the resulting waste after plastic is used is a problem that is overwhelming and difficult to solve. in particular, non-point-source pollution of plastic into oceans that breaks down into microplastics that then enter the food chain, is a terrifying new reality for our planet. so, it is hard to believe that for some elderly people today, like my grandmother jane, born in 1930, the distant memories of a world without plastic do remain. i turn to jane in my search for answers to the plastic problem.

when i spoke with jane about the issue of plastic, our conversation began with a deep dive into how her family acquired groceries when she was a child. jane grew up in connecticut, and she told me, “i was 10… [when] they opened the first supermarket. before that, my mother ordered her groceries over the phone.” jane described a system where different products came from separate stores as opposed to one large hub of the supermarket. “the milk was delivered and left on your back porch every morning. we always thought it was a great thing, if it was cold enough, the milk froze. the milk was separated, it wasn’t homogenized the way it is now. so, we had cream floating on top… then we’d spoon off some of this rich icy cream. it was a treat.” 

beyond the perk of this icy cream at a time before freezers and an endless supply of ice cream you could take home, was the lack of plastic waste in this milk delivery system. jane explained, “[the milk] came in a glass bottle… the milk truck used to go by every single morning, early in the morning, and the milkman used to jump out with your three or four bottles or whatever you ordered, quart-sized bottles.” i responded asking her what happened to the bottles once her family drank all the milk. “well, you’d wash them and then when the milkman delivered your new milk bottles filled with milk, he took the old ones away, and he sterilized them at the dairy, and you’d reuse them. of course some of them got broken, but they were pretty tough glass, pretty thick and hard to break.”

i realize that what jane detailed is a closed-loop system, where packaging does not have a single-use lifespan, but instead is reused over and over. while this precise system of a milkman might not be replicable everywhere in the united states, several organizations are endeavoring to popularize the practice once again, and the same concept could be applied with a system where people return glass bottles to the store themselves.

after jane described these systems that were separate from the new concept of the supermarket, i asked her to describe what the packaging was like in grocery stores during her childhood. she said simply, “there wasn’t [packaging]. everything was in bins. and you would go in and there would be a paper bag, and you would put what you wanted in a paper bag, and usually there was a scale so you could weigh it if you wanted to. but the customer did it themselves and took what they wanted. and you could pick it over; you didn’t get spoiled fruit or anything.” 

essentially, all grocery stores were set up the way that some farmer’s markets still are today. while today we also still do have sections of the grocery store with fruit and vegetables to pick on your own, they are placed in plastic bags, and berries, for example, always come in a plastic container. jane told me that for those small fruits, they came in wooden boxes. she concluded, “in other words, everything was degradable.” the city she lived in connecticut as a child even had a system where trash was divided between the edible and the inedible. “all the edible food had to be put in separately so it could be fed to the pigs.”

part of what’s so fascinating about jane’s accounts of the past are that she did not live in an “environmentalist” world. our concepts of individual environmental accountability today, like bringing a reusable bag to the store, were not something people thought to do during her childhood and young adulthood in the 1940s and 1950s. additionally, she told me that in her honest memory and experience, that while she became sensitive to concepts of environmental pollution after rachel carson’s a silent spring was published, she didn’t really become aware of global warming until much later, in the late 1990s when al gore was running for president. she recalled that in her social circles, “nobody took al gore seriously, which is something i passionately regret. they really, really did not.” 

so, how is it that today, where yale climate opinion maps from 2021 cite that 72% of americans believe in climate change, that related environmental problems, such as plastic waste, are so much worse than they were during jane’s childhood? how is it that we have gone from a significantly less wasteful society with no environmental concern, to a surplus of waste society where more than the majority of people are concerned about environmental problems like climate change?

the answer is that the system has fundamentally changed, from one where waste’s biodegradability was inevitable to one where long-lasting waste is impossible to avoid. of course, the plastic industry itself drove this change, despite its initial slow start. jane recalled that “the sort of bendable plastic, like what we would call plastic wrap was the first thing. that started sometime after the war. it just came into gradual use. it was nothing that was very sudden. some places used it, and some places didn’t, and as time went by, more and more places used it, and at some point it became pretty standard that all your produce would be wrapped.”

thus, our solutions to the plastic problem must be aimed at changing systems. since plastic went from being unheard of to quickly taking over, our alternatives could do the same. we need to find new material industries that are biodegradable to take over the places where we rely on plastic, such as for preservation. at the same time, we need to re-introduce systems of the past of both reusability and minimal packaging where possible. simply put, in jane’s words: “we lived without all the plastic.”

“is everything of plastic? almost, ” a video advertisement for the futuristic dream house boasts. 

we are past that future now. so where is the house?

well, depending on the type of plastic, pieces of the house may have ended up in different places around the world. since plastics can take anywhere from 20 to 500 years to break down, elements of the house are likely still somewhere on this planet, negatively affecting animals and plants alike, and likely ending up on our plates.

microplastics have been found everywhere, and are now thought to be ubiquitous in the environment.

microfibers from house of the future’s synthetic fabrics could be falling out of the sky with snow and rain. microplastics have now been found to undergo transportation via the atmosphere and be deposited back down to earth.

some of the synthetic materials, once weathered into smaller pieces by other forces could easily be ingested by all sorts of wildlife, especially since research shows that plastics immersed in ocean water emit a chemical signal that seabirds smell and easily mistake for their other sources of food.

some of the more dense plastics from the house might more easily sink in aquatic environments, like this high-density polyethylene bucket at the bottom of the ocean.

even if the entirety of monsanto’s house of the future was properly disposed of in a landfill, it could still be wreaking havoc on the environment. landfills have been found to leach chemicals and have the potential to contaminate groundwater sources. or, like the scene shown in this photo, the elements can weather away at the manmade features and eventually wash them out to sea.

how can we change?

while we cannot undo the creation of the house of the future, all of us can pursue actionable everyday steps to help curb the deleterious effects of plastic on our environment and its inhabitants.

• before you buy something made of plastic or packaged in it, try to find a secondhand or zero waste alternative to it. always have your bottle or mug on you and think ahead for food or snacks so that you don’t catch yourself in a pinch having to purchase plastic-wrapped food.   
• contact companies you support about reducing their plastic footprint. this handy guide walks you through how to go about contacting businesses—complete with a script!
• if contacting businesses is not up your alley, call them out on social media about excessive packaging. outreach is key to solving the plastics problem
• contact your representatives and urge them to support the break free from plastic pollution act of 2020.