycled. Plastic that is recycled ends up in landfill anyway, and from there finds its way to the sea. Then you get yesterday's story, "Dead Whale Found With 88 Pounds of Plastic Inside Body in the Philippines":

A beached whale found in the Philippines on Saturday died with 88 pounds of plastic trash inside its body, an unusually large amount even by the grim standards of what is a common threat to marine wildlife.

The 1,100-pound whale, measuring 15 feet long, was found in the town of Mabini with more than 40 pounds of plastic bags inside its stomach, along with a variety of other disposable plastic products.

[snip]

The whale’s grisly death brought renewed focus to the worldwide problem of plastics ending up in oceans; a 2015 study estimated that five million to 13 million metric tons of plastic waste pollute oceans each year. But the problem is particularly severe in the Philippines, the world’s third-biggest contributor of plastic to oceans behind China and Indonesia.

Remember: more plastic debris than fish in the sea by 2050.

Some would say, "Do something about it. Stop buying plastic." I have basically. I'm not sure that my grocer even offers heads of lettuce anymore. Fresh juice doesn't come in glass containers.

Late-stage capitalism and colossal, ocean-choking plastic waste are synonymous.