sociology

Microplastic Tea Bags, Moldy Purses and Lead

~ Emma ~ Leave a comment

I thought I was doing okay. I eat insanely clean, I think clean (for the most part), I recycle, I compost, I read, I stay informed on everything that will help me stay alive, I vote, I invest in relationships instead of stocks and boats, I have passions (three: writing, music and nature), I like helping people, I am kind and compassionate and empathetic, I give, I listen, I say no, I walk everywhere, I yoga, I put non toxic serums and creams on my face, I floss daily (and use a water pik), no SLS, parabens, EDTA, PFOA’s, BPA’s, I take vitamin D and magnesium, I practice stoicism, mindfulness, I meditate, I sleep pretty well, I have great friends, I love where I live, ok, you get it.

Except it’s all gone to shit. Because my purses are full of mold spores, I’m eating off of plates jacked full of lead and my tea bags are bursting forth a microplastic frenzy into every cup of deliciously creamy rooibos I make. Oh, and my B vitamin fortified almond milk is giving me panic attacks (I recently switched milks and now I’m fine…ish).

I hope someone in the year 2226 reads this and thinks, “Huh, I wonder why humanity spent so much money and time on trying to kill themselves faster, and also wrote books and did podcasts about how to do things to live longer. Were they confused? Fucked up? This is odd. I’m so glad we don’t have these problems now. That must have been a rough time to be alive.”

Yes, there are worse things in life than this. Far more awful tragedies and occurrences and events and things happening that probably rank higher on the to-do list of things we need to fix and work on, so please don’t think I’m not aware that this is a relatively first world problem. I studied Sociology, lots of it. I know what’s up. For the most part.

Last month I started cutting open my tea bags and using only the loose-leaf tea through a strainer into my mug. Because apparently, I’m killing myself faster with all the microplastics found in tea bags. I only drink tea, a shit ton of it. Herbal. No caffeine. True story.

Great, I feel better. Using only loose-leaf tea now. But, there are also microsplastics in take-away cups from all cafés and tea places. Starbucks sprays the shit out of the inside of their cups, so does everywhere else, why do you think the cup just doesn’t disintegrate from the hot liquid? Ya. Microplastics. I want to enter peri and menopause with relatively few issues, (is this even possible nowadays though? I still think it is) as well as just try and help my liver and kidneys and skin by reducing the intake of the things they’re all working their butts off to help me get rid of. Thanks guys, I see you.

I’ve got the microplastic tea thing covered, I have a reusable BPA free mug I bring with me at all times now, but, the tea bags from Starbucks, or wherever, yup, full of nylon (nylon!), nanoplastics lodging themselves into my organs. Don’t even get me started on Celestial Seasonings and Tetley, or Stash or anything other than Traditional Medicinals who make their tea bags out of stuff that’s safe to come in contact with a human body.

Ok so that’s fine, I solved this problem. I don’t need to get my rooibos tea latte from Breka anymore, I gave up caffeine, I can do this. I’m a loose-leaf tea gal now, full on, straight up, cold turkey, let’s do this. I can keep it loose. This goes well with my vibe.

What’s the next one? Oh, the mugs and the plates and the bowls I eat all of my healthy things off of, everything I put my food on, ya, it’s slathered in a glaze that has levels of lead and cadmium that isn’t deemed safe to consume. Pottery Barn, Williams Sonoma, Anthropolgie, Pier One, HomeSense, (basically everywhere you can buy dishes) have all been slammed for their dishware testing positive for “safe” levels of lead. I do not want any lead. Period.

It sometimes makes me laugh that I thought I was being healthy drinking my ginger tea out of my cute little purple and white surfboard mug from David’s tea. “What’s for breakfast Emma?” Fucking microplastics and lead.

Want to know what else is fantastic? There is no safe level of lead exposure for the human body. I’ve been excitedly filling myself with lead for, oh I dunno, my entire life? And microplastics. And want to know something else pretty fabulous? When I quit caffeine, I upped my 90-100% dark chocolate consumption. It’s why I’m up right now at 12:22am sitting here typing this. I’m pms’ing too so I had a boat load of chocolate for dinner after my meal inside my lead laden bowl. Brussel sprouts and carrots drizzled with EVOO, dash of pink salt and a side of lead. If you read my last post you know, I love sides.

I sometimes, feel like I just can’t fucking win, you know? Some would say, “you are winning Emma, you’re way ahead of most people.” Am I though? And I don’t really care if I am ahead or behind, what does that even mean? End of the day that matters not. It does feel slightly though, that I’m on this treadmill running trying to catch up to, not dying sooner than I’d like to. You feel me?

We humans keep coming up with all these ideas, let’s toxify ourselves to death. I secretly think this is a form of population control.

September turned into a tea replacing frenzy. I spent three hours one night, literally cutting open all of my tea bags and putting the loose leaf tea into nicely labeled individual lead free glass jars. Do I have too much time on my hands? Apparently not enough now!

September was also all about figuring out why the hell my hall closet smells like mold. My Mom and I figured it out together because her closet in her apartment also smelled the same. We have two of the same purses from a very well known Canadian purse and backpack company that, yup, full on, are made with certain material that very happily traps moisture like, that’s it’s only job. I’m serious, these purses more so than any other bag I have ever owned just smell terrible.

So, we emptied them. Sprayed them violently with the strongest vinegar solution that exists because apparently this will help get rid of the mold spores and thus, bring down the smell. It isn’t just this company. Lots of backpacks and purses depending on the material do this. But I had never experienced a smell like this from a bag…ever. The vinegar thing worked but, it’s only a matter of time before I’ll need to repeat this procedure I’m pretty sure.

I go back to my theory of population control. The more mold my body harbours, the more microplastics, the more lead, the faster I degrade. Not cool with that.

October is all about dishware. I found a list online of all the safe lead and cadmium free dishware brands and there’s great stuff online to help me make this transition as smooth as possible. I’m sad though, I have attachments to certain bowls and mugs. I live alone, single, not even a cat anymore, and so, my cozy bowls and mugs, comfort. I mean I’m still starved for conversation, (hence the blog) but, they do give me something. Gave me something. Past tense. It’s over.

It’s ok, I’m good at break-ups and going cold turkey. Sort of. I will find a more suitable bowl that is less toxic. Toxic relationships are no bueno anyway. This is better for everyone.

But! One of the most exciting parts of this dishware chaos, is…that, I plan on taking a hammer, a bat, or whatever hard and impacting object I can find and smashing the shit out of every plate, cup, bowl, dish, every lead laced item, so no one ever will get their hands on my lead dishes and be exposed to such bullshit. Sure, I could give them away, sell them on Marketplace but, I cannot contribute to this. I am a protector and healer of humans. I bring the light, not the dark.

I wonder what November will be. Kind of intrigued. At the rate I’m going, there will be something. Stay tuned.

Broken Up and Down

~ Emma

Break ups suck. Even when it’s the right thing. “We’re gonna be fine. We have to do it and it’s the right thing to do. And nothing bad happens when you’re doing the right thing.” Ryan Gosling once said. George Clooney followed that line up with, “Is this your personal theory? ‘Cause I can shoot holes in it.”

I am in the process of breaking up with my phone and technology’s influence on my life. Complete overhaul, something I knew I needed to do because well, I want to feel what it’s like to be alone with myself again. Totally alone. And if you know me, you know I prize being alone. But even when I think I’m alone now, I’m not really.

“Our attention is the most valuable thing we have. We experience only what we pay attention to. We remember only what we pay attention to. When we decide what to pay attention to in the moment, we are making a broader decision about how we want to spend our lives…If you wanted to invent a device that could rewire our minds, if you wanted to create a society of people who were perpetually distracted, isolated, and overtired, if you wanted to weaken our memories and damage our capacity for focus and deep thought, if you wanted to reduce empathy, encourage self-absorption, and redraw the lines of social etiquette, you’d likely end up with a smartphone” – Catherine Price, How To Break Up With Your Phone.

Does this not scare you?

In my third year of Sociology, I took a course called, “Technology and Society.” It was one of the scariest academic four and a half months of my degree. And that’s saying something because there were many “scary” moments learning Sociology. But scary in that amazing way. At least, I thought it was amazing.

This was 2007. At the time I was much on the same page with the theme of the course being how technology is ruining people and taking us further away from our natural humanness. Fast forward to 2026. Yeah…like…holy shit.

A lot of attention was paid in that class, showing up for every lecture like it was a lifeline. I knew if I missed out on anything, I’d probably regret it. This one was different than any other course. I was really excited for each following lecture because I sort of felt like someone was telling me something from the future that I needed to keep in my back pocket really securely for the next twenty years, and I guess for the rest of my life. And now this information, there’s just too much of it. My pockets are overflowing. I am, you are, ticking time bombs now. The longer we let devices do what they’re doing, the closer we come to exploding. Oh wait, crap, that’s already happened.

What we know has no impact, gaining insight about this addiction crisis means zippo unless we start doing something about, what we know. And I love the people out there who are doing this. And now I’m one of them.

I sat in the very front row of that class each week. The professor would speak as if he was already in 2026 and he knew the future of my brain, of everyone’s brains. It’s exactly what I’m reading now about the things that phones are doing to us. But reading and hearing about it, is a different story than living it right? We all know we should be spending less time on our devices. But habits are not easy to change, especially this particular one because there’s a zillion people out there employed to make sure, we stay hooked and never break it. My prof described at the time how cell phones and technology eventually would be controlling our lives and how quickly we will lose our sense of relating with each other as we become codependent with technology. What did that even mean? Gotcha. I know now.

I was kind of anti technology at the time. Still am. I didn’t like having a cell phone and it really frustrated people when they couldn’t reach me when I lived abroad (shout out to Hayley and Munky who could never find me at Bondi or Coogee). Everyone had Nokia cell phones texting and arranging where to go and meet and I was always the one who left my cell in my dorm room and continued to use the landline on my desk. I just didn’t want people knowing where I was and I didn’t like texting to make plans. I like talking, with those things we have in our throats, vocal chords. You know those two bands of smooth muscle tissue located in the larynx at the top of the trachea? Ya, those. And I like planning ahead. “Let’s meet here at this time. If something happens and we miss each other, let’s try again another day.” If they showed up at that time and place amazing, they knew if they didn’t, they wouldn’t get another chance to rearrange plans or chat to me that day until I got home. A fun trick to know who actually wants to see your face and who’s just treating you like an option. Some days I was left standing at the beach bus stop alone, only to get back to my dorm room that night to seven missed calls and fourteen texts from Munky being like, “I got caught up painting meet me at Coogee instead!” I headed to Bondi that day and had a blissful afternoon watching the surfers and eating fish and chips solo. At twenty three that behaviour flies, at forty two, see ya.

Building meaningful and strong connections does not happen through a device. I knew that when I was twenty and I know it even more now.

No wonder people feel so starved for depth of connection these days. Sure you could say the opposite, that staying connected through a phone is effort, but the way you use the device is what makes or breaks the connection. I very much believe we are getting further away from actually knowing each other. I don’t care what you say, this stuff on the phone…it’s not connection. It gives us wonderful things to make our lives better, but it’s still establishing an unhealthy addiction. Slowly, or maybe faster than we think, reconfiguring our brains.

I like when people say, “Let’s stay connected.” I’m always like, “Ok, how should we do that? What does connection mean and feel like for you?” They look at me funny like I just asked them if cheetahs are waterproof.

Getting clarity on the definition of connection is important to me, as it’s different for everyone. Mostly because I am completely finished with any kind of connection that isn’t in the realm of, “Who are you…really?” You reach your 40’s and you stop giving fucks about stuff that used to matter so much. I’m after depth and interest and honest, raw communicating, with like open ended questions, lots of them. You want to know someone, open end question the hell out of them. I was after this in my 20’s and 30’s too not just now. I’m still after it today because it’s a secret weapon.

So I’m breaking up with my phone. Breaking this down into a full on, nuanced break up. I wanted to do this when I was 23 and here I am almost 42 doing the same thing. Some things don’t change, some things change a lot. Changing my notifications, alerts, deleting apps, cleaning up screens and pages, no more badges, greyscale mode, Auto Reply text messages alerting that I’m “out of the office and living like it’s 1996” and, before I reach for my phone I will ask myself, what for, why now and what else. What else could I do right now other than check my phone? Why am I picking it up right now? What am I picking it up to do?

I’m ok with change, especially when I know this is going to be a really good thing. Break ups take time, adjusting to new habits and going through withdrawal and riding out the urges, understanding why this is the best thing for me to do for my health while also recognizing that some people won’t understand, agree or want to share in this break up mentality with me. That’s ok, I can’t be anything but me: keep unfollowing the herd, listening to my own beats and walking down a path that’s lonely sometimes, but it’s as Munky might say, “less constrained.”

“Phone. noun: a device that uses either a system of wires along which electrical signals are sent or a system of radio signals to make it possible for you to speak to someone in another place who has a similar device.”

Key word, “speak.”

Life is not meant to be like this and I will resist the way technology is taking over and wrecking our brains and social skills and our ability to pay attention, until I’m wrinkled and grey. It is lonely sometimes, but it is also cleaner, fresher, quieter, simpler and a lot less chaotic.  

We are all addicts now and what the next twenty years are going to look like, I honestly am not super stoked to find out. However, I can feel something brewing that I can’t quite put my finger on just now. And if you’re reading this today, remember I said this and call me up in twenty years on your landline! I wish I could meet my professor for coffee and see where he’s at now with all of this…stuff.

Nothing bad is going to happen. It’s the right thing to do. No holes in this theory. Just do it. Raise your vibration my fellow souls. What one person can do so can another. Will, persistence, focus, motivation, drive, consistency. Then one day magic, you’ve changed a habit and your brain is better for it.

“We must act, individually and collectively, to make our attention our own again, and so reclaim ownership of the very experience of living.” – Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants.

Last thing. I’ve removed the “like” and “comments” feature on my blog because…nope. If you like reading these fantastic, but I don’t need to know anymore. Some things are best left a mystery. There is a better and more meaningful way to let someone know you like something they did. I’ll let you figure that one out on your own.