Microplastics

One of the more active members of our community used to work in the union movement.  It's no surprise that she is the one with all the business and semi-political contacts, or that she does most of the administrative and communications work to keep the social events going.  She was pointing out to me that the construction of the building was non-union, and you could tell by lots of little deficiencies: for one thing, the number and amount of paint drips on the floor.  She's quite right.  Even though it's a new place, and there are some nice design features, and few major problems, there are a number of small problems.  I've got broken tiles in out of the way places in my bathrooms, the flooring isn't hardwood, but laminate, that has plastic covering meant to look (and feel) like grainy wood surface that's glued on to whatever is underneath (and is delaminating in a number of places), and a number of the electrical wall plugs are almost impossible to plug anything into.  The list goes on.

It goes into the garden.  There are large planters making up the divisions between private patios, which is nice.  I'm gardening in between the landscaped plants, and, conveniently for my gardening aspirations, there is a very large section in one of "my" planters which is not planted, and for which, one of the gardeners informed me, there are no plans.  I've got at least three rows of corn in there, a row of radishes, another of carrots, and a goodly sized section of strawberry plants.  And I've already taken off two harvests of plastics.

I suppose other people wouldn't have noticed much.  But I'm already attuned to the plastics from my garbage walks.  Lots of the litter that I pick up is plastic.  Plastic bags.  Cellophane wrappers.  Candy bar wrappers.  Coffee lids.  Disposable vapes, and vape refill bottles.  Water bottles.  And, since I'm planting, and working closely with the soil in the garden, I'm getting intimately familiar with how much plastic is in that soil, as well.

I assume that the soil in the planters is coming from composting facilities.  Better check the bags of potting soil that you are buying.  In the planters I have found lots of fragments of plastic bags, bits of plastic twine, fragments of coffee lids, broken pieces of bread bag closures, and lots of small, broken pieces of plastic that have obviously gone through mulching machines and sometimes seem to have been melted.  It's been a while since I last purchased potting soil.  I do recall some of it being bulked out with paper and cardboard pellets, but I don't remember any high degree of plastics.  Maybe this is yet another example of cutting corners and going with the cheapest source in building this place.

I don't imagine that the plastics in the planter beds are going to be as much danger to the plants as to the animals.  I can't see the plants absorbing much more than a slight toxic tinge, and even root vegetables aren't going to incorporate the breakdown microplastics after a bit of a rinse.  Mind you, I'm going to be rinsing microplastics down the drain when I do that.  But, overall, I suppose it's better to have the plastics here in the patio beds, where they are unlikely to be disturbed for some years, than in municipal lawns and other construction sites, where they are more likely to be washed into drains and contribute to the load we are dumping into the oceans.

It still bugs me when I'm gardening in it ...