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I'm going to tell you a story,
and it's my story,

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but it's all of yours story too,
and you'll soon see how.

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I asked my students

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to join me in the challenge of documenting
how plastic touches our lives,

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by taking a photo
every time we touch plastic.

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And at the end of that day,

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to put all of those photos
together in one spot.

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Here, I share with you my day of plastic.

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From the moment I woke up
to the moment I went to bed,

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as a working mother -
I have two young daughters -

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you can see that plastic
is in every single element of my day.

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And I've had to make
the photos quite small

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because it was challenging
to fit them all on to this slide.

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If you're looking closely,

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you might notice that I've put multiple
plastic items into many of the photos.

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It was quite overwhelming

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in the course of the day
to take that many pictures,

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but you can see that plastic
is in every single element of my day.

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Right from the start, when I woke up
to the sounds of my plastic alarm clock,

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the plastic packaging
in the food that I ate,

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the clothing that I put on
as I got ready to go outside,

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the phones that I talked on at work a lot,

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right through the end of the day,

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when I tucked in my youngest daughter
with her favorite stuffed animal, Pinky,

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synthetic,

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right down to the very last
step of the day -

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a plastic book cover
on the book that I was reading.

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Plastic is in every single element.

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When I put all of these photos together,
I found the result really shocking,

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but perhaps what's even more shocking

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is that we've only been using plastic
since the 1950s.

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That's about 65 years,

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and in that relatively short span of time,

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we have generated the estimated
[8,300 million] metric tons

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of plastic on the planet.

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That's equivalent to 25,000
empire state buildings.

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Now, out of all of that plastic,
only 9% has been recycled,

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and in my day of plastic,
9% looks like this.

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60% has been thrown away.

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In my day of plastic, 60% looks like this,

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leaving us with the 31%
that's still being used.

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All of that plastic -

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over time, with the heat of the sun,
light, oxygen, microbes -

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will brake down into smaller
and smaller pieces.

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That may take 10 to 20 years
for a plastic bag,

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upwards of 400 years for a plastic bottle,

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but over time, it will brake up
in the smaller and smaller pieces

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to what scientists now call microplastics.

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Microplastics are defined
as any plastic less than five millimeters,

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so about the size of a grain of rice,

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and we divide these into two types.

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The first, primary microplastics:
plastic engineered to be small.

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And there are many reasons why we do this:
medical, personal, industrial.

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Microbeads are one
that many of you will be familiar with,

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now banned in many countries.

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Watch out for other microplastics
in cosmetics,

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for example, synthetic fibers in mascara.

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Polystyrene beads

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are used in many applications
as stuffing and flotation;

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nurdles, a funny name
for plastic resin pellets

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that can be used to make
just about anything,

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and even things like glitter
are considered primary microplastics.

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Then we have our secondary microplastics,
and these are plastics that are created

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from the breakdown
of those large materials:

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fragments from a plastic bottle,
films from a plastic bag,

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fibers from netting, from rope,
and even from our synthetic clothing.

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Now, microplastics
are in my day of plastic too,

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but they are harder to see
because of their small size.

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But rest assured, they were there
from start to finish.

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In my morning cup of tea,

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plastic fibers in the deceptively
paper-looking-like tea bags -

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this is my last box -

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to the tire dust generated
from my synthetic polymer tires

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as I drove to preschool and to work,

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to the nurdles in
my daughter's stuffed animal

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and even the plastic gem on the ring
that she found in the parking lot.

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Right through to the end of the day,
the load of laundry I did,

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the lint from the dryer, containing
synthetic fibers from our clothing,

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to my daughter's artwork that I hung up
complete with sequence and glare,

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microplastics are everywhere.

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As scientists have looked
across habitats and environments,

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we found that microplastics
are everywhere:

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in different habitats -

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from freshwater to the ocean,
from deep sea to the Arctic -

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and in animals -

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from the bottom of the food chain
and zooplankton and fish,

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all the way to the top, to marine mammals
and even in ourselves.

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Microplastics are everywhere,

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and as animals eat those plastics,
it can have negative effects on them.

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It can have physical impacts,
blockages, abrasions,

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or chemical impacts,

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either from the chemicals
in the plastics leaching out

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or chemicals in the environment

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and contaminants sticking
to the plastic themselves.

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And all of this can create
negative health effects:

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decreases in growth, reproduction.

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The study of microplastics is a new one,

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and our knowledge of the impacts
of microplastics is limited,

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especially at the smaller sizes.

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And as we zoom down
to those smaller sizes,

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right down to the level
that's invisible to the naked eye,

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about 100 microns
or the thickness of the sheet of paper,

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we find microplastics there too.

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They are in my day of plastic,

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in the water that I drink,
in the air that I breath,

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and we're only just learning
about microplastics in food.

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My research team has found microplastics
in shellfish, in clams and in oysters.

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Other studies have found microplastics
in chicken, honey, salt, beer,

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and we've yet to learn
about microplastics in other foods.

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Almost all of the microplastics
that we've found,

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and in many other studies,
have been fibers.

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We're still figuring out
where these fibers come from,

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but synthetic clothing represents
a significant potential source.

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Every year, 70 million tons of fibers
are used in the clothing industry.

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Out of that 70 million, 60% are synthetic.

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And that's evident when you go shopping
if you look at your labels.

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My daughter and I went shopping
to get ready for this talk

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on a hunt for a natural fiber
dressy shirt.

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We went to four major
Canadian retailers, and we struck out.

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So I stand here today looking
a little less formal that I might like,

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but feeling a whole lot more comfortable
than I would if I were standing here

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talking to you about plastic
while wearing it.

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Now, as we wash our clothes,
fibers are released,

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and a recent study took
six-kilogram loads of laundry -

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polyester cotton, polyester, and acrylic -

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and washed them.

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And they generated

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anywhere from 140,000 fibers
for the poly-cotton mix

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to a whopping 700,000 fibers
for acrylic, per load.

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Now, I took those numbers
and imagined that my family of four

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would generate a three-kilogram load
of synthetic laundry a week.

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Multiply that up by 52 weeks a year,

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and my family alone generates
11 hundred million fibers a year -

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fibers that go into our sewage system,
into our waterways, into the ocean,

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into our ecosystems, and into our food.

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Our microplastics are everywhere,

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but there is something that we can do
about it almost everywhere we go,

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and it starts with the good old three R's
from the 70s that we're familiar with:

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reduce, reuse, recycle.

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But we need to update these
to add three new R's,

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starting with the first one: refuse.

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Refuse single use plastic,
refuse any plastic you don't need,

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refuse straws, refuse coffee cups,
think critically about what you need,

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think about where away is.

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If you can't refuse it, reduce it.

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Think carefully about
the plastic that you need,

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find natural alternatives where you can.

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There are many things that we can do
to reduce fiber pollution,

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for example, you can use
a fiber catcher like the Cora Ball,

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or use a bag to put your synthetics in,
like the Guppyfriend from Patagonia,

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use a front-loading washing machine

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that generates fewer fibers
than a top-loader.

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Use a filter on your washing machine

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to catch the fibers
before they go into the water.

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All of these things will help
reduce your fiber pollution.

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If you can't reduce it, reuse it.

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Choose products that are built to last

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rather than those
with planned obsolescence.

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Try to get most life
out of your plastic items that you can,

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and if you can't reuse it,
of course, recycle it,

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but even the hard things,

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even the things that don't fit
into your curbside recycling.

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In my case, that's plastic bags,
styrofoam, electronics.

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If your community doesn't have a facility
to deal with these types of items,

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then create the demand
and the need for it, it's worth your time.

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The second new R: rethink.

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We live in a society that doesn't place
a high value on second-hand goods,

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we need to change that.

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We need to focus on services
rather than replacement,

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and that is going to require
the final new R,

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and perhaps the most challenging,
which is to redesign.

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On a broader scale,
we need to change our thinking

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from the linear model
of make, take and dispose

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to one that's more circular in nature,

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to one in which we think
about the end life of a product

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right at its beginning.

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Now, I went through my day of plastic

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and chose a number of items
that follow that linear economy,

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that linear model
of make, take and dispose,

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and I multiplied the images

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by the number of each one
that I've used in my lifetime.

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Now, I'm proud and somewhat embarrassed

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to say that this is the alarm clock
from my childhood,

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which doesn't say much
for me keeping up with the times,

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but I've gone through

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a number of different appliances,
computers, phones;

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I chose my daughter's backpack
because in her seven years on this planet,

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she's already gone through three,

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and I've gone through more synthetic
clothing than I care to admit.

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This consumption model

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generates much more waste
than it would in a circular economy,

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one which focuses on services,

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on repurposing, on refurbishing,
rather than replacing,

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one in which I might have
one phone, one computer

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that gets updated with latest technology
as it becomes available.

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Imagine a system in which
you don't own your clothes,

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but burrow them or you rent them
from the companies that you like,

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you wear them until you want
something new, you send them back,

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they get repurposed
into newer styles you want to wear.

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Let's slow down fast fashion
and focus on quality rather than quantity.

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All of these things, with a change
in our linear way of thinking,

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are within the realm of possibility,
and many are already happening.

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Let's think outside the bottle
and create room for innovation.

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Plastic is a valuable product,
we are reliant on it,

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and a future without it
is completely unrealistic.

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But we can't and we shouldn't continue
to use it and produce it

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on the increasing trajectory
that we are currently on.

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Plastic is resilient,
it lasts a long time,

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and while that is a problem
in one respect,

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it represents an opportunity
in so many others.

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Microplastics are everywhere,
and while that scares me,

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what gives me hope is knowing
that the solutions are too.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)

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Winter Clark: I'm just so intrigued

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by these ideas of rethinking
and redesigning,

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you know, focusing on repair and services

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rather than just throwing
something out after one use.

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Do you think that those aspects
of rethinking and redesigning

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are more important

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than continuing to reduce
the amount of plastic that we use?

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Sarah Dudas:
I think they're both important.

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On an individual level,

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it's very easy to reduce
the amount of plastics that we use.

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Now, I challenge everybody here
to try and do that

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every time you're offered plastic
you don't really need.

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So we can make
some smart individual choices,

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but we do need to rethink things
at a broader level.

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There are some things that we're doing
that we can improve upon.

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For example, in the food
packaging industry,

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we package foods that have a shelf life
of a few days to maybe a few years

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and packaging that lasts
upwards of a few decades.

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This doesn't make sense,
we need to rethink those models,

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and with that will come

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a further reduction in the way
that we're using plastic.

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WC: Alright, thanks.

237
00:14:21,782 --> 00:14:22,831
SD: Thanks.

238
00:14:22,831 --> 00:14:25,252
(Applause)