Environmental Impact Of Plastics

In the article When the Mermaids Cry” The Great Plastic Tide by Claire Le Guern Lytle, she wrote “For more than 50 years, global production and consumption of plastics have continued to rise. An estimated 299 million tons of plastics were produced in 2013, representing a 4 percent increase over 2012, and confirming and upward trend over the past years” This means that more and more trash is added to the 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic floating in the ocean. Almost everything around us is made out of plastic, this is later misused and ending in the wrong place. The Center for Biological Diversity wrote “In the first decade of this century, we made more plastic than all the plastic in history up to the year 2000. And every year, billions of pounds of plastic end up in the world’s oceans. Most ocean pollution starts out on land and is carried by wind and rain to the sea. Once in the water, there is a near-continuous accumulation of waste.” Our plastic is misplaced and it escalates from there. However, plastic pollution hurts us as well. “Trash in the water compromises the health of humans, wildlife and the livelihoods that depend on a healthy ocean;” wrote a non-profit group called Ocean Conservation. If our oceans are covered in trash, everyone that relies on the ocean is going to suffer. The effect is not just in our health, it also affects our economy. Ocean Conservation also

Currently, 300 million tons of plastic are manufactured to supply the world demand and between 5 and 13 million tons are found in the ocean (Katsnelson, 2015). Based on current trends, by 2050, 2,000 million tons of plastic will be manufactured to supply the worlds demand for plastic, meaning more pollution in the oceans (Vaughan, 2016, May 23). As Richard Thompson has stated, “While some of the plastic floats at the surface, the heavier pieces sink to the ocean floor making it hard to clean up the waste” (Katsnelson, 2015). Some of the waste comes from fishing materials or cargo ships. For example, fishing nets, buoys and other debris that is left behind from fishermen lead to the

Plastic comes in innumerable shapes and sizes; it is used for various purposes. We use it to bag our groceries, pay with it, drink from it, occasionally eat off it or unwrap it to get to food, etc. The functionality of plastic is continual and surrounds us, so what is the con of plastic? When plastic cups, bottles, and bags are abandoned in the street, the wind transports and the rain seizes them into storm gutters, tributaries and eventually the ocean. When rubbish and plastic originate from terrestrial territory and enters the sea it is swept away by an eddy vortex called the North Pacific Gyre. Charles Moore discovered the North Pacific Gyre, or also known as “The Great Pacific Garbage Patch” in 1997. This garbage patch stretches hundreds of miles off the shoreline of California and Hawaii. Scientists estimated its size to be twofold the size of Texas or maybe even more substantial. This garbage patch contains some ten million tons of litter. According to Lindsey Blomberg, who wrote the article titled The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, writes, “What is known for certain is that the marine debris in the North Pacific Gyre is 80% plastic and it's mostly coming from land.” (1) Although the trash is in the ocean, it not only affects us but, wildlife on land or in sea too. Furthermost of the waste in the ocean consists of "microplastics" which according to Kitt Doucette, who wrote the article titled An Ocean Of Plastic is, “Larger chunks of waste that have been reduced to tiny

“Around 260 million tons of plastic is produced every year, approximately 10% of this ends up in oceans. This litter is frequently consumed, often with fatal effects, by marine animals and birds who mistake it for food. The Trash Vortex of the Northern Pacific ocean is a patch the size of Texas consisting of trillions of pieces of decomposing plastic.” (Geer) Water pollution often directly correlates with other natural recourses that is being harmed by the same

The earth’s oceans take up roughly three fourths of the planet’s surface area and hold roughly 97 percent of all water on earth (Silverman). It is important that people make sure that the oceans are kept clean because the ocean contains many essential elements for the survival of both humans and animals. A rising problem that is not often brought up is the increasing amounts of man-made debris, especially plastic, that are accumulating in these waters that is slowly effecting the oceans ecosystem as well as the health of humans. Some may argue that the plastics have little effect on the environment but the facts show that this is not the case. The amount of ocean debris has increased

Plastic is a huge problem to the Earth’s ecosystem, including to the marine wildlife of the oceans. It gets into our oceans in large quantities, and they pile up to a point they become an “island of plastic.” Some of which are estimated to be as big as a few million square miles, the biggest being in the Pacific ocean. This could result in environmental issues that could harm the ecosystems of the oceans. It would be eaten in small quantities by fish and by birds, which could cause many health problems that could lead to death. This is a problem that will only lead us to think more critically the waste we produce as humans. In only of a short time span of 35 years, was the oceans transformed into a landfill of plastic.

What is not acknowledged to society if that the plastic bags like the ones at our grocery stores are made of high-density polyethylene (HDPE). Most plastics break down slowly through a combination of photo degradation, oxidation and mechanical abrasion. Thick plastic items persist for decades, even when exposed to direct sunlight, and survive even longer when shielded from UV radiation under water or in sediments. This substance makes any type of plastic incredibly hard to recycle. Before the convenient uses of plastic, when fisherman at sea dumped their trash overboard it consisted of natural materials that were easily broken down and dissolved not allowing items to float as a solid and cause harm. The items usually consisted of Metal, cloth or paper that would either sink to the bottom or dissolve very quickly. Plastic remains floating on the surface, the same place where marine animals go to for food sources lie and can remain intact for up to 400 years. Plastic is extremely malleable and durable, these traits make plastic an extremely dangerous threat to our ocean. Out of all the plastic materials, plastic bags have to be one of the most lethal roaming the oceans. : “Each year Americans throw out more than 100 billion plastic bags, which end up polluting our oceans”(D.G.22)”Plastic exceed what you would anticipate would be their pollution impact, because they’re so much more mobile than other types of litter”(Williams

Plastic plays a major role in ocean dumping. Around 8 million metric tons of our plastic enters the ocean from land each year. Animals like sea turtles become entangled in plastic rings from dumping trash in the ocean. Birds can mistake trash or toys for food, so they end up eating it and they can die. Sea mammals risk dying out because of ocean dumping. Millions of tons of plastic is dumped in the ocean and affects the lives of animals or birds. So animals, or birds don’t die out people should start taking trash to a landfill instead of dumping it into the

A research program called plastic oceans, states “ We use over 3oo million tons of NEW plastic every year. Half of this we use just ONCE and usually for LESS than 12 minutes. 8 million tons of plastic waste end up in the ocean every year. A large amount of this “thrown away” plastic carries toxic chemicals such as BPA, phthalates, pesticides and PCBs. Which is dangerous to living things.

Once plastic gets into the ocean there is no way out due to the fact that it does not biodegrade. Plastic bags can take 20 years to decompose, plastic bottles up to 450 years, and fishing line, 600 years; but in fact, no one really knows how long plastics will remain in the ocean. With exposure to UV rays and the ocean environment, plastic breaks down into smaller and smaller fragments. Not only this, since plastic is lighter than water it ends up floating in the ocean being swept by currents. As a result, a lot of plastic gets caught in the spiralling ocean gyres. The circular motion of the gyre draws the debris into the centre where it becomes trapped and builds up. While the water in the centre of the gyres sinks, the plastic is too light

We use and produce hoards of plastic bags and we do not know where it ends up in. Just like biologicaldiversity.org mentions 40% of the world ocean surface is plastic. The plastic never goes away, it just finds it’s way into the ocean. Seeturtles.com stated that sea turtles and many other sea animals eat the plastic bag and so the plastic bag blocks their digestive system and eventual death. NRCD.org stated, that 80% of marine litter plastic in the ocean effects our ocean and economy. News.nationalgeographic.com has also mentioned that the Pacific Ocean is considered one of the world biggest potions of trash. Not mentioning that this is home to many animals

Within our oceans, there is a system of the ocean currents rotating clockwise around the world called gyres. Within these gyres across the globe, contains the everyday plastic item. An everyday plastic item can be a toothbrush, a plastic water bottle, a plastic coffee mug, or a plastic laundry detergent container. The Earth’s five oceans no longer only have water and sea life situated within the ocean but, plastic as well. Out of all five gyres, the one closest to the United States is the largest. About eighty percent of debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch comes from land-based activities from North America. The majority of plastics within the ocean will never deteriorate, they will only break down to smaller and smaller pieces (Great Pacific Garbage

These days, companies are not only producing twice as many single use plastics than are disposed, but it is becoming almost impossible to dispose of these plastics anyway else than dumping them into the oceans. The single use plastics that are being dumped into the ocean do not decompose, they only break up into smaller pieces over time. The results presented in this paper are used to show that harmful single use plastics are not good for the world and that eventually they will impact humans in a bad way by using facts about plastics in the ocean and in the environment in general. The most common chemical in single use plastics is BPA. BPA is a chemical that is in almost all harmful plastics and is the main reason why people

One of the greatest injustices that we as citizens act upon every day is our environmental waste problem concerning plastic bags. With an estimation of 500 billion plastic bags being produced every year, about more than 300 million of them end up in the Atlantic Ocean. This is not including all of the other places they end up such as landfills, forests, and all over the streets of local communities. Recently, California has instituted a ban on plastic bags in an effort to reduce pollution in the state. With this ban, convenience stores are now required to charge customers 10 cents per each bag. Many residents have been outraged with this ban, expressing it is a total inconvenience for them and unnecessary. While there are many objections to this , the plastic bag ban will be very beneficial to our environment, since it will provide better air conditions, encourage people to start reusing and recycling more, and cause less harm to the ocean and its marine life.

Our world has become infatuated with the idea of “fast, easy, and comfortable” consumption. We’ve grown accustomed to accommodating a fast pace lifestyle but we have forgotten about the repercussions of our actions. So many products have become “single use” or disposable, from our individually wrapped food to our hygiene products. Since the discovery of plastic it has become the go to material of choice due to its cheap price of production. Unfortunately because of its high production rate and the fact that it’s essentially non-biodegradable it has started to consume our planet from landfills, to rivers, and our oceans. When talking about plastic pollution people usually think about plastic bags and bottles but another huge product of plastic waste is a toothbrush. Currently there’s about 323,060,000 people in the United states; if you take a very rough estimate that there’s at least 5 million people/ babies who don’t have teeth, subtract that from the population, and then estimate that the average person goes through 3 tooth brushes a year, you end up with 955,800,000 toothbrushes being thrown away per year. That’s 1 billion toothbrushes from America alone, disregarding the fact that your dentist recommends you change your toothbrush at least 4 times a year.