Plastic, The Silent Killer
By: Ysabel Mcbride
Tags: Climate, Plastic

Plastic, The Silent Killer

A straw with our iced coffee, a plastic bag to carry our takeout, a wrapper on a candy bar, taken individually, each seems harmless. These modern conveniences are found just about everywhere — and so quickly thrown out — that they hardly register in our minds. But single-use plastics come with a steep and dangerous environmental price — one that we’ll be paying off for thousands of years to come. Single use plastic is defined as “items intended to be used only once before they are thrown away or recycled.” Our plastic addiction is having a devastating impact on our oceans, our wildlife, and our health. As most people may know by now, our oceans are overflowing in plastic waste. Plastic waste in the oceans is in the top three concerns of ocean health, and one of the top concerns of environmental health in the world. There is a growing awareness of the impacts of plastic pollution and some societies and groups are beginning to take action to change to fix them. However, the amount of plastic produced, fights the efforts to reduce the damage they inflict on the natural world and is increasing every year. In this reading you will find the many problems caused by something so small and simple like a plastic straw, to the simplest solutions that anyone and everyone can do.

There is so much plastic waste that there is predicted to be no living coral reefs by 2050. How does plastic affect the coral reefs? And why are coral reefs important, or relevant? Plastic is made with toxic chemicals which can dissolve and break down in the water affecting the live plants and animals that live and breathe from it. Also, in marine ecosystems, plastic bags can land on coral and smother it. Coral reefs are more important than our planets trees, when it comes to producing oxygen and ultimately, human survival. You may be wondering how can something in the ocean, thousands of miles away from you, be so important for our own survival? Well to start, Earth’s trees produce a third of the world’s oxygen, coral reefs produce the other two-thirds of the world’s oxygen. That means, without coral reefs, we are losing a major two thirds of our daily air. When the world runs out of oxygen, we will have the carbon footprint to blame. You may be wondering what is the carbon footprint? A carbon footprint is the amount of greenhouse gasses-primarily carbon dioxide, released into the atmosphere by a particular human activity. This can range from car emissions, factories, or for this example, the creating and manufacturing of plastic. Even by burning plastic, like in landfills, can put these emissions into our air and even end up in the oceans. These emissions and particles make it harder for coral to turn carbon dioxide into oxygen. The United States of America has the greatest effect of the carbon footprint, the United States does not have as many renewable resources as much other countries. This is one example that everyone needs to fight for a change in how the U.S. responds to this epidemic. As from a study done in 2013, only five and a half percent of our country’s energy comes from renewable resources. The effect of the carbon footprint is the world’s main reason for what is causing the coral reefs to die. Coral was not made to be able to separate the toxic particles from carbon dioxide.

No one knows how much of un-recycled plastic waste ends up in the ocean. In 2015, Jenna Jambeck, a University of Georgia engineering professor, caught everyone’s attention with a rough estimate: between five point three million and fourteen million tons each year just from coastal regions alone. Most of it isn’t thrown off ships, she and her colleagues say, but is dumped carelessly on land or in rivers, mostly in Asia. It’s then blown or washed into the sea. Imagine having five plastic grocery bags stuffed with plastic trash, Jambeck says, sitting on every foot of coastline around the world — that would correspond to about eight point eight million tons, her middle-of-the-road estimate of what the ocean gets from us yearly. It is unclear how long it will take for that plastic to completely biodegrade into its constituent molecules. Estimates range from four hundred fifty years to never. Plastic was only created in the 1950s. The first plastics that were made from that time, is still here today and will be for an even longer time. Every piece of plastic that hasn’t been properly disposed of, is still floating around the earth today.

The Great Pacific garbage patch, also described as the Pacific trash vortex, is a collection of marine debris particles and garbage, floating around in the north central Pacific Ocean. The collection of plastic waste and floating trash originates from the Pacific Rim, including countries in Asia, North America, and South America. This island of trash is still here today. It is so huge that it is pretty much impossible to pick up. What makes it so hard to pick up and collect all this debris is because most of the plastic is already broken down into bits and pieces that just float and follow each other. There is so much of it and the plastic can’t break down from the water alone because plastic is created out of the compound called polyethylene. Polyethylene is the most popular type of plastic in the world. This is the polymer that makes grocery bags, shampoo bottles, children’s toys, and even bullet proof vests. It can’t be 100% broken down from just water

Now for the most heart-wrenching issue that plastic has a major effect on. The animals and wildlife that are being affected by this epidemic. I am sure you have seen the images and endless videos of animals suffering and being affected by plastic objects in the ocean. Many animals mistake the plastic for food, and either choke on it or worse, the plastic builds up in their stomach and can’t be digested, causing the animal to bloat and die. So many sea animals and fish have plastic in their bellies, and these are the same fish that end up on your dinner plate. How’s that for appetizing? Sea turtles are another common example. A sea turtle’s main source of food that they like to eat are jellyfish. When a plastic grocery bag, or any type of plastic bag, ends up in the ocean, a turtle can mistake it for a jellyfish, (since they can give off similar characteristics in the water). Other animals get enclosed or trapped in the waste. If they survive with the garbage wrapped around them, they grow unnaturally and can ultimately cause death.

Now that you know about the problem, it’s time for the solution. There are many different solutions to solving this plastic epidemic, but the United States government refuses to take any action. It’s come down to everyday people like you to solve this issue in your daily day to day lives. The first solution would be to eliminate plastic altogether by creating a plastic ban, or resort to buying less plastic packaged items. Many countries have already taken the steps toward this solution. Some companies in America have taken small but necessary steps to eliminate some plastic. Some examples include Starbucks creating an alternative lid called Nitro lids, so that customers no longer have to use straws. Even one of Central Michigan University’s own campus restaurants, Down Under, has voted to move forward with completely biodegradable containers and silverware. There are also other places that have eliminated straws from their stores. Ford Field in Detroit Michigan also completely eliminated straws from their drinks that the fans can purchase. Another example, the last university that I attended, Ferris State in Michigan, eliminated all use of straws from their dining halls. The dining halls used to have straw dispensers, but they cut them out completely. This has made a small impact, but it is one small step for the greater good. Among the larger U.S. cities to outlaw plastic straws are Malibu, Berkeley, Seattle, and Miami Beach. Plastic bag bans — ideally accompanied by a fee on paper bags — are also catching on. New York Stateand Hawaii just passed theirs, set to go into effect in 2020, and California’s bag ban, which was passed in 2014, has been shown to have reduced plastic bag usage by 85 percent (with some customers opting to pay a 10 cent fee for thicker plastic bags) and has reduced coastal pollution. What do the bans accomplish? They prevent millions of tons of plastic from entering the waste stream each year. And when it comes to waste that lasts forever, every ton counts.

Another solution that has been around for some time with different types of products is reusables. Reusable, cloth grocery bags, reusable plastic or metal cups, plates, etc. Let’s say that a person gets one cup of Starbucks every morning for one whole year. In that one year they will have used three hundred sixty-five cups, three hundred sixty-five lids, and possibly three hundred sixty-five straws. That is one thousand, ninety-five pieces of plastic, coming from one person. Those plastics can take up to five hundred plus years to degrade. Now if they bought a reusable Starbucks cup and washed it after every use and used that every morning, they eliminated all three hundred sixty-five of those cups, lids, and straws from ending up on the earth or in the ocean. Another alternative is switching to reusable cloth grocery bags. A plastic grocery bag can take up to twenty years to degrade and break down in the ocean. Reusables can save so much of the damage caused from single use plastic, but you don’t see very many people who use reusable items. If more people were more likely to reuse instead of just using the convenience along with laziness that comes with single use plastics, than reusable items would have a much greater impact on slowing down the plastic epidemic.

The last solution is also probably one of the most obvious, that solution is to properly recycle! Taking care of garbage and what goes where eliminates that plastic ending up in landfills where is will get burned up into the atmosphere and cause those bad emissions. Recycling may be time-sacking, but it is a simple step to a better cleaner earth. In South Korea, citizens are fined for improper recycling. I personally feel that if the United States was stricter on things like this, the solution would be a lot easier for everyone. If we had more laws in place, people would be less likely to break a law and plastic could end up in the right places to be properly disposed of. To start recycling, here are a few easy steps to help you get started. One option is to join a recycling program. If you would like to know where you can take your recyclable items, look up your nearest drop off recycling center and make sure you are recycling as much waste as you can. You can also look up how to recycle unusual things like, batteries, oil, tires, etc. Another step is reuse things like plastic grocery bags. (I use plastic grocery bags for the small trash can in my bathroom). Another easy thing to help keep recyclables organized and separate from the trash is to set up some recycling bins.

What is already being done to stop the carbon footprint? There are groups of people all over the world to make it a cleaner and healthier place. People along the coasts of America cleaning up beaches, oceans, islands, and rescuing sea animals from this pollution of our wonderful ecosystem. There are also groups of people replanting coral, just like how people replant trees, the coral reefs are just as important if not more. The people who recycle and reuse every single day. These people are out doing the most to save this planet. Each one of us at home can make a difference too, by not letting all this plastic end up where it does not belong, by reusing and recycling. It all comes down to laziness. There is no other excuse for it. People are too lazy to properly dispose of their trash, or sort it, because they think that wherever the trash ends up, it won’t affect them. It is predicted that there will be as much plastic in the ocean as there is fish by 2050. Let’s all take the pledge so that this prediction doesn’t become a reality. If we don’t do something about this epidemic now, it is going to be a much bigger issue in the near future. Leaving this problem for the generations to come is unfair, as we all contributed to the mess we made, it is our responsibility to clean up after ourselves. We can all do our part to prevent further damage to our environment and our waterways from plastics! ‘Zero waste’ or ‘zero plastic waste’ movements are springing up around the world to tackle this issue. If we each do our part now, we can help stop the world’s preventable plastic problem from getting worse.

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