Some Thoughts on Plastic

Spurred on by the 1960s movie "The Graduate"

Hi folks! Last month, I announced I’ll be using this column to send out 1-2 essays monthly reflecting on the intersection of nature and entertainment/culture (to better fit the title of this newsletter, “Naturally Entertaining). I’ll still be sending out roundups of the things I’m reading and watching once a month (check out the latest here).

There’s one line in The Graduate that lingers rent-free in my mind, years after watching the 1967 movie. And it’s probably not the one you’re thinking of.

The line that haunts me occurs when the main character, Benjamin (Ben), is avoiding a party that his parents have thrown for him. Ben is a recent college graduate who’s having an existential crisis about his future, which isn’t helped by well-meaning partygoers asking what he’s going to do next with his life.

After unsuccessfully attempting to escape the hounding inquiries of his parents’ friends, Ben gets cornered by one Mr. McGuire, who very seriously pulls Ben poolside: The following conversation ensues.

Mr. McGuire: I just want to say one word to you. Just one word.

Benjamin: Yes, sir.

Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?

Benjamin: Yes, I am.

Mr. McGuire: Plastics.

Benjamin: Exactly how do you mean?

Mr. McGuire: There’s a great future in plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it?

“Plastics.”

If you watch the YouTube video I linked above, one commenter describes this singular word as “prophetic and ultimately ruinous to human existence.”

Prophetic indeed: According to Our World in Data —a project of the UK nonprofit Global Change Data Lab — plastic production has “sharply increased” over the last seventy years. In 1950, the world produced two million tons of plastic. It now produces 450 million tons, according to the article, which was updated in February of this year.

I think about plastics a lot, actually. I think about them every time I toss my takeout container from the Thai place into the recycling bin, despite having learned in interviews for a story on plastic recycling that few of those black takeout containers ever get recycled. I think about them when I forget to dump said takeout onto a plate, and instead reheat it in the plastic container, remembering how much microplastic we are all exposed to on a regular basis. I think about plastics when I open up an online order and cut through the protective plastic cover to get to my coveted item. I think about plastics when I grab a single-use plastic fork at Panda Express, so I don’t have to bother washing a utensil when I get home. I think about them when I pop a grape in my mouth, remembering I picked up the bunch from the grocery store in a plastic box. I think about them today, when I read about the almost-catastrophe in Orange County, when a container of methyl metacrylate — a volatile compound used in the production of acrylic plastics — risked exploding this past week into a densely populated community.

And don’t even get me started on the 2023 train derailment in Ohio, which led to a mushroom cloud over the nearby town of East Palestine. The derailed train cars were carrying vinyl chloride, a colorless gas classified as a human carcinogen. It’s also used to manufacture plastics.

Plastic has brought so much convenience to our modern life, but I’m not sure that convenience has brought us happiness (not to mention the risks to our health and environment). Ease is not the same thing as joy. Yet, despite my avowed environmentalism, I’ve written before about how hard I find it to resist the pull of practices that make my life easier at the expense of the planet.

In fact, what got me to finally stop using as much plastic at the grocery store wasn’t the heap of trendy reusable tote bags piling up in my closet, but California law changing at the beginning of 2026. The new law implemented a total plastic bag ban at grocery stores, retail stores with a pharmacy, convenience stores, and liquor/food marts. The total plastic bag ban came after a previous 2014 law that had been put in place to reduce plastic consumption. The previous state law banned flimsier single-use plastic bags but allowed retailers to hand out thicker plastic bags that were ostensibly “reusable.” That 2014 law failed wildly, since most of the bags were never reused and wound up in the bin after a single use, ironically leading to an increase in plastic bag waste.

Photo by Volodymyr Hryshchenko on Unsplash

I understand why the law failed despite good intentions. I often forget my reusable grocery tote at home, or I don’t have one on me when I impulsively stop by the store on my walk. I justified taking my groceries home in the heavy-duty plastic bag because I repurposed it to carry my recyclables down to my building’s recycling bin on my way out the door, saving me an extra trip back to my apartment building to return our apartment’s black recycling bin (also made of plastic).

Turns out, when it comes to ruining the planet, you can point to convenience all the way down.

Following the plastic bag ban, I either bring my reusable bag to places like Sprouts that don’t offer paper bags or use the proffered paper bags at places like Trader Joe's. Now, I use those paper bags to carry my recyclables down to the apartment recycling bin — instead of plastic bags.

For so much of my life, I focused on my individual actions to safeguard the environment. And I still do think the individual has a tremendous power to influence others through their positive behavior.

But it’s really when system change — when laws and norms change — that mass behavior change percolates down to the individual level. We are slowly inching toward a future where we make it more convenient to take daily action on behalf of the planet — instead of ruining it. I’m hopeful that in another fifty years, we will no longer live in a world ruled by Mr. McGuire’s prophetic words.

Plastic was the future. But it doesn’t have to remain our future.