We are three weeks past the East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment. At its heart are three factors, one an object and the second a way of thinking. The object is plastic and the way of thinking is corporatism. We will discuss the third later.

I remember my mother happily greeting an innovation in bathroom safety: the plastic bottle. She was thrilled to no longer worry lest some family member drop a glass bottle of shampoo, scattering shards over the floor. While the plastic bottle proved to be safe in that way, it is not safe in the long term.

In those days, staples including milk, mayonnaise and ketchup were sold in glass bottles. Milk bottles were topped not with sealed plastic but with a paper frill. Meat was not put out in open refrigerated bins on Styrofoam trays, covered in layers of cling wrap. There were no arrays of pre-made foods, whether dips, salads or entrées, packaged in lidded tubs and hinged “clamshells.”

The butcher who cut the meat also wrapped it in paper free of plastic coating and handed it to the customer. The few take-away foods that existed were sold in paper: corrugated cardboard pizza boxes which persist; paired paper plates stapled together for entrées, waxed paper bags for sandwiches, and variants on the rectangular Chinese boxes with their little metal handles.

The derailed train carried the ingredients for making the various plastic items we use and overuse.

We are addicted to these plastics in part because of corporatism, which Merriam-Webster defines as “the organization of a society into industrial and professional corporations serving as organs of political representation and exercising control over persons and activities within their jurisdiction.”

Think of how much influence lobbyists have over the making of laws. Think how corporations are lauded — often by the corporations themselves — for bringing jobs to underserved locations. Then remember that most of the money goes into the pockets of the CEOs and not into those of the workers.

Think of the power of open wallets, then think of citizens who hope that signing petitions and holding up signs will have some positive effect for the environment. Then think of the report by the London School of Economics and the Swedish Environmental Institute that 20 companies produce 55% of all single-use plastics. Then keep in mind the EPA’s statement from 2018 that “plastic generation was 35.7 million tons in the United States.”

While many citizens are working to reduce the use of fossil fuels, companies involved in their production see plastic as the source of their future solvency. India’s Minderoo Foundation has warned that expansion is in the business plans of most of the fossil fuel suppliers.

The lack of scientific literacy sustains the problem. In a discussion on Facebook, a woman declared that she uses Vaseline because she will not put chemicals on her face. She added that her grandmother applied Vaseline nightly and never had wrinkles.

It was suggested that the lady’s fine complexion was due to good genes and not to Vaseline. The writer was advised to make a facial product for herself from beeswax and olive oil. She was reminded that not only would those nature-derived substances maintain her skin, but would cost less made at home. She proclaimed she would stick with Vaseline. When she was asked whether she noticed that Vaseline rhymes with gasoline, she left the conversation.

We think chemical is a dirty word, but we do not recognize that 99% of every human body is made of oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, calcium and phosphorus. The final recipe for the body includes trace amounts of sulfur, potassium, sodium, chlorine and magnesium.

We need to admit that we, the homo not so sapiens, chose some terrible paths. We need to admit that global warming is real and that snow was once plentiful here at the 42nd parallel. This nearly dry winter, with temperatures spiraling up into the 60s, is not beautiful but a possible death warrant.

Now is the time to reveal the third factor: responsibility. In the definition of corporatism above is the word jurisdiction. There are factions claiming safety regulations limit freedom. More mainstream factions hold that government has the ultimate jurisdiction over safety, because jurisdiction, as defined by Oxford Languages, is “the official power to make legal decisions and judgments.”

In 2018, disregarding the safety of train crews, as well as that of citizens and the wildlife that inhabit the areas through which tracks are laid, and the purity of the environment, our highest level of government withdrew a regulation mandating reliable brakes for trains carrying dangerous substances. The companies that manufacture the dangerous chemicals, along with the railroad company carrying said chemicals, bear responsibility for this event, but most of the responsibility rests on the federal government.

Susan Wozniak has been a case worker, a college professor and journalist. She is a mother and grandmother.

]]>