Solutions

Length of decomposition in the environment

Trash tracking 200 years

How much do you throw away? 450 years There are tons and tons of alternatives that have been pushed on the back burner.
Eartheasy has listed stainless steel, glass, platinum silicone, Wood and Bamboo as
plastic alternatives.

5 years
Glass Silicone Wood Stainless steel
3 months “When glass “When it “Today, “Stainless
breaks down, comes to the building steel is a
it remains safe environment, “green” is good green product.
and stable, silicone is business. As It is 100%
and releases highly durable a building recyclable, as
no harmful and more material, wood it is not coated
chemicals ocean friendly offers many with any
into the soil. than plastic. environmental toxic material
So even when Silicone, which benefits that it does not
glass isn’t is made from matter to produce toxic
recycled, it silica found communities run-off,” wrote
does minimal in sand, is across the SASSDA.
O ut of the seven items that English teacher Pam Gower used
in a day, only two were recycled as a part of an experiment
Gower took on. Not a huge impact if you just think of one
harm to the
environment,”
much longer
lasting than
country. It
is the only PHOTOS HANNAH
person. wrote plastic in the major building BOLTON

Times Gower’s experience by the roughly 10 million people who BREWBOUND. environment material that is
live in Michigan and the trash starts to pile. as well as while renewable and
Individuals can make real efforts to lessen trash by recycling, but being used sustainable,”
corporate America works against them. in products,” wrote the
Companies make products to be thrown away, that do not
wrote American
decompose. Why? Because they are cheaper.
This business structure leads to trash on the road, sidewalks and ECOlunchbox. Forest
Of the seven items used by Pam even yards. Foundation.
Gower in a span of 24 hours. Only
the Planet Fitness flyer and la Croix
can were recycled. PHOTOS PAM
This cycle is why only two of Gower’s objects were recycled; they
were the only ones made to.
8 weeks PHOTO HANNAH BOLTON

SINGLE-USE PLASTIC, THE TOXIC TIME BOMB

GOWER However, some still want to recycle what they can.
The leadership class picks up paper recycling once a week from
every classroom.
“There can be
Senior Andrew Carriero wants to increase recycling from just
challenges when it paper to include glass and plastics as well. Plastic. Environmental Law. this growing issue far beyond aesthetics. In reality, that is
comes to disposing “I find it a necessary thing to do everywhere,” Carriero said of It is everywhere: in food, cars, phones, and now it is The Great Lakes have not escaped the wrath of plastic
hungry consumers.
just the beginning of the problem. As plastic seeps into the
environment, animals start to mistake it for food and eat it.
“The wraps you get are plastic coated
coming to a body of water near you.
of some single- his recycling efforts. “Researchers found that nearly 10,000 metric tons — or 22 This is a real problem: dead animals stuffed full of plastic. as well as remains of condiments, the
And as president of NHS, he plans to make the school a more Single use plastic is not a problem that can be thrown
use products. million pounds — of plastic debris enter the Great Lakes That is not even where it stops. Humans eat the animals
Many of them
recyclable environment. away. It will stick around for thousands of years, as it does
not degrade like other materials. every year from the United States and Canada,” found the that ate the plastic. fry containers are oil soaked, cups are
aren’t designed
“I look for recycling everywhere I go, because I know that a small
contribution can make a large impact if done en masse,” Carriero “We are producing over 300 million tons of plastic every Rochester Institute of Technology. “As for the impact of plastic debris on human health, plastic coated paper except for some
The question is how does plastic get into the Great the ruling paradigm is that in the ocean environment
to be reused, and said. year, 50% of which is for single-use purposes – utilized for
just a few moments, but on the planet for at least several Lakes? “It usually comes from nearby sources, such as zooplankton eat plastics, fish eat zooplankton, humans markets that have foam for the large ones
because of their Carriero is not the only one looking to collect the abundance of
hundred years,” according to Plastic Oceans International, sewer pipes carrying refuse that’s been washed into eat fish, and thus plastic is a threat to human health,” (that are being phased out),” said former
cans that enter the school daily.
makeup, some street drains, washing machines that send microfibers according to a National Institutes of Health in a 2017
can’t be recycled
Math teacher Jason Rickli collects bottles so he can return them a nonprofit organization raising awareness about plastic
pollution. into city treatment systems, and windblown litter from article. McDonald’s employee Richard Widman.
for money. beachgoers or lakeside neighborhoods,” OnEarth’s Midwest That water ends up on our store shelves. A 2018 study
using traditional “Because kids were throwing away the cans, rather than just have This plastic apocalypse is coming. It can be found in other
correspondent Susan Cosier said. by Fredonia State University of New York found that
places than just the environment.
methods,” wrote them throw them away I decided to collect them,” Rickli said. No longer a simple problem of plastic bottles on the side of “93% of bottled water showed some sign of microplastic
They serve as a place for the cans to be recycled, because Granger Plastic has now been found in humans.
This is Plastics. “Microfibers and other plastic microparticles are the road, the long lasting effects of discarded plastic in the contamination.”
only supplies curbside pick up to the village of Stockbridge, once environment are detrimental. Plastic sticks around.
a month. increasingly being documented in human tissues,” as
There are solutions to the impending plastic pollution problem. reported by a 2019 report by the Center for International Ignorance has been, and still is, a contributing factor in Hannah Bolton is Uncaged’s editor-in-chief.

6 COVER STORY 18. NOVEMBER 2019 UNCAGEDNEWS.COM UNCAGEDNEWS.COM 18. NOVEMBER 2019 COVER STORY 7