Plastic Pollution

1. The main problem with plastics is that they will virtually never go away. Most consumers throw them away, but they do not go away, they just go elsewhere. Out of sight, out of mind. Animals suffer injury, and in many cases death, from their encounters with plastic. Animals can be harmed through entanglement, laceration, suffocation, and ingestion. Depending

People would say that plastic in landfills would just stay there and if we keep on using plastic the waste problem would just worsen. I think that the problem here is why do people put plastics in landfills mixed with biodegradable materials. There are ways to properly recycle plastic. This comes to my third argument for why plastic beats paper. It is better because we could change its physical shape to things we really need. Richard Stein, from the University of Massachusetts, stated that plastics could be melted and formed into different structures such as propellers for wind turbines, food containers and many more [3]. Imagine being able to reuse plastic as long as the quality of it can still be recyclable, but if it isn’t anymore, Richard Stein also suggested that plastic could be converted to energy by burning it since it is made of petroleum [3].

An estimated 14 billion tons of plastic is discarded into our oceans every year. (Sustainable Communications, n.d.) At this moment in time there are 5 major areas where plastic in the oceans and travel to. These areas are known as the 5 gyres, areas in the ocean where the currents

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.

Plastic, whether it is for a container, a wrapper or the product itself, has become an everyday part of our lives. The plastic itself is not a waste. We use it to contain food, construction workers wear it to protect their heads, and arthritic patients have it for their replaced hips. However, “Only 9 percent of the total plastic waste generated in 2012 was recovered for recycling”(“Plastics, Common Wastes & Materials”). If we just throw it away instead of recycle it, it will become a plastic waste and pollute the environment. When it reaches the ocean, it will turn into floating debris, which is even harder to

14 billion pounds of trash is dumped in our oceans each year. Some humans dump trash or waste into the ocean instead of taking it to a landfill. It takes plastic 450 years for plastic to decompose. Many animals can die because they eat trash dumped in our oceans. When waste is dumped into the world’s oceans animals or even birds can get trapped in the waste, and possibly die. Some people might take their plastic to a recycling plant

One extreme issue with plastic being so easily accessible is that consumers throw it away without hesitation, as is especially true with plastic bags. Plastic bags are made of one of the most flexible and flimsy types of plastic, which means that they can be broken down much easier, especially once they reach the ocean, which is where an alarming amount of our trash ends up. “Plastic doesn't biodegrade in any meaningful timeframe, but it photodegrades” which means that “ultraviolet rays from the sun break the polymer chains of hydrocarbon molecules into smaller pieces and what you end up with is small fragments...” (Wilson) of plastic floating all over our oceans, and those tiny fragments will truly

In the United States we live in a disposable society. We throw out plastic products after one use and dispose of gently used clothing and electronics. These products can take hundreds of years to decompose in a landfill or can affect

With the combination of polymers that don’t biodegrade and mass overproduction, companies are harming the environment in severe ways. Plastic, a material seen everywhere, is a polymer made from oil. It is mass produced to make everything from shampoo bottles to automobiles and does not biodegrade. When it is eventually thrown out, the waste usually finds it way into the ocean, where it is either buried under sediment or eaten by marine life (Weisman 287-295). Creating a material that will ultimately kill marine life will undoubtedly wreak havoc on the

About 299 million tons of plastic were made in 2013 (Lytle). Plastic waste gained popularity when animals begin to die do to mistaking plastic for food (Lytle). Plastic also causes drains to be clogged and then flooding issues. (Moore) “Global plastic consumption has gone from 5.5 million tons in the 1950s to 110 million tons in 2009,” (Lytle). The overuse of plastic is still important today because plastic is causing many global issues such as draining floodage, animal deaths, and pollution (banthebottle.com). Experts, like Renee Cho, say that plastic is “slowly taking over the country.” (Artwohl). Plastic waste affects the word in many ways. Americans should help decrease this issue by using less plastic

For many years plastic has been choking sea animals and harming or killing them!! According to, IFL Science “The whale discovered in the Netherlands is only the fifth whale confirmed to have died from ingesting plastic.” According to BTN “Each day around 3 and a half million pieces of plastic wash into the sea. Once there, they can harm marine animals that mistake plastic for food or get tangled in it.” A fact from Plastic Oceans “8 million tons of plastic waste ends up in the ocean every year.” In conclusion, when we don’t recycle when we need to, our animals get injured or

(Amaral). The lack of proper disposal of trash is contributing to the existing problem of plastic pollution. Without changing our habits, the garbage patch will only continue to grow (Kostigen).

Plastic has an advantage, it is inexpensive and could last forever. There is no organism that can consume and digest this material. Which is why this product is also a disadvantage. Instead of decomposing like all other material in nature, it just sits there accumulating taking thousands of years to deteriorate. We have enjoyed the convenience of plastics disposability, but the problem is it doesn’t just disappear once you put it in the trash can. This synthetic material is blown into the wilderness. It is dropped into the deep sea migrating through the rolling waves, until they all accumulate into what is known as The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Marine life consumes the tiny pieces of plastic, and becomes entangled in

But, at the same time, plastics possess a property which makes nature quite vulnerable to their misuse. This property namely is NON-BIODEGRADABILITY. By closely observing the structure of plastic, we come to know that plastic is made of extremely strong carbon-carbon bonds, which cannot be easily broken down into small units by any natural processes. This property of non-biodegradability poses a serious threat to the environment.

ON the other hand if it is properly recycled we are able to reuse the same plastic over and over again for long periods of time while at the same time keeping a low production cost This is why plastic is cheap even though it contains oil a very high priced item, for as long as people do their best to not waste plastic and recycle it there really is not a need to waste our precious oil and manufacture more of it.