Will tomorrow be made of plastic?
We need to talk about eco-anxiety
Author: Beck Lazansky
Editors: Clover Hogan, Sophie Palmer
My Story
My name is Beck, and I’m a 22-year-old writer living in Allentown, Pennsylvania. I have felt a connection to the earth since I was a child, growing lilies and hyacinths with my mother in her garden during the summertime; playing with ladybugs and pillbugs during recess in elementary school; staring at my hands, stained green from the grass.
Even at a young age, I was aware of the planet - and my connection to it - being a sacred thing. I was awake to the hum of the trees and rivers. As I grew older, I began to notice a decay. It was slow, but it was there. I’ll never forget being 10, seeing images of the BP oil spill that spewed toxic clouds into the sky and stained sea birds black with oil.Nor can I unsee photos of the massive coral bleaching events in 2016 and 2017; or video of the very last white rhino.
It felt like the planet was weeping, like it was overwhelmed and exhausted and in deep, deep pain, but I didn’t know what I could do. I was a teenager living in a rural town in Pennsylvania--I wasn’t finished with my education; still needed my parents to cook for me; still slept in my childhood bedroom. I felt hopeless and scared. This was the first time I became well and truly aware of my eco-anxiety.
A Rapid Decline
To me, eco-anxiety is this feeling of gasping for breath in a burning world. Climate change is terrifying and devastating, especially for us young people. We are living in the middle of it. The health of our planet has deteriorated rapidly during our lifetimes, and we have witnessed the consequences. Whilst the earth continues to suffer as policy-makers and governments sit idly by, driven by the looming hand of profit, it is no wonder we feel hopeless about our future.
When I was 19, I stumbled across two things that changed my perspective on the climate crisis forever. At the time, I was studying marine science in Tampa and one day my professor lectured on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. I was shocked. A swirling mass of plastic waste twice the size of Texas just… sitting in the middle of the ocean? Never before had I seen such a physical, obvious representation of the damage humans have done to the planet.
I raised my hand: “Is anything being done about this?”
My professor sighed. He said, “They are trying to clean it, but it just keeps growing.”
Anxiety to Action
To quote Melati Wijsen from Episode Three, Season Two of the Force of Nature podcast: it’s estimated that “By 2050 there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish. Plastic is cheap, its single use, and then we forget about it once it's served its purpose. It's actually a really good symbol for all that is wrong with us."
Now, it was tempting to shut down in the face of such a depressing statistic; or those images of the giant garbage patch. Instead, I decided to turn my mounting eco-anxiety into action through changes in my own lifestyle.
If regular, ordinary people can cause pollution and waste like this, then regular, ordinary people can be part of the solution. I became hyper-aware of the waste my household produced. One trash can per day for one household of 4, multiplied by seven days a week, multiplied by how many houses were on my street… woah. That overwhelming feeling began to take over, but instead of caving into it, I decided to start small. Baby steps.
It began with using fewer paper towels. I told my mom that rags and cloth towels worked just fine, and she agreed--we would only use paper towels when necessary, and the trash in our can began to shrink. Next, we switched to cloth napkins, and after that, stocked everyone’s car with reusable shopping bags and canvas totes. The trash shrunk further.
In my hunt for waste-reduction techniques, I found the blog Trash is for Tossers. Lauren, the earth-conscious author of the blog, had reduced her waste to near-zero--she could fit all her garbage for a year into a single mason jar! Previously, seeing Lauren’s success might have made me sink into unproductive guilt: hide away like a terrible garbage monster. How could she do that?
Instead, I turned towards action. I let Lauren inspire me. She posted easy, action-oriented tips and projects for reducing waste, and encouraged a slow and natural process. Reducing waste isn’t about buying fancy “zero-waste” things and consuming more and more (which, in turn, makes waste clusters like the Garbage Patch swell), but rather learning to prolong the life of our items until we consume little to nothing at all.
Power in Community
In college, I was able to connect with like-minded youth organizations who perceived empowerment to be our greatest weapon against plastic waste. Together we organized beach and river cleanups with Keep Tampa Bay Beautiful, spending the day laughing and logging waste in the sunshine. I volunteered at community gardens where I learned how to compost--and, guess whose mom just set up a compost bin in the backyard!
The greatest change in my life surrounding climate change was mindset. Radical shifts in attitude are powerful. When I struggled in my marine science program, hopelessness creeped into my periphery yet again. I thought, what good could I be if I couldn’t even do this? How could I contribute? My friends encouraged me to instead look forward and find agency in my skills. And years later, here I am: writing and working towards a better future for us all.
We, as humans and activists, are an ecosystem. We all matter. No decomposer is too small, no predator too scary. We hold more power than we realize--we have the ability to consume less; to use less; to support companies who stand with our generation. We have the ability to be moved, not scared, by climate change, and to be excited for our future instead of terrified.
Now, my family’s garbage load has shrunk to one can per week. Pretty good, right? But that change didn’t happen overnight: it took years to get to where we are now. Waste-reduction takes time, change takes time. While I am no longer the child sitting in the dirt outside, unaware of the pain of the earth, that does not mean I have to crumble.
How Can You Be the Change?
Every day, I keep another piece of trash from a landfill: another piece of plastic from our vast, beautiful seas. Every day, I reduce my consumption: one of the most powerful tools the individual possesses. Every day, I learn so much from our generation and our incredible ingenuity.
Be creative, and be hopeful. Spend a Saturday cleaning up the trash at your local park with friends; brainstorm lifestyle changes with your family for reducing waste, little by little. How can you reduce your own consumption? How can you make your garbage can fill up just a little slower? How can you be the change our planet deserves, and how can you find empowerment in your anxiety to become that change?
You can listen to Episode 3, Season Two of the Force of Nature podcast here.