25

On new beginnings, the social tipping point and confetti

The bag looked innocent. Small enough to fit into a pocket. Tiny enough to quickly lose, and yet it unleashed a wave of emotions. Full of confetti, it was handed to my child by an eager staff member at school orientation with a note about sleeping with it and opening it up to celebrate the first day of school.

We’re in a season of new. New schools (yes, plural), new morning commute, new lunchbox, new foods to keep out of said lunchbox, new soccer team, the list goes on. Usually, I love the start of the fall. The cooler weather, the return of a semblance of order and routine, the chance to dig into fresh projects. This year, though, I’ve wanted to hold onto summer longer. To sit on our front porch in the early mornings, to have dinner outside, to sneak an afternoon away at the beach.

Nature’s confetti

Looking at that bag of confetti, I couldn’t help but sigh. I wanted to appreciate the effort. Confetti falling from the sky creates a magical, fantastical atmosphere. I also wanted to scream. Do I have to be the parent that emails the school and explains how harmful to the environment confetti is? Is it really a surprise that throwing confetti made of foil, glitter, or plastic is really, really bad for the environment? It’s littering. These pieces of trash can exist in the environment for 10, 20, or even 100+ years. They can be mistaken for food by wildlife, leading to ingestion and potentially harming animals. Some confetti products contain chemical additives, dyes, or coatings that can leach into the environment, potentially affecting soil and water quality. Plastic confetti contributes to the global issue of single-use plastic pollution. These plastics can take hundreds of years to break down in the environment. I could go on.

We’re in a transition year. The book I’ve been working on for 2-plus years is entering a new stage. I can see the finish line. This summer, I left a part-time editorial role I’d had for 6 years. Just writing that is wild. That’s the longest I’ve worked anywhere. I knew what to expect there. Now work feels uncertain, much like I imagine my child feels at her new schools. I know I’ll blink, and this school year will be over, and my daughter will be off to real elementary school and the industrial school system. Everything feels more temporary than it usually does. Everything feels more fraught. Making an effort to get into a routine, to create a new community, to write an email that hits the right balance of being grateful for the school and the staff for the magical school year they want to create while also explaining the environmental costs of confetti feels not worth it. But is it how we get to the tipping point?

A social scientist by the name of Damon Centola at the University of Pennsylvania has studied how social change happens and believes that once society reaches a threshold of 25% embracing an idea, large-scale social change occurs. We’ve seen social tipping points occur in regard to marriage equality and anti-smoking campaigns and even in terms of the renewable energy transition. Can we apply it to climate change action? Maybe, but likely only if we break it down into smaller climate actions like transitioning to renewable energy, composting, and even perhaps back-to-school confetti.

 I emailed the school because not doing so felt like it made it harder to reach that 25% social tipping point. And because, ultimately, we are the ones who get to decide how the future plays out. 

~ Bridget