Thursday, March 31, 2011

Plastic Abuse.

Plastic is everywhere.  It comes in shiny packages (or makes up shiny packages), it holds hundreds of drinks, our groceries, and is a huge part of our lives.

Plastic consumption is a huge problem in today's society.  Hundreds of single use plastics are consumed every minute throughout the world.  These plastics promise to make life easier. A cool drink or a convenient lunch container can be irresistible. But right after they enter your life, into trash can (recycling bins just don't get used very often) they go.  Then they’re never thought about again.   

Here’s the problem: people forget about plastic after the trash can's cover closes. Very rarely is an extra second taken to consider what happens next.

Plastic doesn't break down.  Not in your lifetime, anyway. Or the lifetime of your children, or their children, or the hundreds of generations after them.

Every piece of plastic ever created still exists in the world, with the exception of the small amount that has been incinerated, which is accompanied by its own set of problems (releasing toxic chemicals into the atmosphere is a big one).

But if it doesn’t breakdown, where does it go? Into landfills, woods, roadsides, and just about any other place you can imagine. Unfortunately, the oceans take a brunt of the damage. They’re slowly turning into plastic soup.  Every day tons of plastic water bottles, straws, shoes, spoons, computer parts, cups, and so on find their way into the oceans.  These plastic debris are swept up in oceans currents and collect into huge floating piles of trash.  Think of them as plastic icebergs, except more damage is down to living creatures than boats.

Even though plastic doesn’t completely disintegrate, it does break down into smaller debris that can absorb environmental toxins better than the original form.  With the increase of toxic plastic debris comes an increase of toxins in the world’s food supply as bits and pieces of toxic plastic are ingested by little fish. Then bigger fish eat those fish and even bigger fish eat those fish then the big fish ends up on our tables. You know what happens from there. (This whole process is known as biomagnification.)

How can we reduce the amount of plastic polluting our Earth? By becoming conscious of what we consume.  Reducing the use of plastic is the only way to decrease the amount of plastic pollution.  Plastic recycling is NOT a viable option for lowering plastic waste.  Recycling plastic bottles does not create plastic bottle that is identical to bottles recycled to make it.  Each time a bit of plastic is recycled it degrades, leaving its residues only God knows where.  Not only that, while downgrading is important to reducing immediate plastic waste, it still doesn't stop the production of virgin plastic products from petroleum. And petroleum use is a whole different topic.

So, what’s the best way to reduce plastic consumption and pollution?

STOP USING IT.

For more information on plastic pollution, please visit http://plasticpollutioncoalition.org/.