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Essay on how plastic waste can be betterly managed
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I am writing to you about a specific ecological crisis in which I believe you could help solve: plastic bag pollution. It has come to my attention that plastic bag pollution is becoming more and more of a big deal not just in my town, but throughout the entire world. Plastic bags are so lightweight and small that the majority of people around the world would more than likely not view this situation as a big deal. Although, plastic bags are made out of various toxic chemicals, which contaminate the earth and threat all living things. Wildlife is being infested and littered with peoples’ unnecessary garbage and animals are killed due to plastic bag ingestion. Even when disposed of properly, plastic bags are so insubstantial to the point that they are often picked up by the wind and end up littering the atmosphere. They end up in landfills and sewer systems, and quite frequently wind up blowing all over the environment. A huge problem with plastic bags is the fact that they are non-biodegradable. They will eventually break down into small toxic pieces, but will not decay completely. Th...
The government wants to put a price on plastic bags 5-10 cents.While some agree with this movement other don’t. & the people who don’t wanna agree with it wanna get rid of plastic bags for good as a plastic bag ban. They have many reasons for why they don’t want plastic bags anymore but so do the people who want plastic bags & to add a fee for having them. We’re just giving our pure opinion of what we think about the movement, we are supporting why our opinions & telling how either the movements will affect us as a community negatively or positively.We both disagree therefore we will have to support what we say & why we say it with evidence from a source that will help us explain and persuade the government that this movement is either a good
In recent years, it has become blatantly obvious that the Earth’s environmental deterioration is showing signs towards a cause of global concern. Drastic increases in water pollution, global warming, and deforestation, among other environmental issues have caused a sudden desire to raise awareness of and to resolve human-initiated problems. One of the more controversial topics involving human impact on environment is the excessive use of plastic, specifically in the form of plastic bags. Used for their convenience, durability, and inexpensive nature, plastic bag production and consumption has exploded, allowing them to become a seemingly necessary part of everyday life. Unfortunately, however, this abuse of plastic bags has brought a slew of environmental health
Most of the necessities humans need are provided in supermarkets, in fact supermarkets have become a necessity for our everyday life. They are now the main source of water, food, clothes and everyday tools. Therefore, the plastic bags demanded and supplied in this industry increase every day. In the past decade, we produced as much plastic as we did in the whole twentieth century (Freinkel, 2011). This exponential increase of a non-biodegradable material has negatively impacted our environment immensely. Plastic production requires our dwindling fossil fuel resources, robs away animal lives, litters our beautiful landscapes and even affects our very own well-being. Hence, if plastic production doesn’t diminish immediately, we will suffer great
Melati and Isabel Wijsen’s TED talk topic “Banning plastic bags in Bali” was very interesting because of how involved they were at such a young age. Melati and Isabel are sisters, and they are both interested in making a change in their hometown, which makes them teenage activist protesting for change. Melati and Isabel introduced their campaign, which is called “Bye Bye Plastic Bags”, in their hometown Bali to ban plastic bags. Melati and Isabel have been gathering petitions to support their campaign. They also have participated in beach cleanups, education awareness, and offered alternatives for plastic bags, like using reusable bags instead.
Every year, an estimated 8 million tons of plastic waste enters our environment, severely polluting oceans, beaches, forests, and even the towns and cities we live in. In the ocean alone, it is believed that 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic pollutes the waters (“Plastic Statistics”, Ocean Crusaders).The majority of plastic pollution can be traced back to single-use items, such as grocery bags, bottles, and plastic packaging. According to United Nations Environment, “At the rate we are dumping items such as plastic bottles, bags and cups after a single use, by 2050 oceans will carry more plastic than fish…” (“UN Declares War on Ocean Plastic”, UN Environment). This pollution is a major problem and endangers not only the environment, but human
There is a current discussion as to whether or not plastic bags in grocery stores should require a fee. This is mostly brought up because of the amount of plastic waste that humans are creating each year is quickly lowering the health of our planet. Between plastic bottles, bags, and various other products, the amount of waste is drastically increasing and humans seem to fail at recycling as well as they should. This leads people to discuss things like bag taxes to try and promote more people to participate in a more eco-friendly lifestyle. Althought there are positive and negative contributions to every argument, this argument is, for the most part, unreasonable. It is more harmful to our society to add a $0.25 bag tax on plastic bags than it is beneficial. Adding a bag tax is not only inconvient for store employees, it is an excessive amount to tax and many low income families will not be able to afford it.
Throughout the country one might find themselves seeing a plastic bag floating around or even stuck in a tree. This is a problem that most want to eliminate. A topic that Mangu-Ward writes about is the problem of plastic bags in marine life and other wildlife. For people the thought of animals dying angers them. These decisions that people are making currently are emotional decision as Mangu-Ward describes them. Many marine life animals have died from the cause of littering of the plastic bag. Mangu-Ward writes, “plastic bags make up 3.8 percent of beach litter”. Finding fish, turtles, and many more marine and wildlife animals with plastic bags either suck around their necks or in their throats is something that many do not like to see or hear. This evidence can also be supported when Mangu-Ward writes, “1 million birds and 100,000 marine mammals and sea turtles die each year from eating or getting entangled in plastic”. Mangu-Ward is currently giving evidence that plastic bags are bad for the
People are hurting the animals, and they don’t realize it. That’s one of the issues that the people don’t realize what they are doing. All of the sea creatures about 100,000 marine animals and countless fish are being harmed by the floating plastics. Those animals die in the North Pacific every year from either eating the plastic junk or becoming ensnared, and even drowning in it. Since there is plastic in the ocean and it’s killing fish over time and from the over time it could actually make the fishes go extinct because we are throwing our garbage in the ocean, which is killing the species and affects the food chain in the ocean. Also, every people are eating plasticizing additives, drinking them, breathing them, and absorbing them through their skin every single day. Only 3 to 5 percent of plastics are recycled in any way. Which means each person tosses about 185 pounds of plastic every year. So, the plastic never really goes
While paper bags may not be seen as the panacea for pollution and waste issues, they are proven to still eventually breakdown in the Earth, even if it is at a slower rate. As source F details, while “...paper doesn’t degrade all that much faster than plastics. ”(Source F) it still manages to degrade eventually. No one wants to look at human civilization on Earth as something that will eventually end, so why prepare for such a thing? Source F explains, “Light breaks down plastic so it photodegrades rather than biodegrades… this process can take up to 1000 years in land fills.
... converting plastic waste into useful products are being affected by pollution; this contamination is found within containers where plastics are collected. But the same risk of pollution carries downside consequences in which workers and people responsible for cleaning and disinfecting the plastic materials are not doing the best to eliminate plastic waste, and to disinfect the infected bacteria and microorganisms from the atmosphere and environment. Organizations from China and India are the largest in the world, they collect and purchase used plastic from United States, Europe, Asia and Latin America (Minguez 2013). These companies do not bother to sanitize the products before the recycling process; for this reason the planet earth is getting a worse environmental condition, and it is destroying lives of living beings, and natural resources as well (Uddin 2014).
To respect our environment, some states have banned plastic bags in stores and others have started charging for plastic bags. This makes people want to bring their own reusable bags. Plastic bags can take as long as 1,000 years to decompose. If we go to the store once a week and get 10 plastic bags each trip, it could take 1,000 years for each one of those bags to decompose and that is for only one week of shopping. Reducing the use of plastic bags and even all plastic in general will really help our environment.
Plastic industry has become of vital importance for the comfort and quality of our lives, due to numerous qualities as strength, lightness, low cost and durability. Their downside is the negative impact over the environment, due to the accumulating of millions of tons per year. Therefore, the development of biodegradable plastics seems a key issue for further development.
Using plastic bags are second nature to people in this day and age. Warner acknowledges, “Much to the dismay of the environmentally conscious citizens worldwide, the ubiquity of the free plastic carryout bag has bred nonchalant consumers who take this modern convenience for granted” (646). Although some people are conscious about the environment, people strive more for convenience and do not think about the impacts using bags have not only on the environment, but on themselves as well. If something is bad for the environment, it will alternatively be bad for humans as well. When plastic bags are exposed to the sun from being littered all around, the ultraviolet rays cause the substances of plastic bags to weaken. After the substances weaken, the substances become invisible to the naked eye. The substances that are no longer able to be seen are toxic to humans (Warner 649). As a result of plastic bags being littered around, animals consume plastic bags. This is negatively affects humans because animals are often consumed. When humans consume animals like, fish, there can be plastic in the fish’s belly, which then transfers to the humans and this poses a concern for human’s health. Humans are negatively affected by plastic bags because of the toxic chemicals in plastic bags, as well as, consuming animals with plastic in their
Millions of plastic bags are given out to consumers by supermarkets and stores to carry their goods in. They are also cheap, light, durable, easy to carry and in many cases, free. The most commonly used shopping bag is made of High Density Polyethylene (HDPE). This type is used in the majority of supermarkets and stores. After these bags are used, they often end up in landfills or as litter, roughly only three percent of plastic bags is actually recycled per year (Planet Ark, 2011). The materials used in making plastic bags make them non-biodegradable. According to the science dictionary, 2011 refers to “these materials cannot be decomposed into environmentally safe waste materials by the action of soil bacteria.” These harmful substances are toxic and take approximately four hundred years to break down, or in this case photo-degrade; which is how plastics made from (HDPE) break down. Since they are not biodegradable, they remain in the environment and are absorbed in soil or water (Indian Centre for Plastics in the Environment, 2010). This essay will discuss the various harmful effects of plastic bags, and demonstrate the risks that these bags impose on humans, animals and the environment. It will also discuss a series of suggested solutions that could help reduce plastic bag usage.
Everyone has heard a cashier one time or another mumble, “Paper or plastic?” as he puts their groceries in a bag, but do shoppers know the effects of each vessel in which they carry their comestibles? There are many issues and benefits to both paper and plastic. The making and recycling of both paper and plastic bags can harm the environment. One must also look at the costs of making each bag. The convenience of each is also something to look at.