As our plastic addiction’s damage becomes more obvious, we’re still hoping someone else will help us kick our ‘P’ habit. Do we count on businesses, governments, the police, helplines, go cold turkey…or try something that might actually work?

This parable asks how anyone serious about sustainability should approach weaning ourselves off our favourite daily drug, plastic, before it kills us.

The Plastic Addict

An Addict has been aware of their P addiction for many years.

P is everywhere. Everyone’s a user. P comes free with other products, or is so cheap that anyone can afford a hit.

The Addict, like everyone, uses P hundreds of times a day. Each time, P delivers a little convenience, cost, safety, or efficiency endorphin rush.

P doesn’t deliver a big hit, like a holiday flight, fast car or patio heater.

But ‘little and often’ is just as addictive.

The Addict’s Plastic problems

The Addict is starting to notice P’s side-effects:

• Foetal addicts: P particles are showing up in placentas.
• Rubbish: the backyard has become a mountain of used P gear.
• Pollution: the backyard P mountain is killing wildlife.
• No more wildernesses: P’s toxic touch has reached the deepest ocean beds, highest mountain peaks and most remote icecaps.
• Drowning, burning & shrivelling: P production is making temperatures lethally hotter.

Worried, the Addict calls their Dealer to tell them about these P side-effects.

They are quick to pick up, and ask how they can help.

The Dealer’s Plastic Solutions

The Dealer is very sympathetic and understanding, saying:

I feel your pain and hear your concerns.

I respect and admire your courage and integrity in making this difficult call.

Many of my clients have the same questions.

Please hold while I check with my bosses…

The Dealer comes back with a list of three solutions: 

• A Magic Bin: decorated with a triangle made of three interlocking arrows. Pop in your used P gear, and highly-trained P-Collectors will take it away to P-Scientists, who’ll melt it down to make more P.
• A Magic Brazier: licensed P-Incinerators will fill the braziers with used P gear, and burn it to generate energy to heat your home
• A Magic Land: responsible P-Exporters will take your used P gear to distant lands with plenty of empty space to bury it.

Perfect, thinks the Addict. 

Relieved and reassured, the Addict buys even more P.

The Problem with the Dealer’s Solutions

P’s micro-pleasure hits keep delivering, but the Addict notices P’s side-effects are getting worse. 

All three of the Dealer’s solutions are now part of the Addict’s daily life:

• Like everyone else, they put their used gear in the Magic Bin
• The highly-trained Collectors duly take the Magic Bin away
• The licensed P-Incinerators are building more Magic Braziers to heat homes
• Responsible P-Exporters send more containers to distant Magic Land

But it turns out that:

• Only a tiny fraction of the used P gear in the Magic Bin is made into new P
• The ‘new P’ is actually lower-grade P which can’t be made into any more P
• The Magic Braziers produce little heat, loads of choking smoke, and no one wants to live near them
• The people in the Magic Land have loads of their own used P gear, and no space to bury anyone else’s

Concerned, the Addict wonders whether it was a such good idea to trust their Dealer to fix their addiction.

Better call the Politician.

The Politician’s Plastic Solutions

The Politician is very sympathetic and understanding, saying:

I feel your pain and hear your concerns.

I respect and admire your courage and integrity in making this difficult call.

Many of my citizens have the same questions.

Please hold while I check with my bosses…

The Politician comes up with a list of three solutions: 

• A Magic Bin: decorated with a triangle made of three interlocking arrows. Pop in your used P gear, and highly-trained P-Collectors will take it away to P-Scientists, who’ll melt it down to make more P.
• A Magic Brazier: licensed P-Incinerators will fill the braziers with used P gear, and burn it to generate energy to heat your home
• A Magic Land: responsible P-Exporters will take your used P gear to distant lands with plenty of empty space to bury it.

The Addict says these are exactly the same solutions the Dealer suggested, and they’re not working.

The Politician explains:

These things take time.

It’s not that simple.

We must consider the many honest, hard-working, tax-paying people in the P industry.

The Politician does, however, promise to crack down hard on some rogue used P gear Collectors, who are nothing less than Criminals.

The Addict feels worse, not better.

The Addict decides to call the Police.

The Police’s Plastic Solutions

The Police officer is very sympathetic and understanding, saying:

I feel your pain and hear your concerns.

I respect and admire your courage and integrity in making this difficult call.

Many members of the public have the same questions.

Please hold while I check with my bosses...

The Police Officer says:

The Police don’t make the laws.

P is not illegal.

The Police are busy cracking down on rogue used P gear Collectors, who are nothing less than Criminals.

Sicker and sicker, surrounded by more and more used gear, the Addict feels the approach of Rock Bottom. 

Rock Bottom either kills hope forever, or is the turning point to a brighter future.

Desperate, the Addict searches for P addiction Helplines.

Three are listed. 

The Addict reaches for the phone.

Helpline A’s Plastic Solutions

Helpline A’s Responder is very sympathetic and understanding, saying:

I feel your pain and hear your concerns.

I respect and admire your courage and integrity in making this difficult call.

Many members of the public have the same questions.

Please hold while I check with my bosses...

The Helpline A’s responder describes three solutions:

• A Magic Bin: decorated with a triangle made of three interlocking arrows. Pop in your used P gear, and highly-trained P-Collectors will take it away to P-Scientists, who’ll melt it down to make more P.
• A Magic Brazier: licensed P-Incinerators will fill the braziers with used P gear, and burn it to generate energy to heat your home
• A Magic Land: responsible P-Exporters will take your used P gear to distant lands with plenty of empty space to bury it.

The Addict hangs up and tries the next number.

Helpline B’s Plastic Solutions

The Helpline B responder is very sympathetic and understanding, saying:

I feel your pain and hear your concerns. 

I respect and admire your courage and integrity in making this difficult call. 

Many members of the public have the same questions. 

Please hold while I check with my bosses..

The Helpline Responder suggests:

• Call the Politician: they are there to make the rules to help citizens in need. Maybe try emailing them, or signing a non-binding online petition?
• Call the Police: they are there to help enforce the rules to help citizens in need. Maybe help them by reporting rogue Collectors who are nothing less than criminals?
• Take Action!: join fellow-addicts in volunteer litter-picking groups. This saves the Politicians paying Collectors to fill the Magic Bins and Magic Braziers and send more P to the Magic Land.

The Addict hangs up and tries the last Helpline.

Helpline C’s Plastic Solutions

The Helpline C Responder is a bit sympathetic and understanding, but not for long, saying:

I feel your pain and hear your concerns, but we get a lot of time-wasters. 

Many of our callers have the same questions you have, but most:

a) turn out to be kidding themselves, and don’t really want to kick their P habit

b) want other people to take action, but are not prepared to do anything themselves

c) hang up before hearing our Solutions

Are you sure you really want to do something about your P addiction?

The Responder’s uncomfortable question hangs in the air. 

The silence grows. 

The Addict’s finger hovers over the button that will kill the call.

The Addict’s Dilemma 

The Addict is already emotionally exhausted by all the calls to the Dealer, Politician, Police, Helplines A and B.

Helpline C Responder’s question has now added resentment at having their sincerity doubted on top of all that stress, the Addict thinks: 

• Have I not proved enough by calling you?
• Have I not already done way more than most people?
• Have I not ‘done my bit’ to help myself and others?

Outraged, the Addict decides to hang up. 

But the Addict doesn’t take the action of hanging up. 

The Addict’s Insight 

A Flash of insight breaks through the Addict’s brain fog.

The Flash:

• illuminates the Addict’s previous efforts to ‘do their bit’. 
• reveals why they were not only futile, but actually prolonged and deepened the Addict’s P habit. 
• exposes what now seems obvious; The Dealer, Politician, Police and other Helpline Responders are all fellow-addicts. 

There may be no conspiracy. No Bad Guys. No one to blame. 

The Big P producers who supply the Dealer and the Burner Boys who run the Magic Braziers may profit greatly from our addiction, but they too:

• are high on their own supply.
• suffer from P’s toxic, polluting consequences. 
• drown, burn and shrivel.
• grasp at any solution that might make them feel a bit better. 
• yearn for solutions that don’t require them to give up P’s sweet, seductive, ceaseless hits.

The futile ‘solutions’ of the Dealer, Politician, Police and Helplines may not be cynical ruses to keep making money. There’r just expressions of their own addiction, the addict thinks:

Blaming addicts for being addicted – now that’s truly futile. 

If we’re all hooked, no wonder no one can help me.

If I’ve hit rock bottom, where’s my hope of ever getting clean?

As the Addict’s finger moves towards the button that will kill the call, another Flash.

The Addict’s finger is frozen by a sudden moment of clarity, revealing a hitherto unspoken fear.

The Addict’s Fear 

The Addict knows – and fears – they realise why the Helpline C Respondent’s solution has angered them.

They will tell the Addict the only way to cure P addiction is to go cold turkey, and give it all up for ever.

P is too nice to give up. Everyone, from the Addict to the other Helpline Responders, is looking for excuses to keep using. 

That’s why the Dealer, Politician, Police and Help Lines all suggest the same solutions. They’re all kidding themselves – and others – they really mean it. 

If justice delayed is justice denied, the same is true of tackling addiction.

Just one more hit.

I’ll start tomorrow.

Me quitting won’t make any difference.

Wanting to act is not acting.

The idea of going cold turkey, and missing all those daily micro-hits, fills the Addict with dread. 

The finger to kill the call resumes its downward path, the urge to hang up almost overpowering.

Almost.

Deep down, part of the Addict knows doing nothing will only make things worse.

Wanting to act is not acting.

The Addict’s Solution

The Addict withdraws the finger hovering over the button that will kill the call.

Braced to confront every addict’s deepest fear, the Addict replies to Helpline C’s question, still hanging after the long silence.

Bravely, in a barely-audible whisper, the Addict starts telling the Responder everything. 

As the Addict recounts the journey – all the calls, all the futile solutions, all the disappointments – something magical starts to happen.

Every word, every confession, every admission of failure, dissipates the Addict’s fear a little more. 

The Respondent has said nothing, but hearing an honest, unvarnished admission of a P addiction uttered in their own voice turns the Flash into sunny uplands stretching to to the horizon. 

Going cold turkey suddenly seems not only possible, but desirable. Minutes after fearing never again feeling P’s sweet endorphin rush, the very idea seems absurd. P’s tiny pleasures now appear trivial when set against the giant benefits of:

• unaddicted foetuses
• gardens for backyards instead of rubbish heaps
• restored wildernesses
• thriving wildlife
• a return to normal levels of drowning, burning and shrivelling

Is this all it takes?, wonders the Addict, as their confession ends in a confident voice unrecognisable from the whisper they started with.

The Responder’s reply, therefore, comes as a surprise.

Helpline C’s Plastic Solutions

Responder:

Well, yes, I suppose you could go cold turkey yourself.

It might well make you feel a lot better about yourself.

Mind you, many of the callers who don’t hang up tell us that just using a bit less P makes them feel much better. 

So no need to put too much pressure on yourself by going full cold turkey – that’s pretty tough.

A long silence, then.

Addict (almost disappointed):

But isn’t going cold turkey the only way to kick our P habit?

Responder: 

Yes and no. 

Kicking your personal P habit may help you, but will make no difference to the broader problems. 

Fixing the P problem for everyone else would require everyone to voluntarily go cold turkey at the same time, immediately.

Addict (without thinking): 

Good luck with that.

Respondent: 

Precisely.

A long silence, then.

Addict (slowly): 

So if it’s not me going cold turkey and giving up P, what were you going to suggest?

Respondent:

You may not like it.

Addict:

Try me. Can’t be worse than not using P any more, can it?

Respondent: 

Yes and no. 

Our solutions are much less demanding than giving up P yourself, but they’re also much less likely to see immediate results. 

That makes our solutions much more likely to make you despair and give up. 

Addict:

I’m not sure I want to hear them then.

Respondent: Precisely.

A long silence, then.

Addict:

Oh go on then, I might as well know.

Respondent:

Are you sure?

Addict:

I told you I wanted to know. 

Respondent:

Okay then.

Take an action to make the Politicians change the rules and ensure the Police enforce them, so the Dealers sell sustainable or recycled gear instead.

Addict:

That’s never going to happen.

Respondent:

We understand. 

I feel your pain and hear your concerns.

BAll the best with the cold turkey and call again if you change your mind.

Addict:

Wait, wait, wait!

Respondent:

What is it now?

I have another caller waiting who may not have given up yet.

Addict:

I’ve not given up! 

Respondent:

It sounded like you had.

Addict:

Tell me more…

**

To act to help Helpline C: How To Live Without Plastic

If you want to read more, this parable is one of a series of See Through News articles and stories on the challenges and solutions of plastics, fossil fuel addiction, pollution and waste:

• Why Waste Time In A Time Of Waste?: looks at the evolution of our understanding of our ‘waste problem’. examining the issue of waste to help effective climate activists sift useful bits from time-wasters.
• New Rubbish Bin Labels: ‘Choke’, ‘Starve’ or ‘Shrivel’: in terms a small child or Golden Retriever might understand, cuts through the tangled knots and unintended consequences of waste management policy to expose the rubbish problem no one wants to talk about.
• How To Explain Burning Waste To A Child, Alien or Legislator: reveals, in terms a child can understand, our actual options for dealing with ‘waste’.
• Why Do We Let Strangers Set Fire To Our Bins?: takes different perspectives on a problem we’d all rather ignore – what happens after the bin men take our rubbish ‘away’, reveals who we should be listening to for the sustainable solutions, and how we can act.
• Litter and Rubbish: A More Complicated Climate Challenge Than You Might Think: Rashomon-style litter-ary mini-screenplays focusing on the emotional reality behind how we view throwing stuff ‘away’.
• The Big But – climate action, inaction and self-delusion: reveals, also in terms a child can understand, the inertia behind addressing our increasingly urgent waste issue.