'The Big Solution' 

Editor:

Thadeus Greenson's coverage of Cal Poly Humboldt's work confronting the glut of plastic everywhere and in everything now ("Turning the Titanic," April 11) was an encouraging start. However, at the end of the article was Morgan King's more important point, I think, that the fossil fuel industry and the plastics industry's shift of responsibility to the consumer is, perhaps more crucially, what needs to change.

If companies make and promote products that create immense problems for the planet, those same companies need to be held responsible for solving those problems that they have created, the onus ought to be on them. And why isn't it? Advertising (professional lying) is part of the problem. That "recycle" is a euphemism for what is in actuality a nonexistent service — that's part of it. That, as King points out, companies have done a great job moving where the spotlight goes. And, of course, there's profit. Companies only do what they ought to do that would benefit the well-being of others if doing so is profitable.

New World Water, in Arcata, is one solution: refillable glass containers, as well as reusable plastic ones, are available — but that's only one small company in one location. None of the containers get dumped somewhere; they get refilled with a purified product, used and refilled again versus case after case of 8-ounce plastic bottles. The Co-op and other stores sell VOSS brand, for example, water in refillable glass containers. That's what we can do, but the big solution needs to come from the big companies that created the mess but not the cleanup — at least not yet.

Patricia Lazaravich, Trinidad