- plastic, made from fossil fuels, take a lot of energy to create and dispose of. An estimated 29% of U.S greenhouse gas emissions result from the manufacturing and disposal of plastic goods. 60-80% of marine trash also comes from plastic, which has been continuously killing all kinds of sea animals and birds who mistake them for food.
- firstly, recycling is not the solution to plastic pollution - reusing or not using them at all is! Unlike aluminum or glass etc that can be recycled again and again, plastic gets downcycled every time they are recycled, meaning their quality decreases each time until they can no longer be recycled and have to be discarded into the landfill or worse - the ocean. Wherever they end up, they won't disappear or integrate themselves naturally or beneficially back into the environment, unlike things like paper of course, and burning off plastic would no doubt release gases toxic to us and the environment --> greenhouse gases --> direct contribution to climate change! While the most common single-use plastics are in the form of take-away cultery and bags, they also include the sneakier, less obvious items such as juice bottles, food packaging at groceries/convenience stores and granola bar wrappers.
- pushing waste towards the landfill is bad because they aren't designed to break things down but only to store them. Though garbage there might decompose it'll take an extremely long time due to lack of oxygen in the compressed space there (and if something is plastic it'll of course stay there for at least 200 years) and bacteria in the mix of all this garbage produces a lot of methane and greenhouse gases ---> again direct contribution to climate change! Which is why waste-sorting is important - so that compost can return naturally to the soil, recyclable things like glass don't get wasted, and so as much waste as possible gets kept out of landfills. This goes hand-in-hand with the importance of avoiding single-use plastics.
- continuing from the above, compost is useful for nurturing the growth of products straight out of the earth so why waste food and compostable stuff by discarding them into the bins that say 'trash/garbage only' and having them sent to toxin-producing landfills when we can sort them into pure compost for beneficial reasons!
- many still wouldn't recommend using single-use plastics even if they're labelled 'biodegradable' or 'compostable', simply because they still break down much much slower than normal compostable stuff like food/paper. So if they're chucked into compost, it's not long before farmers use these compost piles for growing their plants, but it's been found that these piles (and so the fertilizers etc) get contaminated with the so-called 'compostable' plastics that haven't been able to break down quickly enough. Only SOME composting systems have the right mechanisms to ensure such plastics break down properly. e.g. on my campus, many food businesses give out biodegradable plastic bags and cutlery to customers, but this is essentially useless as the campus' composting system is not even capable of properly breaking these items down. So it's ideal to always be wary when we see plastics that claim to be 'biodegradable' or 'compostable'!
- plastic straws have been a big deal (recently banned in San Fran and announced to be fully banned in Vancouver by around June 2019). to elaborate, in the USA 500 million straws are used every day (enough straws to circle around the Earth 2.5 times), they aren't recyclable, take up to 200 years to decompose and are one of the most common ocean trash. Each year, 1 million seabirds and 100,000 marine animals die from ingesting plastic. [source: get-green-now.com ] Compostable and reusable glass or metal straws are simple, effective alternatives.
aug 19 2018 ∞
aug 24 2018 +
aug 24 2018 +