COFFEE WITH SATAN: PLASTIC, A LOVE STORY

Plastic.  Everyday we buy plastic.  Then throw it away.  Have you ever considered where this crap goes?  What it’s made of?  Not surprisingly, Satan had plenty to say on the subject.  We met at the Starbucks in the Ralphs Shopping Center in Marina Del Rey on Independence Day.

N: Happy 4^th of July.

S: Yes, Happy Independence Day.  What would you like to discuss - slavery, the forefathers, fireworks.

N: As much as I’d like to, there is a more pressing topic.  Something we have not grown “independent of”, so to speak.

S: Speaketh, my friend.

N: I’ve used plastic my entire life.  And then thrown it away immediately.

S: God forbid you used it more than once.

N: I read that the average American produces 102 tons of garbage in their life.

S:  Stop it, stop it, I’m getting turned on.  Okay, continue.

N: As of 2010, the American population is 307,212,123.  Multiply that by –

S: That comes to 31 billion 335 million 636 thousand 546 tons of garbage.  I know the number by heart.  It’s a beautiful number.  But we’re talking ancient history.  That’s 2010.  We’re much further along, now.

N: And a good portion of what’s in that garbage is plastic.

S: Look, to fuck up a juicy planet up like this one, you have to pound it’s C.O.G., or center of gravity again and again – it’s a resilient fucking planet.  You have to keep hitting.  Hard!  For Earth, the C.O.G. is the water.  You fuck the water, you fuck the planet.  Our chemists have been working on different solutions for centuries.  It hasn’t been easy.  We’ve dumped all sorts of things in the water.

N: Such as oil spills.

S: Yes, but this is worse than an oil spill.  The BP thing is peanuts compared to what occurs on a daily basis.  35 % of fish have plastic in their stomachs, which is awesome – and guess who eats fish?

N: Wow.

S: Yes, those that eat fish have - guess what - in their bellies?

N: Hmmm.

S: Plastic is a testament to punishingly hard work and patience.  No overnight success here. 

N: Tell me about how you arrived at the… plastic concept?

S: The key to human evolution is food storage.  If you don’t have to hunt of your food, you have more time to do other stuff, like build weapons, watch TV, or do absolutely nothing but create invisible fears and nonexistent threats – which is what most people do.

N: Thanks to you.

S: You’re welcome.  So, of course, we didn’t at first see how this food storage thing could be an advantage, but poisoning food and water has always been the cornerstone of evil.  Such as the Pompeii thing.  They had a fantastic plumbing system, except that it was all lead – which made everyone crazy and fucked up.  So, we were always doing shit like this.

With the industrial revolution, we started out with cans and eventually it was

glass bottles – which were great for a few decades, and tons of the stuff wound up in the ocean, but the thing that bothered me was, nothing in glass had that “Pompeii Effect”.  It wasn’t unhealthy for the human to drink from glass.

N: So, you came up with plastic.

S: Plastic is also less tangible.  It looks more temporary.  It has that feel of something you could use once and throw away, guilt free.  Glass didn’t have that.  You throw it on the ground and you hear “thunk”, or it breaks or whatever.  You throw plastic in the garbage, you don’t hear anything. 

N: Silence.

S: No guilt.  Keep tossing that shit.  It’s all good.

N: Or bad.

S:  But a plastic jug, disappointingly, only takes 500 years to degrade.    A diaper takes 600 years.  Which is amazing.  I love dirty diapers.

N: 600 years for one diaper!

S: That’s an extra bonus, because the baby shit that would probably degrade in a month or so, gets to live an extra 600 years –

N: Stuck inside plastic, floating in the ocean somewhere.

S: If you calculate this, the generation that started using diapers will be fucking up their great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandchildren –

N: If we’re around that long.

S: Not if I have anything to do with it.

N: So, what you’re saying is, plastic jugs and diapers aren’t enough.

S: No, fuck no.  I mean, we got tons of this shit into oceans – and don’t get me wrong – I love plastic.  But it’s also too tangible.  And people are catching on that you have to recycle this stuff.  And the Chinese, they’re real cheap, they buy this stuff to rerproduce by the tons. 

N: But I still see a lot of people toss this stuff in the garbage. 

S: Yea, and that’s cool, but you have to understand something, this planet is a stubborn fucking cunt and you have to slam it, if you’re going to make it bleed.  And we want to make it bleed volcanoes.  We don’t want a period once a month.  We want two a week.   Maybe three.  It’s already happening.

N: So, what’s worse than a plastic jug that takes 500 years to degrade or a dirty diaper that takes 600?

S: Styrofoam.

N: Really?

S: Hallelujah.  A miraculous material that never degrades.  NEVER.

N: Styrofoam NEVER degrades?

S: Never.  It has – like – everlasting life?

N: It lives under any conditions, bro. It’s petroleum pudding.  And you guys use this crap on everything.  Packing meat.  To go trays in restaurants.  Styrofoam cups.  One go and it’s in the oceans or living in your soil.  Your dumb asses will be long gone, while this stuff lives. 

S: Wow.  So, it never dies.

N: Never dies.  Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER!   It’s a fucking vampire form of plastic.  I tried to get Starbucks to use this stuff.  McDonald’s too.  They use but not as much as I'd like them to.  I guess, I agree with that.  I mean, we have this shit everywhere.  And the petroleum from this crap bleeds into everything.

S: And it’s all over the oceans.

N: I wish I could come Styrofoam.  So listen, gotta go.  Happy Independence Day.  You want another coffee or pastry?