Is Plastic Really Worth The Convenience

 There are a number of things that people don’t realise on a daily basis. One of those things is plastic. When you throw away something, you don’t know what happens to it afterwards or where is goes, you might not even know that it is destroying the planet. Recycling is a better and more sustainable method of disposing trash. I think we can take a step in the right direction and recycle all the plastic we are using daily.

 One of my main reasons is that the majority of our trash is plastic, 50% of the plastic we use is used once and then thrown away.Plastic is killing the planet and it almost seems as if we don’t care. Recycling plastic is not impossible, there are different types of plastic in which it can be created as different things. In doing so, you won’t be contributing to greenhouse gas emission or creating large patches in the ocean full of garbage. Of course plastic is cheap and easy to be made as different things, but when you throw away these things, a lot is made that is harming the earth. There are so many solutions as to having better options than to use plastic, you could reuse a bag when shopping for groceries and don’t use the plastic bags. Each year, 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are used worldwide. That's over one million plastic bags used per minute. If you just reduce your use of plastic bags you could change those statistics along with others. Something else you could do is when you are packing a lunch or anything where you are using a ziplock bag, there are other things that could replace the ziplock bags such as a lunchbox that you could reuse several times. (Hasselberger, 2015)

 Plastic kills 1.5 million marine animals every year. ("Plastic Bag Statistics." Plastic Bag Statistics. Inspiration Green, n.d. Web. 21 Mar. 2016.)Tragic things happen to defenseless animals that don’t know how to get themselves out of plastic wrappers, or bottles and many more things. Intestinal blockage is a common cause of death to sea animals due to plastic. An example is a sperm whale that was found in Spain in 2013 as 59 pieces of plastic waste totaling 37 pounds in weight was found inside the helpless whale. Sea turtles are now consuming twice the amount of plastic they were eating 25 years ago. Plastic waste has really taken a toll on these animals and the problem is that people aren’t taking charge over what they have done to these animals. Plastic doesn’t just get consumed by these marine animals, they could also get tangled in plastic making movement, feeding, growth difficult to nearly impossible. The plastic can get wrapped around the heads, tails, flippers of these animals. Plastics can also introduce a chemical battle with the bodies of several fish, and scientists are actually finding that it is killing reproductive health of many fish species. Studies have shown that some plastics release a chemical that can confuse a fish to try and mate with another fish species which won’t help the reproductive success for either species. (Macklin, 2015)

 Before any of these problems arise, there is another problem that happens just from producing plastic. You see, plastic is made from petroleum and natural gas. For the 30 million plastic bags produced in the US itself, 12 million barrels of oil is needed. All the water bottles being produced in the US also need about 17 million barrels of oil are needed. Making plastic materials includes the energy intensive process involving the burning of fossil fuels just to increase the amount of climate change. Carbon is constantly being emitted during the process of creating plastic. (Macklin, 2015)

 It would be nice to think that all the plastic used would be moved to a recycling facility where it could be created into being something new. However this is not the case for most of the time. 80% of water bottles in the US are being sent to a landfill where the problems will start to emerge. Leachate is a liquid used to break down the materials found in a landfill. The problem with this is that the liquid often leaks through the ground causing the groundwater to be polluted as well. Greenhouse gases such as methane are created from the materials inside the landfill furthering the arising problem of climate change.(Macklin, 2015)

 Thinking from a whole different point of view, plastic can also damage your health. This may be something you don’t know or don’t understand which is what most people think. You might be eating something that has plastic pollution in it, without you knowing. Fish intentionally and unintentionally eat plastic that we throw away as said in a previous paragraph, as the plastic absorbs into the fish, it slowly creeps up the food chain. By eating the fish, you may be devouring some harmful chemicals you didn’t mean to eat. With the amount of plastic that fish are exposed to in the ocean, it really does become your choice with your own health if you wanted to rely on fish as a source of nutrients in your diet. (Macklin, 2015)

 My question is is it really worth the convenience. It is most likely difficult that you won’t come across some plastic in your lifetime but it is not impossible to reduce the amount you use. I’m not saying you should put everything you could recycle into recycling bins as it isn’t guaranteed that it will even be recycled. You could just do things on your own that you know will reduce you buying more plastic products, and knowing that you did your part in saving the world.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

"Recycling Is Important." Recycling Guide. N.p., 14 Feb. 2008. Web. 14 Mar. 2016.

"Why It's Important to Recycle and Compost." South London Waste Partnership (SLWP). South London Waste Partnership, n.d. Web. 14 Mar. 2016.

"Importance of Recycling." Conserve Evergy Future. Be Green, Stay Green, n.d. Web. 14 Mar. 2016.

"22 Facts About Plastic Pollution (And 10 Things We Can Do About It)."EcoWatch. N.p., 07 Apr. 2014. Web. 21 Mar. 2016.

"Plastic Bag Statistics." Plastic Bag Statistics. Inspiration Green, n.d. Web. 21 Mar. 2016.

"Is It Really Worth the Convenience? 6 Ways Plastic Is Harming Animals, the Planet and Us." One Green Planet. One Green Planet, n.d. Web. 21 Mar. 2016.