Why is this still allowed?

It is not.

A picture of me in as a child, when I first learned about Styrofoam’s refusal to decompose.

This is Emily Writes Back, a newsletter for brilliant people, by Emily Sanders Hopkins.

One Thing Per Day

My promise to myself is to do ONE THING every day to fight authoritarianism and anti-democratic actions by the current government.

Many days, that one thing will be to write to Republicans, since they are the ones who need the nudge/shove.

Starting with members of the Appropriations Committee and the Government Oversight Committee, and alphabetically by state, today I am writing my letter to Representative Dale Strong of Alabama.

Since you cannot use his online form to email him unless you have a valid Alabama address, I am mailing this letter Monday morning the old fashioned way, via the US postal system.

Dear Representative Strong:

First, let me thank you for your long service as an EMT and firefighter. I know that you have certainly saved many lives while risking your own.

When I was in college at West Virginia University, after serving a stateside tour in the Army during “Desert Storm,” I completed the full EMT course and did several ride-alongs on an ambulance, but ultimately did not pursue the certification because I found the ride-alongs so unpleasant, and anyway, I wanted to become a professional writer, not a paramedic, so it didn’t seem like a good path to go down. What I’m saying is that I know how tough and selfless you must be.

Furthermore, your service on the House Appropriations Committee probably means that you have a real understanding of the importance of both security and Congress’s control of the national pursestrings. And you probably know that it’s not just because of highfalutin democratic principles that Congress has these powers, but also because of plain ole common sense: if any of the three branches just lies down like a dog and lets another branch steal its function, pretty soon you don’t have three coequal branches. Well, I guess that is a democratic principle. So you’ll admit that sometimes principles and common sense are one and the same.

Your position on committees, your emergency responder experience, and your lifetime membership at Mt. Zion, lead me to write to you in the hopes of appealing to your courage and sense of responsibility.

You must stand up to DOGE, a totally made-up and illegitimate thing, by the way, because YOU in Congress must be in control of the appropriation of our public dollars. It’s the Executive Branch’s job merely to make sure your laws and spending decisions are followed. Please fight the administration’s rogue challenges to your authority as a Congress.

Don’t you see that it doesn’t even matter if you agree with everything illegal that he is doing, including deporting people to foreign torture prisons without first giving them their constitutionally protected rights to due process? You still need to safeguard your branch’s power. Otherwise, you abdicate your solemn duty to the people of the United States.

If you don’t stand up, what’s to stop the next president, who is sure to be a Democrat, from sending YOU to El Salvador for your current dereliction of your duties, without giving you a chance to defend yourself first? Nothing. Except that Democrats, bless their hearts, tend to fight fair, don’t they?

Finally, as a heads up, let me make one thing very clear: Any further blind subservience to this administration will surely cost you more than you can imagine: your job, your reputation, even your standing in your town and in your church. Because sooner rather than later, it will be clear to everyone, even the very dumb and lied to, that what is happening now is purely un-American, dangerous, and wrong. In fact, as I write to you, other Americans are busy planning sneaky campaigns to really embarrass you in Alabama.

In conclusion, the government has started a fire in our house. Scientific advances, our soft power around the world, the strength of our economy, freedom of speech, and constitutional rights to due process are burning. Be brave. Go into the house and do your best to douse the flames. There might be babies sleeping upstairs. (In fact, there are.)

May you remember the backbone God gave you.

Best wishes,

Emily Hopkins

Going through old files with the aim of making space, I found this from 2020. It’s a letter I wrote to the Governor to urge him to support a ban on Styrofoam in New York.

Friends, that Styrofoam ban was passed into law in 2021 and put into effect in 2022! Maybe my letter played some small part in its passage, especially if exasperation is persuasive? Anyway, that’s what you hope, when you write a letter to a politician.

Dear Governor Cuomo,

When I was a little girl, in the 1970s, my dad told me that Styrofoam was an especially terrible thing to make disposable cups out of because Styrofoam doesn’t degrade over time, doesn’t decompose and go back to the earth. “That cup you just drank orange juice from will still be around, crushed and dirty and useless and taking up space, 500,000 years from now,” he told me.

I felt terrible. But also surprised. Why were cup manufacturers allowed to use this stupid material? What were laws even for if not to ban dangerous things with a shelf-life of forever?

Fast forward forty-some years. My hair is turning grey at my temples. I haven't been eligible to enter any of those 30-under-30 contests for like twenty years. I’ve lived in nine states. I've gotten married and had a child. Three U.S. Presidents have been impeached since I drank that orange juice. I'm saying time has elapsed and a lot has changed since 1974.

But what hasn’t changed is EPS plastic/Styrofoam. Thousands of gas stations are still selling EPS plastic cups for their coffee by the minute. To this day. Grocery stores are packaging pastries that will be stale in ten hours in material that will last eons. Crazy. They do it because they are businesses, and businesses do what is cheapest, easiest, and most profitable, if it's legal.

Please make it against the law: Ban EPS in New York this year.

With thanks,

Emily S. Hopkins

What is the subject of YOUR most recent letter to a politician? Please tell us in the comments. Bonus points for sharing the whole letter.