part 1:final post Plastic Pollution

In today’s ever changing world we are becoming more and more acquainted with the environmental problems in which we are facing. The problems range from climate change to ocean acidification to Arctic sea ice loss. With this class showing us various types of environmental issues we must address, especially if we wish to achieve our own Americanized version of Ecotopia. In this post I will discuss the problem of plastic pollution and the dangers and repercussions that arise from if. The issue is one that encompasses a variety of environmental issues and isn’t due solely to a single issue. When thinking about plastic pollution causes, one must think of all the causes, from solid waste management practices, to lack of knowledge from citizens around the world, to lack of recycling facilities to handle or make consumer products to turn a profit on. Most of the problem lies with the developing world as you would expect but even the developed countries are having issues with it from China to the United States.Most of these countries are countries that are developing and/or third world, and most do not have an efficient waste disposal means, if any at all.

            The issue at hand is plastic pollution and what causes it and what we can do to stop it. Mainly the problem boils down to the lack of efficient or available solid waste disposal. In developing and third world countries, most have poor solid waste disposal, if any at all. So many of the countries are forced to pile it up as high as possible in dumps, or they just throw it in the rivers or lakes. Even in developed countries, plastic is contributing to litter, filling up vast space in landfills, and even still getting thrown in the lakes and rivers eventually making their way to the oceans. What drives all of the pollution in the first place is our consumer habits in which plastic has become a major industrial use of nearly every consumer product.

            So you may be wondering, just how much plastic is out there? Well let’s put it like this, it takes between 500-1000 years to degrade and every single piece of plastic that has ever been made is still here regardless of whether it’s been recycled, broken down, or discarded. Even with this in mind we continue to create more of it every year with 2012 numbers around 598 billion pounds. Then the question comes to why is it a problem and why should we care. To start, plastic has been found everywhere on earth even in the deep sea and Arctic ice. Oceans, rivers, lakes, land, all are polluted by plastics. In the 192 coastal countries bordering the oceans and black and Mediterranean seas, 9.6 to 25.4 billion pounds of plastic have flowed into the oceans per year. The problems aren’t just with the pollution itself, it also concerns the amount of money spent because of it. In Los Angeles alone, they pollute 10 metric tons of plastic into the ocean every day. This leads to the staggering sum of 500 million dollars a year from California, Oregon, and Washington to clean the waste from the Pacific Ocean. Researchers in a 2012 study for the first time put a price tag on the environmental damage done by the plastic floating in the world’s oceans at 13 billion dollars a year. So as you can these are some very significant amounts spent on the issue. But this isn’t even the end of why should we care. Plastic has been found to be ingested by some 700 different species in the wild. Around a million sea birds as well as 100,000 mammals are killed annually from plastic in our oceans.These animals ingest the micro-plastics, and sometimes, larger plastics, thinking they are food, then the body doesn't break down them down so they get trapped in the stomach tricking them into thinking that they are full when in reality they are just full of plastics. Eventually they will die because of this and the picture below will show you this in action. The problem is so bad that the broken down products of a single one liter bottle could end up on every mile of beach throughout the world.

           

While not all plastic ends up in the oceans, most does, but plastic also is a major problem causing landfills to fill up at extremely high rates. It also ends up being littered throughout the land system eventually going to lakes, rivers and streams. A small percentage however is recycled, which is great but it hardly makes an impact. So by now I’m sure you are wondering where does all of this plastic come from. Well a majority of the plastic in the oceans at least, come from Asian countries with main contributors being China, Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Most of this is due to no waste disposal systems or systems that are mismanaged and not well very efficient. But even the richer developed, land rich countries still appear on the plastic offenders list.

            So, to the good part of the paper. What can we do about this issue? Well first off we need to shift our consumer habits to make better choices with our buying habits as a way to help the problem as well as encourage it solutions. Spending a few more cents on products that use easier recyclable products or even biodegradable plastics are a huge first step. We must support governmental regulation and support and advocate for policy changes to force manufacturers to begin reducing their needless packaging and overuse of plastics to start a movement towards zero waste. We also must begin to educate the world about the problem at hand and make recycling easier to understand and to force manufacturers to clearly state the methods of their disposal for the consumer. We must also help the rest of the world and countries less fortunate and knowledgeable as us to find waste disposal methods that work for them and are feasible to implement for their society. We must do what we can to start cleaning our oceans as well.  We must get away from using plastic bags and water bottles and storage containers and switch to using reusable products whenever we can. Stop using diapers, switch to cloth, and don’t use plastic utensils. For policy change to reduce packaging to make it compatible for the available recycling systems and make products as uniform as possible. But the main obstacle we must overcome is the use of plastic itself, we have to find a way to stop using so much plastic and creating more each year. Through making recyclable materials more competitive we could use this as a means to clean the pollution as well as reduce the amount of new plastics we use every year. With new products that could be sold at a profit it would be better for companies to encourage recycling as well as the world to reduce their waste streams.

            It may seem to be a daunting task to curb and solve our plastic pollution issue but it is one that is definitely feasible. It starts with a dual top down and bottom up approach. We must work together through all parts of society throughout the world in order to reduce our one use plastic levels as well as encourage better waste management solutions throughout the world. We must invest in new ideas that will replace plastic as well quit making more new plastic every year. We need to start to clean the oceans and mine the landfills to eliminate plastics so that they can be recycled. In turn we must develop and innovate ways to recycle plastic cheaper and sell recycled materials for a profit through development of usable attractive consumer goods for all classes of societies from the rich to the poor. The possibilities are endless in this aspect in that we can change the world with the products. We can build cheap houses for the poor. We can clean up our environment and provide healthier ecosystems for wildlife. We can create countless new jobs as well as new consumer products. All we have to do is dream it and turn it into reality, which is very easy to do as we have seen countless times throughout history, all we have to do is put our minds to it and a lot of effort and better world in this aspect will be right around a couple of corners.

In part 2 I will just go a little deeper into the effects form the animals to the landfills etc. Discuss more means of using recyclable materials to form new products and ways to make recycling and reuse and cleanup cost competitive so it can turn a profit for the manufacturer because without profits nothing is going to work.