Plastics and Our Environment Essay

Overall, recycling plastic benefits the environment, the economy and the future of America. Although there are flaws to recycling plastic such as the sorting step overlooking additives and the washing step leaving some impurities, technological advances and more labor will be needed to fix those drawbacks in order to conserve the environment. Therefore, the U. S government should mandate recycling so that the recycling rate increase. Through this action, America will gain the benefits of recycling plastic. In addition, Americans should recycle specific types of plastic such as PET and HDPE as those two are the most commonly accepted by recycling programs. This will be strenuous upon Americans because they will have to do more work however,

Plastic's end of life cycle involves being discarded, either recycled for reuse or dumped into a landfill or the ocean. Recycling's popularity has significantly grown since the 1970's, as well as the overall number of plastic products being produced. In addition, the amount of plastic products being created as significantly increased over the past 60 years. Due to the endurance of polymers, plastic is filling up landfills faster than it should and invading our natural habitats. Recycling is one of the most critical things we can do for our environment. It can cut down on the amount of plastic in landfills as well. Recycling plastic reduces the need to create more plastic, which also cuts down on oil use and pollutants being released into the air. In the time that recycling has become more popular, technology has advanced to create more job

In fact, many of the major plastics used today began when commissioned to be used for the war effort (Freinkel, 6). When plastic was first brought to The United States, the American people loved it. Not only can plastic imitate other materials, but it is also much more affordable. Overall, plastic is cheap. The leap in plastic produced from the ‘40s until now is extremely substantial. For instance, in 1940 plastic was hardly used, in 1960 a single American used close to 30 pounds of plastic per year, today each individual uses more than 300 pounds of plastic per year (Freinkel, 6). A major impact on the amount of plastic used is directly related to the way Americans, starting in the 1940s, were now able to mass produce plastic products. For instance, a single plastic comb making machine could reproduce ten combs in less than one minute (Freinkel, 22). Overall, plastic is relatively inexpensive and it is made for mass manufacture. Considering this it is east to see why plastic became so popular in the first place, it was a plastic miracle. However, there is a direct relationship between the amount of plastic produced and the amount of plastics that are being polluted into the

When evaluating the environmental impact of polyethylene we need to take into consideration the input materials, and the amount of energy and emissions/wastes generated by the production processes. Although polyethylene presents fewer environmental hazards than other polymers, its production requires both hydrocarbons and chlorine; chlorine makes plastic’s impact on the environment even greater that it would if only hydrocarbons were required (Frosch & Gallopoulos, 1989). The use of non-renewable resources, chlorine and the energy-intensive nature of the production cycle itself together with the worldwide large-scale production of polyethylene and derivates, approximately 80 million metric tons per year (Piringer & Baner, 2008), make the environmental and human safety impact of polyethylene significant.

Although plastic bags, as well as paper bags, can be recycled in order to postpone running out of resources, the creation and destruction of the plastic releases CO2 or (Carbon Dioxide) into the air damaging the Earth’s atmosphere along with all the other horrific machinery emitting the same toxic and harmful gas. This is more popularly known as “Plastic Pollution”, one of the biggest causes of climate change. “An estimated 12 million barrels of oil are used to manufacture the 30 million plastic bags that Americans use each year.” (Durkin, 1 bag at a time) Factories creating and destroying these plastic bags have the some of the highest rates of CO2 emission. No matter how the plastic bag is disposed of, either way it will end up releasing the catastrophic chemicals that are killing our planet.

Do you know that it will take 1000 years for a plastic bag to decompose? Our world is the most friendly planet for human beings and every other living thing. We should never take our planet for granted because there is no other like this one and in order for us to keep our planet safe and sound, we should get rid of plastic bags. The other most effective way to keep our planet safe is to recycle every plastic bottle that we used. Every plastic product should not be thrown to the garbage because plastic bottles will take several decades to decompose in soil.

Then Oil mention Bisphenol A or BPA is used to make polycarbonate plastic which is now banned in Canada and European Union (Bridge and Le Billon, pg. 81). Also, some countries of the world are banning or put some sort of tax on plastics. This makes one to wonder why these countries are reducing or stop using plastic all together. Of course it might be that they see the health and environmental issues behind using plastic products. This causes the mass production of plastic bottles and now they are everywhere.

The plastic around the world is building up to become a huge world problem. Each year eight million tons of plastic

First of all, plastic materials are more durable because of their physical property. The perfect example for this would be the paper

avoid plastic as a whole will do us all a great deal of good. If we don't, we will surely

One material dominates the entire world, a material incapable of degrading for centuries and used in all facets of life. While very new to the earth, this synthetic polymer has flourished rapidly since the 1950’s, and, still at full throttle in the 21st century, the Age of Plastic sees no imminent end. Plastic continues to ascend at an exponential rate as its plethora of uses extends to new branches of technology and innovation. Even with their differences, both the working class American and the CEO of an industrialized company utilize plastic for its low cost and versatility. Nevertheless, humanity cannot sustain this nonrenewable resource for long, and eventually the issues of this material will one day outnumber the benefits.

43% of the plastic is wasted on a global scale by being disposed of in landfills where all it does it

"Plastic" entered the world through chemistry in 1909 and was originally coined to describe Bakelite, the first fully synthetic resin. What make's plastic so unique is when it is heated it can be molded but it retained its shape when cooled (Reddy, 2010). The modern plastic bag was not possible until the accidental discovery of the first industrially practical method of polyethylene synthesis in 1933. Fast forward to today, the use and

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.

Five hundred billion used globally and one hundred billion of them end up in U.S. landfills, taking about one thousand years to decompose, but only 5.2 percent were recycled (Borrud, 2007, p.75).-These are the figures plastic bags have produced every year. Human beings invented plastic bags for the convenience of carriers and packers. However, just as other great inventions, say, nuclear energy and biotechnology, plastic bags are causing serious issues like global warming, environment pollution and energy consumption. They are gradually becoming sword towards ourselves. In responding to this problem, the city of San Francisco has become the trail blazer to prohibit non-biodegradable plastic bags in its large supermarkets and pharmacies.