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Importance of plastics in our environment
Human impact on environmental activity
How is plastic effecting the environment
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The exorbitant amount of waste humans all around the world are producing each and every day is astonishing. In major developed cities, trash is easily forgotten about due to the lack of an impact it plays on peoples' lives after it is disposed of (Lohuizen 2017). Furthermore, the problem is expected to grow; as nations begin to develop, trash will shortly follow. Packaging for items uniquely becomes more intricate as a nation develops, and as a result plays a critical role in how much total garbage actually ends up in a landfill. A culprit to the landfill problem is plastics, due to the extraordinary amount of time it takes for them to degrade. Even when they are recycled, plastics end up, in some way or another, inside a landfill. Because …show more content…
Not to mention, the plastics that do not end up in that middle area; many end up being swallowed by a fish and never fully get broken down, causing health problems for the fish and anyone who consumes it. Humans' addiction to everything plastic has been negatively effecting ecosystems everywhere. Once plastics becomes small enough to be virtually unrecognizable, they can find their way to anywhere on this Earth. With no foresight to the landfill problem, and a constant flow of garbage entering into landfills, we will surely be seeing exponential negative effects all across every biome. If no immediate action is taken to reduce the amount of garbage produced daily, or we cannot find any long-term solution to dealing with an increase of trash, we will be stuck in an Earth filled not with green, but …show more content…
Landfills are outright destroying the beauty of this planet, making our land look terrible, all while inhabitants of this planet suffer. Research could be the savior to our trash problem. We need an organism that can complete this food cycle. The problem is our trash is stuck in a stationary phase, remaining to be degraded for years at a time. We need to genetically manipulate an organism to become our missing link in decomposing this trash. By using new forms of technology, like gene cutting at the nucleotide level, we could hypothetically engineer an organism that could turn our once non-decomposable material into a safe byproduct. Of course, if it were that simple, it would be done already. With our current garbage situation in mind, we need to make it a priority to recycle plastics when possible, creating less overall
Which means their obviously bad for the aquatic marine life environment & are cause many different forms of damage for them & us as one. On p.g. 23 of The New York Times upfront magazine “Birds,fish, sea turtles, & others are getting tangled in plastic bags or mistake them for food & choke”. Someone else might argue that they could the plastic bags in landfills instead of oceans. But that counter- argument is flawed because you’re just polluting by burning plastic which is bad on our part we’re not doing our part to support & taking care of the earth. Plastic in the ocean isn't just bad for plants & animals but for humans too because of the food chain some of us eat animals as a meat source such as aqua marine life like fish. If the fishermen catch fish that have been eating plastic then it's in our food supply if we eat that fish it's gonna be bad for us so many will end up getting sick from the plastic inside of the fish then what will we do our aqua marine food supply will go down the drain we couldn’t eat the fish since it's basically contaminated with plastic that we’re dumping there instead of trying to fix it & getting rid of plastic bags for good for the good of the earth. We’re causing damage towards the earth by dumping all that plastic into the ocean which damages our water supply it’ll poison us although we clean the water it depends on how big the plastic particles are, it’ll make us sick & sense it’s been lying in the oceans could bring in new pathogens &
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
This pollution problem is so ubiquitous plastic can be found throughout the marine environment from coastlines to near shore lagoons to remote ocean hotspots where plastics caught up in marine currents. And gathered up into huge garbage patches that swirl
The ocean is an abundant source of life. It is home to thousand of different creatures, provides a great source of food, and provides the earth with about one half of the oxygen needed to sustain life. (National Geographic) Pollution especially plastic, is a catastrophic problem. Ironically plastic, which is a material designed to last forever is generally used for things we tend to throw away. Every year about one hundred to two hundred billion pounds of plastic are manufactured. Only 31% of that plastic is actually recycled. Biomass packaging estimates 10% of that plastic ends up in the ocean annually. About 20% of it coming from ships and other platforms, and the other 80% coming from land derived sources, such as international garbage dumping, winds or tides either way it finds its way to the ocean.(Biomass Packaging Co., et al)
One of the most negative impacts that we have created in the ecosystem is the water pollution of plastic. Humans always go to the grocery store and come back with plastic bags of food. What do we do with those plastic bags? Reuse them for doggy bags, we use them as lunch bags, and also trash liners. Everyone just uses them for all sorts of reasons but when they dispose them, they never seem to think about where it might go. Well first of all them...
Many plastic products such as plastic water bottles and plastic grocery bags are poorly disposed and end up in our water system. Plastic affects our water by releasing harmful chemicals into the soil, which can later on seep into our groundwater and other water sources. Most plastic is not easily biodegradable. The plastic in our oceans annually take the lives of one million seabirds and 50 thousand marine mammals. If we keep on disposing our plastics carelessly, by 2050, there will be more plastic in our water than there will be fish. Since water is key to life, we do not want it to be badly affected. Every year, the plastic that gets thrown away is enough to circle around the world four times! To improve our watershed we can encourage people to recycle more and ban certain harmful waste
Plastic pollution negatively affects America’s future. The origin of this environmental pollution is caused by the excessive lack of ethics that human beings have. Many times, people throw garbage on the streets, seas, etc. Not knowing that this will be severely altered the environment, and planet earth conditions. Environmental pollution is found in many places such as plastic products, cleaning products, food, animals, personal care products, and the most dangerous in the environment where the oxygen we breathe and share with other living beings (Eriksen 2013).
People need to think about the objects that they throw away, those items can affect the animals around the world. For example, when people throw away the plastic rings that go around pop cans, can kill animals by being stuck around their little necks. So, before people throw those plastic rings out, they need to make sure that they cut a slit into each ring so in case an animal does get stuck in one of them, then they can get out safely. Recycling does not just have to be about plastic, but when the plastic is recycled, Americans can use it for many different things. For example, the plastic can make park benches, plastic crates, and wire tubing. Many people do not understand where all of the recycled objects go, but the objects do not go anywhere they are just recycled to make other things, recycled objects also help reduce the price of the objects that they make. The best part about recycling is the fact that people can recycle almost anything and turn it into something completely different. For example, Keen’s Harvest makes bags, wallets, and totes from recycled airbags that come from automobiles. Another example is Looptworks uses cotton jersey, nylon, vinyl, and recycled polyester to make their upcycled leather iPad cases. Skateback is another company that uses recycled material to make iPhone backs; they use the discarded post-industrial skateboard materials. Vinylux
Demand is less than supply. Even though it has already made much more plastic, for this the fastest growing developing country and at the same time it has the most population in the world, this quantity is not enough for the needs of China. For example, packaging in China. Statistics show that China's annual consumption of plastic bags goes up to 400,000 tons in supermarkets. The plastic bags of shopping mall, food markets, fruit stalls are about 3 times of that in the supermarkets. In other words, each year, the demand of plastic bags in supermarkets, shopping mall, food markets, fruit stalls in China is accumulated to be 1.6 million tons of plastic. In fact,
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.
In the 1870’s, plastic was discovered in the United States when John Wesley Hyatt was trying to create a different material to make billiard balls (Manrich, 3). Little did he know it would majorly evolve into material we use everyday. However, plastics are now taking over our landfills. The average American throws away one-hundred and eighty-five pounds of plastic a year (Popescu, 121). The answer to decrease this statistic is easy: recycling. I believe that recycling will help eliminate littering and the growth of landfills, while also creating jobs for the unemployed. Not only does recycling plastic help eliminate littering, but also reuses the plastic so there is not a production of additional unneeded plastics. The
from different resins. In order to recycle plastics, the different types must be kept separate.
Plastics are the single most widely used material in the world. They can be made into a variety of products (Andrady & Neal, 2009). Their versatility, durability and low cost are what made them a sought-after material by manufacturers and consumers. However, plastic materials are also known to degrade after a very long time, rendering them effective in polluting agricultural lands (Brodhagen et al., 2017) and ocean bodies before decay (Sciences & Zealand, 2002).
Recycling is important in the effort to preserve our environment for future generations. We are running out of locations to put landfills. Recycling is a simple and effective way to reduce the amount of waste stored in landfills, yet many people do not know how easy it can be. For example, whenever I go to Shoprite® and I b...
The average resident produces seven and a half pounds of garbage every day that is buried down in landfills and litter lands, costing a great amount of money. Nowadays, people face no more critical problem than the need to save the weakening environment, mainly in urban areas, where solid wastes are uselessly dumped. It has been observed that cities have no controlled structure for garbage disposal. Each year, millions of dollars are spent picking up litter and more is thrown away in valuable materials that could be recycled. As humanity develops new technology and equipment, the level of waste increases every day.