Essay about The Pros and Cons of Plastic Use

Recycling is the process of making new products from a product that has originally served its purpose. The process of recycling starts when used products are disposed in an appropriate, environmentally friendly way. Items made from materials such as paper, tin cans, aluminum cans, plastic water bottles, and glass, which people use in everyday life, can be separated from regular trash and put in an appropriate recycling bin. The United States now realizes the importance of recycling. However, many ignorant people still think separating recyclables requires too much work. Requiring mandatory recycling would prod these individuals into action. Lack of recycling leads to dramatic consequences such as polluting the environment and raising the number of landfills. Delay is critical; time plays a significant role in waste management. The sooner American communities recycle properly the better it will be for the environment and our surroundings. People need to become conscious and take responsibility as a society to protect the earth, keep it clean and beautiful, and preserve the natural resources. The United States can achieve this goal by implementing mandatory recycling.

Recycling and composing initiatives should be adopted and put into practice in communities throughout the United States. Recycling helps improve the enviorment we live in.By recycling we can make the enviorment a much neater place. In fact recycling can help save money.

Many people say that recycling is a waste of time or that they just don't have the time.”Yes it’s popular in affluent neighborhoods like Park Slope in Brooklyn and in cities like San Francisco, but residents of Bryon and Houston don't have the same fervor for sorting garbage in their spare time’(“The Reign of Recycling”). The world needs more people to recycle no matter where they live. It seems that even if more people have started recycling things have not changed much.”While it’s true that the recycling message has reached more people than ever, when it come down to the bottom line,both economically and environmentally, not much has changed at all”(“The Reign of Recycling”). People need to work harder to make a change that will account to something. The goals are being set higher and higher but with little success. ”While politicians set higher and higher goals, the national rate of recycling has stagnated in recent years”(“The Reign of Recycling”). This rate has ceased to flow. If something changes how people feel about recycling then the nation may be able to meet its

It makes me feel guilty when I have my bottle of water with me, even though I put it in the recycle bin at the end of the day, I now wonder about where it will end up. Does it go to another plastic product to be tossed aside, this indestructible piece of plastic? I am concerned as I watch the people of “convenience” walk by and I look at the products that we all carry to help us make our lives easier. I note the woman next to me has two of the “better water bottles”, one with a small round spring in it to help stir the liquid “meal on the go” that she has in that particular bottle. Another person walks by with a liquid breakfast in a Styrofoam cup, another non-biodegradable product. A couple of construction workers sit down across the room with their

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.

Imagine a world cluttered with trash, once beautiful beaches and parks now overflowing with garbage. Roads no longer driveable, air no longer clean. Masks will be worn, and disease is on the rise. Now, imagine if you could have prevented this. I believe recycling is the first step. As of 2006 America is in the lead for producing the most waste, producing 236 million tons annually. Not only are we producing the most waste but by 2100 scientists estimate the amount will triple which will have serious effects on the Earth. Both physical effects and fiscal which means public services and government budgets will be impacted. Our planet is already feeling the effects of pollution at the rate we're going we won't be able to stop the damage nor repair

You can’t walk across a college campus, past an office building, or through a park without seeing one, two, or ten empty bottles. Many are plastic water bottles. Trash bins overflow them. Those water bottles are a problem. Why? Because only one out of five bottles actually makes it to a recycling bin. Plastic bottles take centuries to decompose and if they are incinerated, toxic byproducts, such as chlorine gas and ash containing heavy metals, are releasing into the atmosphere. The rest are littered on our streets or over filing our landfills. They degrade our landscape and damage our environment. In addition the plastic water bottles are not biodegradable that is, they don’t decay. They remain as trash a hundreds of years.

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.

We can start by recycling bottles, paper and all plastic within our own home separately from trash or be fined for not doing so. I think that the USA should ban the manufacturing and distribution of plastic bags and make it mandatory for consumer to carry recycle bags or have it available in store for purchase. All stores should charge for plastic bag and this will us to use recycle

According to an article on Huffington Post, The total amount of plastic pollution in the world's ocean is about 130 million metric tons. It is thought that each year the oceans are gaining 5 to 13 million tons of plastic pollution. If this estimation rings true within 10 years there will be 250 million tons. That would be the equivalent to there being 1 pound of plastic to every 3 pounds of fish, according to the Ocean Conservancy. However it is thought to be good news that The science paper found that there are just five countries that are responsible for over half of the plastic pollution. These countries include China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Sri Lanka.

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.

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.

People Need to Recycle In the United Sates, where the population is inflated every year. The amount of space for landfills decreases every day. The need for recycling should not be asked, it should just be done out of habit. Everyone in America needs to recycle, to help the lamdfill problem, help the environment, and help produce new products from recycled goods. In America there is about two-hundred and eight tons of residential and commercial trash generated a year, 4.3 pounds per person a day (Prichard 1A). This is an overwhelming amount of trashed produced yearly. When people recycle this number can be drastically cut. But many people do not practice and use

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.