Plastic Pollution Essay

Much of this trash ends up in the ocean harming not only marine life, but us too. However, this is not only happening in America it’s happening all over the world with China at 8.82 million metric tons of mismanaged waste. All this waste if caught in a gyre, can lead to one of the garbage patches. This has been happening since we started using plastic but it the garbage patches were discovered in the early 1990’s. We keep throwing trash away that keeps being misplaced, then it ends up in the oceans with the rest of the trash. I propose multiple solutions, to enforce plastic bag ban and to enforce recycling. California has banned the use of plastic bags, meaning that if you do use them a fine will be put in place. Environment California explained how before the plastic bag ban California used up to 19 billion plastic bags each year with less than five percent being recycled. However, we can change that. By using less plastic bags we harm the ocean less. Another solution is to each week collect each household’s trash, per pound of trash found in the recycling bin provided by the city should be a $11 fine. Tiffany Edmonds, Solid Waste Management Department spokeswoman, explained why they started the fine “ It is an attempt to change behavior. The fine covers the cost of sending a garbage collection truck to the house to pick up the contaminated recycling bin” this will encourage people to recycle. Since the plastic

The numbers of how much plastic and trash that are dumped into our oceans every year are sickening. According to Julie Mailto (2017) from her website Plastic Oceans, “More than 8 million tons of plastic are dumped into our oceans every year” (para. 1). Plastic debris in oceans affect more than just simply ocean plants. Around 250 species of ocean animals are affected and are known to suffer from the consequences of severe plastic pollution. Reusable plastics are a great alternative to single use plastics. By using refillable water bottles the amount of plastic waste could be drastically decreased. Not using plastic straws, silverware, and sandwich bags could also lessen the effect of waste in our oceans. Recycling is the best way to cut back on how much debris ends up in the water. I have been recycling since I can remember. If people got paid to recycle then everyone would without question. I believe recycling should be a law in our state because it already is in other states and has been shown to reduce waste pollution so I believe it needs to be implicated in ours.

In other words, in this era of high oil prices and energy scarcity, petroleum-based bags are costing considerable natural resources, and ultimately turn them into a huge pile of useless garbage. Actually, significant energies like fuel, from which ethylene gas is obtained and plastic bags are made, are nonrenewable, while human beings are still consuming these precious treasures recklessly. What's more, the plastic bags easily catch wind and blow, causing the difficulty of confining it to where disposed of (Borrud, 2007, p.75). This leads to the difficulty in recycling, which hinders the circulation and reuse of the material to a large extent. Moreover, Ross Mirkarimi, the author of the ban, also notes that the only 1% of the plastic bags in San Francisco is recycled, in spite of the city's perfect local recycling system ("100 Billion Reasons," 2007, p.77). People's poor awareness on energy-saving has brought the oil-shortage crisis one step further. A prohibitory edict on petroleum-based bags might be a right way out before we ultimately realize that the last calorie on the earth comes from our body temperature.

Where does all the plastic go. Every bit of plastic that has been created is still here. This is because plastic is one-hundred percent non-biodegradable! Even the most degraded plastic down to polymers cannot be digested by bacteria (Laist, 1997). If global issues like starvation and climate change are not enough to stress on, the weight of an issue literally churning in the Pacific Ocean is startling. For decades the majority of the world’s population has not been properly educated on the nature of plastic and the potential harm it can do to our environment and our physical health. Due to factors of man and the natural effects of nature, a major problem has developed that is now harming our food.

According to ecowatch.com, all the plastic humans added up thrown away added up can circle the Earth four times. This is around 500 billion plastic bags, and most of them end up on landfill sites. The plastic bags in landfills usually lay there for over 300 years until they are completely photodegraded, or decomposed by the light, especially sunlight. During the process of being photodegraded, the plastic bags break down into small toxic particles that are either released into the air, or into the soil. These small toxic particles contaminate many different things such as soil and waterways. Since it is in the soil and waterways, animals often come and end up eating these dangerous toxic particles. Some supermarkets use biodegradable bags that are said to be “environment friendly,” but that is a total lie. According to an article about plastic bag pollution by Sharon Jacobsen, it says, “...the truth is that the process of breaking down these petrol based bags causes carbon to become methane which is a greenhouse gas.” Greenhouse gases are very dangerous to the environment since it causes temperature increase around the whole entire globe. Therefore, in conclusion, neither plastic bags or so-called “environment friendly” bags are good for the environment all around us, and we should not use them. Instead, we should use reusable

Now more than ever does this eco-friendly switch to biodegradable or at least eighty percent recycled material need to happen. The trash is piling up and Americans are continuing to throw away more and more every day, with this tax in place fewer materials would want to be used simply because of the weight or at least the materials being used would not just sit around as trash for an entire lifespan. NAFTA must be renegotiated, Tariffs must be put in place, and taxes must be collected; this trash has got to be paid for. We have the technology to use other types of packaging there is no need to continue to pollute the earth with our unconventional long-lasting trash. This kind of major shift is not subtle and will cause major changes in society mostly though it will be for the benefit of humans and their trash to earth

Australians approximately use 6.9 billion plastic bags per year (Errata Nolan ITU, 2002). The high consumption of plastic bags highlights one outstanding issue. The adverse impact, consumption and disposal of plastic bags have towards the environment. This involves the resources used to make

We need the government to realize that some of their plans are one of the reasons that our oceans have been polluted and reinforce more laws about littering. One of the main litter sources is plastic, plastic breaks down extremely slowly in water and it takes about decades to even centuries, the amount of it is constantly increasing. We easily get plastic in our ocean because of our storm drains that go into the ocean. Those storm drains were suppose to bring storm water there and only stormwater but since there is litter almost everywhere the rainwater brings it to the ocean also. Littering in the United States is a huge problem to our environmental state right now yet a majority of people do it because it’s not taken as seriously as it should

We, as a whole, have put a detriment on ourselves and our enviroment. The consequences of the industrial revolution and beyond are beginning to show. Our beautiful rolling hills and plains have become a place for us to dump our garbage. Our kin can no longer enjoy many of the places that the world has offered us. It is up to us to stop this process of destroying our enviroment. A simple tax would be a step in the right direction. A tax on plastic bags being used in the stores and markets would do many things, of which are, deterring people from using them, aiding in federal funds, and consequentially making people want to advance in their careers and job opportunities.

The overuse of plastics in today's society has become major environmental issue for our oceans. Plastic pollution is the dumping, littering, or disposing of any type of man-made plastic that has been produced and has ended up in our ocean and has not been recycled.

Many individuals underestimate the amount of plastic we use each day. According to the article “Plastic Bags Wars”, “the world consumes 1 million plastic shopping bags every minute”. Plastic bags, along with many other types of plastics, have become a leading source of pollution worldwide (Doucette). Captain Charles Moore, founder of the Algalita foundation states that we use two million plastic bottles in the United States every five minutes. Discovered by Charles Moore in 1997, the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” is a prime example of the amount of plastic pollution that enters the

Each year there is an increase in demands for plastic bags, and therefore more are shipped, creating further environmental pollution concerns. This increase in demand has lead to the phenomenal upsurge in the use and misuse of plastic bags globally, both in developed and developing countries. Statistics show that 4 to 5 trillion plastic bags are produced per annum, whereby North America and Western Europe account for nearly 80% (Geographical, 2005; Reusable Bags, 2005). Cheeseman (2007) states that approximately “380 billion plastic shopping bags are used in the United States annually”; in turn, only 0.6% of this is recycled.

As the United States deals with the overwhelming amounts of waste building up, Nitin et al explain that “plastics take anywhere from 15 to 1000 years to biodegrade” once they are discarded (Nitin). Changes in recycling methods can no longer keep up with the exorbitant amount of waste produced in the United States. This is why some states choose to take their initiative one step further by placing either fees or a ban on the use of plastic bags. Due to the enormous waste the United States produces on a daily basis and the negative outcomes of this trash including adverse health effects, harmful impacts on nature, and the exponential piling of trash in landfills, the US government should ban plastic bags.

Picture this: A person goes out to the store to purchase a couple of necesites. Those necesites then get put into a plastic bag as per usual. They get home and take everything out of the bag. They then trash the bag because it is no longer needed. The plastic bag then ends up in some landfill where it is blown away into the middle of the ocean. The plastic bag then goes on to danger the marine animals. Plastic bags should be banned from stores because there are other ways people can carry their things, they are dangerous to marine animals, and cause pollution.

American citizens throw away millions of tons of garbage each year, and this trash has to go somewhere. While there are projects underway to clean and reuse this refuse most of it gets dumped into huge landfills. These landfills are disgusting festering blisters on our country's landscape. But people continue to consume and throw away more and more in the name of convenience. As they see it, when things get old, throw it away and get a new one. They blame the government for the trash problem, but the truth blame should be placed on themselves.