What A Confusing World

The more I learn about the world I live in, the more confused I get. All around us people are telling us to be green, to recycle everything we can, and eat organic. The issues surrounding the environment and conservation are much more complicated than the ad campaigns say though. I am in a few courses at Michigan State University that opened my eyes up to how the world I live in really operates. The most interesting thing to me is the complicated system that is the modern food chain.

Did you know what the item of food Americans eat the most of? Can you guess? Corn. Corn is in nearly everything we eat. I learned this from the documentary King Corn. In the Midwest of America, corn is grown in droves, especially in Iowa. But none of this corn is edible straight off the farm. To make this corn edible it has to be processed into things like High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS), that ever-so-common sweetener in the vast majority of our foods. Now before this documentary I knew about HFCS and it’s presence in our foods, but I had no idea how much corn permeated our society in its various forms.

Corn is not only in our processed foods, but it is also an inherent part of our meat. We feed our cattle, pigs, and chickens grain from corn, even though these animals were never meant to eat such large amounts of corn. It is unhealthy for them and if we didn’t slaughter the animals when we do, then the animals would die anyway from complications of all the grain. The documentary visited a concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) where cows were kept in small stalls and force fed grain all day. Feeding them grain brings the animals up to market weight faster, so they can be killed and made into food in a shorter amount of time.

With all of this corn in our diet, the two people in the book discovered that humans in America are actually made of corn after taking a sample of hair. The hair sample showed that the carbon in their bodies originated from corn. America is truly a land of corn people, which Michael Pollan discusses in his book The Omnivore’s Dilemma. The book looks at all of the food in the average American life and traces it back to its origins. The issue of the overly complicated food chain is intriguing and far more confusing than the popular cry to eat local and organic food. The question I am now confronted with – what I should do about our complicated food chain – is one I don’t have an answer to yet. I can’t afford to buy food that promise me they are “all-natural” and I definitely can’t afford to buy meat that is specified as “grass-fed” instead of corn-fed. Should I just continue as I have been and accept there is nothing I can do? I don’t have answers to these questions, but I do know that life in America seems to balance precariously on a few precious resources (corn, oil, etc …) and it seems to me that one day this balancing act will have to fall.

Plastic Debris: A problem on land and at sea

One of the most common items in everyday life is plastic. It is in water bottles, computers, clothes, packaging materials, toys, artificial limbs, microwave ovens, furniture, and automobiles. What happens to plastic when people are done using it?

According to the Environmental Protection Agency the U.S. generated about 30 million tons, 11.7 percent of the total waste stream, of plastics in 2006. Surprisingly, only about five percent of all plastics produced in America are recycled, according to the Energy Information Agency . One reason for such a small percentage is the high cost of recycling plastic. New plastic materials are cheaper than recycled materials for manufacturers, according to the EIA.

Plastic waste fills America’s landfills and litters the roadsides. One of the largest landfills isn’t even on land, but is floating in the middle of the ocean. It lies about 1,000 miles west of California and 1,000 miles north of Hawaii, according to an article by the San Francisco Chronicle.

The accumulation of plastic gathers together because of ocean currents, the article reports, bringing the debris from all over the world. The mass of plastic and debris is about twice the size of Texas, and is estimated to weigh 3 million tons. It floats just under the surface of the water, varying from an inch thick to about 300 feet thick.

Cleaning up the mass of plastic and debris would be more complicated then it sounds, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The mass is not only huge, but also very delicate and remote. It is mostly made up of fine plastic chips and would be impossible to skim out of the ocean. It is also a week’s journey by boat from the closest port, which would make it difficult to transport the trash.

This huge collection of plastic speaks volumes about the amount of plastic waste carelessly thrown out and forgotten. Cleaning up all that garbage will be no easy task, and it is one that shouldn’t be necessary. While cleanup efforts are desperately needed, they still aren’t enough. It would much easier to recycle plastic waste before it ends up in landfills and floating around the ocean.

Healthy Or Not?

One of the first remarks to newcomers on campus is a warning about the Red Cedar River. They are told that the river running through campus is dirty and unhealthy to swim in. Rumors of large amounts E-Coli and other horrifying diseases have run rampant through campus. These rumors, not surprisingly, are old and not up-to-date. The river, while not perfectly clean, is not as dirty as it is made out to be.

In 2007, the levels of E. Coli per 100 millimeters in the Red Cedar in the East Lansing area ranged widely. The levels tended to increase after heavy rainfall, when run-off from farms added fecal matter to the water. After one such rainfall on June 4, 2007, the E. Coli levels were at 6100 bacteria per 100 millimeters. But levels that high are rare. Most recorded levels are around 100 to 200 bacteria per 100 millimeters.

The Environmental Protection Agency Water Quality Standards for Michigan said that surface waters for total body contact should contain no more than 120 E. Coli per 100 millimeters, and at no time should contain more than a maximum of 300 E. Coli per 100 millimeters. Partial body contact regulations said that surface water should not contain more than 1000 E. Coli per 100 millimeters.

The Red Cedar is not perfect, but it is getting healthier. Volunteer efforts, like the biannual Red Cedar Clean Up, help keep the river clean of trash and debris. It takes time and effort to keep the Red Cedar clean, but with the help of volunteers, it will slowly get healthier.