WRITE: TheInertia Environmental Editorial

Title: I Turned Down a Job Because it Kills the Environment. It Wasn’t An Easy Decision. (Editorial)
Produced for: theinertia.com
Role: Author
Date: 08/30/2017

Today I had to choose between taking a job or turning it down because of a personal, environmental choice. It’s the first time I’ve been confronted with such a challenge, and it was a struggle. It was a struggle because there was so much good about the opportunity, including the product, the team, and a combination of interpersonal, creative, marketing, and branding skills I’ve been working hard to develop over my career.

The product was organic, healthy, local juice. Unfortunately, the container they used to distribute it was made of plastic. There were plenty of justifications – including the process, the cost, and its ability to preserve the juice. The bottles were recyclable after use. But it became a sticking point for me. How could I try to eliminate plastic from my own kitchen while simultaneously assisting a company to kill the world with its excess plastic waste?

By some recent reports, more than 91% of plastics are never recycled, and plastic bottles – while small – sometimes reused are produced in such extreme quantity that all the beach clean-ups and trash patrol efforts may never be able to catch up.

If we can’t catch up, then why sacrifice my career path and my bank account for a lost environmental cause? The other day I watched a neat “How It’s Made” style video about ping pong balls. It was an innocuous time-waster while I laid in bed trying to fall asleep. The video followed the life of a ping pong ball – from small plastic disk through the factory to completion. It also tracked its future as a leisure or competition ball. They ended with a statistic. A fact I have no reason not to believe. That factory, that one factory, produces 600,000 ping pong balls a day.

The number blew my mind. How many ping pong players are there in the world (or more likely beer pong players)? Those ping pong balls that won’t break down for 100s of years. That plastic is almost being amassed almost exclusively for recreational use. How do you make a choice that is pro-environment when you know all of your efforts for a lifetime are overwhelmed by the production volume of a single day at one ping pong ball factory?

The answer is hope. Hope that we’re going to figure this all out. Hope that enough people will make enough choices leading us towards a solution. The answer is hope, and it is hard to hold on to. That was my choice to make. Ten years ago I may not have cared. I may have taken the job. Paid some bills. Bought some stuff. But the knowledge I’ve gained over the years about the effects of plastics on humans, animals, and our environment became my line in the sand. That glass box of ignorance (that would be quite convenient to still have) shattered long ago, and today I had to make a choice. I chose my belief system over my wallet and career. I hope it was the right one.