Harmful misconceptions about single-use plastic and other household products

Keith Matanachai '22

Plastic bags harm the environment, an obvious statement. And that’s the problem. The popularity of this five-word phrase could do more harm than good if we do not place it in the context of larger environmental problems. Shelie Miller, a professor at the University of Michigan, recently published Five Misconceptions Surrounding the Environmental Impacts of Single-Use Plastic, highlighting the following five false myths:

1. Plastic packaging is the largest contributor to a product’s environmental impact

2. The environmental impacts of plastics are greater than any other packaging material.

3. Reusable products are always better than single-use plastics.

4. Recycling and composting should be the highest priority.

5. “Zero waste” efforts that eliminate single-use plastics minimize the environmental impacts of an event.

(Miller, 2020)

It’s not surprising why consumers focus so much on plastic packaging. For example, it is often the first thing we see when we walk into grocery stores. It is also easy to imagine how plastic packaging can harm the environment. Moreover, videos of sea turtles with plastic straws in their noses or birds with bottle caps in their stomach etch the environmental harms of plastic into the forefront of our minds. By overemphasizing the reduction of plastic packaging, we may end up delaying more important environmentally-friendly changes in society. Further research shows that the impact of plastic on the environment isn’t the only thing humans tend to overestimate. As it turns out, humans are not very good at understanding how to decrease their carbon footprint. For example, an average of 60% of people around the world think that recycling is the most effective way to reduce carbon emissions. In reality, we would only save 0.2 tonnes of CO2 per year compared to other more environmentally effective methods (Lockhart, 2021).

It is important to note that Miller is not arguing that we stop recycling or continue to use plastics, but rather that we understand plastics play a relatively small part when compared to lifestyle changes such as using public transportation or buying renewable energy. This idea of where to focus our environmental efforts is one that particularly fascinated me after realizing that I had also fallen victim to some of the misconceptions about single-use plastics. But single-use plastics weren't the only thing I had misconceptions about.

90% of the energy used by washing machines goes to heating up water (ACI, 2019). By simply doing laundry in cold water, one could save a significant amount of energy. But why is it that only 52% of Americans use cold water?

There are a number of possible reasons why people use hot water in laundry machines. One reason is maybe that the default setting for many washing machines (including Hotchkiss’s washing machines) is warm, and many people don’t bother to change it. Or another reason could be the misconception that hot water is better for clothes. While it is true that for people with exposure to COVID-19 or soiled clothes, warm water is better, in a post-pandemic world, washing the majority of clothes in cold water preserves their color and shape, making them last longer. Moreover, many believe that even if using cold water increases the lifespan of clothes, it also means that stains don’t come off as easily? In order to understand why this isn’t the case anymore, it is necessary to know how detergents work.

Most common detergents use the same principle that keeps cellular membranes intact: hydrophobic (that repel water) and hydrophilic regions (that attract water). By placing molecules with hydrophobic regions and hydrophilic regions, stains are transferred from clothing to the surface of the washing machine and washed away. As shown below, these molecules form circular shapes called micelles. The blue circles in the graphic below are hydrophilic and the yellow stems are hydrophobic. The yellow stems attract the grease and oil in dirty clothes. As water fills the washing machine, the blue circles transport grease off of the clothes.

In the past, these enzymes that formed micelles could only function in warm temperatures and were less effective in cold water. But nowadays, companies like Tide have found workarounds to the temperature problem by using a variety of enzymes, some of which are from cold-water organisms (Thompson, 2015). As a result, most detergents have special proteins that work to eliminate stains in colder environments.

From misconceptions regarding plastic or laundry, it's evident that environmental awareness is necessary for sustainable consumption. In many cases, challenging assumptions through scientific research enables one to become a better environmental citizen by reducing carbon footprint.

References

ACI. (n.d.). THE CHEMISTRY OF CLEANING. The American Cleaning Institute. Retrieved September 17, 2021, from https://www.cleaninginstitute.org/understanding-products/science-soap/chemistry-cleaning

ACI. (2019, August 6). Loads of Fun? Survey Finds Laundry Tops List of America's Favorite Cleaning Tasks. The American Cleaning Institute. Retrieved September 17, 2021, from https://www.cleaninginstitute.org/newsroom/releases/2019/loads-fun-survey-finds-laundry-tops-list-americas-favorite-cleaning-tasks

Lockhart, C. B. (2021, April 17). Clothes dryer vs the car: carbon footprint misconceptions. Financial Times. Retrieved September 17, 2021, from https://on.ft.com/3giHsdi

Miller, S. A. (2020). Five misperceptions surrounding the environmental impacts of single-use plastic. Environmental Science & Technology, 54(22), 14143-14151. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.0c05295

Thompson, H. (2015, June 1). The Case for Washing Clothes in Cold Water. Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved September 17, 2021, from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/case-washing-clothes-cold-water-180955459/