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Polo Vaca
Kelly Michelle Polo Vaca

Michele Tubbs

Composition 1

December 6, 2020

Plastic Pollution

While plastic has many valuable uses, we have become addicted to single-use or

disposable plastic with severe environmental consequences. Around the world, one million

plastic drinking bottles are purchased every minute, while up to 5 trillion single-use plastic bags

are used worldwide every year (Marazzi, 2020). In total, half of all plastic produced is designed

to be used only once and then thrown away. Plastic pollution is not new news, this problem is

emerging as a top threat to ocean ecosystems. Plastic pollution is growing global, plastics are

among the most ubiquitous materials in our environment, they are also among the most pervasive

and persistent pollutants on Earth. To understand the magnitude of input of plastics to the natural

environment and the world’s oceans, we must understand various elements of the plastic

production, distribution and waste management chain. This is crucial, not only in understanding

the scale of the problem but in implementing the most effective interventions for reduction. In

this paper we will talk about the big problem that we are leaving with the plastic pollution, the

sources of plastic pollution, and the possible solutions.

One of the biggest problems is that since the plastic got cheaper, the product became

more dangerous for contamination. Plastic is made of a variety of additives and synthetic organic

polymers. According to the organization Earth Law Center, the growth of plastic continues on its
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current trajectory. The production of plastic could generate 56,000 million metric tons in

accumulated greenhouse emissions by 2050, consuming a staggering 13% of the total carbon

budget remaining on Earth (Nerberg, 2020). If we think about the amount of environmental

damage that only one person causes, in a few years we would be full of plastics. The amount of

plastic waste disposed of by the commercial fishing industry has doubled in the last 50 years.

There are 3 important points about plastic pollution: First, plastics threaten the survival of many

species of wildlife, negatively impacting nearly 700 species around the world. Which this is not

news, we already know that pollution grows, and all our flora and fauna disappears. Second,

plastic products serve as a conduit for the release and travel of toxins into and through freshwater

and marine food chains, posing a threat to wildlife, public health, and the fishing industry, and

third, plastic pollution is costly. Plastics are made from pure chemicals, so using it for too long

frees it up and can be a great personal injury. There are many companies that already put a bpa

FREE sign but that is not that it totally eliminates the damage.

Plastics made from fossil fuels are just over a century old. Production and development

of thousands of new plastic products accelerated after World War II, so transforming the modern

age that life without plastics would be unrecognizable today (Parker, 2020). Plastics

revolutionized medicine with life-saving devices, made space travel possible, lightened cars and

jets saving fuel and pollution and saved lives with helmets, incubators, and equipment for clean

drinking water. According to the UN, up to 80% of marine litter comes from land-based sources

such as plastic manufacturers, processors, landfills, sewage overflows, garbage. Of the leaks that

come from land-based sources, 75% come from uncollected waste and 25% escape from the

waste management system. Unfortunately, 80% of plastic waste is too low in value to incentivize
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recovery and recycling. As a result, it is estimated that between 4.8 and 12.7 million metric tons

of plastic waste entered the ocean in 2010, and today there are an estimated 580,000 pieces of

plastic per square kilometer (Marazzi, 2020). High-income countries, including most of Europe,

North America, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and South Korea, have very effective waste

management systems and infrastructure; This means that discarded plastic waste (even that

which is not recycled or incinerated) is stored in closed and secure landfills. In these countries,

almost no plastic waste is considered improperly managed. This does not mean that the country

is not generating and is not polluting.

Ninety percent of plastic items in our daily life are used once and then probably never

used again, such as grocery bags, plastic wrap, disposable cutlery, straws, coffee cup lids, and

many others. If we take into account the amount that only one person has used any of these

examples, we realize the effect it causes. People are so badly accustomed to using unnecessarily,

when we have meetings, we use disposable items and most of the time it is not used only once,

but many times per person. Similarly, since the quarantine and pandemic began, the most

common thing was to buy food from restaurants, and they spent more material on delivery than

in any other year. If we are looking for solutions, we just have to buy from the supermarket and

bring our own bags, cutlery to the office, or the travel mug to Starbucks before it becomes a

habit. Every year, about 20 billion plastic bottles are thrown away. Bringing a reusable bottle is

the best thing to do. It is not difficult to load it, and it will always be cleaner than any plastic. It

seems obvious, but we are not doing it right, because we recycle at least 14 percent of plastic

packaging in a global total! One way to help is to become an environmental activist. It starts with
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yourself and your surroundings. If a person begins with good habits, his family and friends could

probably become a healthy environment. It allows to persuade the circle with the good deed of

avoiding the use of plastic or at least reducing it, and they too would be in charge of persuading

other people.

The importance of taking care of the environment has been something that has been

talked about a lot for a long time, but people do not act on the real situation. When you think

about the real problem, up to 5 billion single-use plastic bags are used worldwide each year, we

realize how many people are unaware of the damage that is being done in this world. Pollution is

not a new topic. Plastic pollution also causes the destruction of the ecosystem and wildlife (dead

fish, many types of birds, turtles, sharks, etc.). The companies that make these same packaging

also make other types of contamination; these plastics have little materials ecological and very

harmful to humans. Each person generates a high percentage in daily garbage, which should

cause us an alert button so that we can reduce too much disaster that we are causing to our

planet. There are many ways to take care of the environment, but if we only change 1 person at a

time, in 5 years we will have had a successful result. It is impossible to change a habit, such as

not using the products, but it is not impossible to take materials with you to avoid using plastic

products like metal light bulbs, take your water bottle everywhere, take your cutlery if you are

going out to eat, if you buy a water bottle reuse it. If we do not care about the environment now,

in a short time we will think that starting a day ago would have impacted the change throughout

the world. It is never too late to start good habits.

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Work Cited

“Plastic Pollution in Our Environment.” Swara, vol. 45, no. 2, Apr. 2020, p. 12. EBSCOhost,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=143428446&site=ehost-live.

“Our Planet Is Drowning in Plastic Pollution. This World Environment Day, It's Time for a

Change.” #BeatPlasticPollution This World Environment Day,

www.unenvironment.org/interactive/beat-plastic-pollution/.

Marazzi, Luca, et al. “Consumer-Based Actions to Reduce Plastic Pollution in Rivers: A Multi-

Criteria Decision Analysis Approach.” PLoS ONE, vol. 15, no. 8, Aug. 2020, pp. 1–

15. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0236410.

Nerberg, Susan. “Sea of Plastic.” Canadian Geographic, vol. 140, no. 2, Mar. 2020, pp. 28–

29. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?

direct=true&db=a9h&AN=141483135&site=ehost-live.

Allen, Steve, et al. “Examination of the Ocean as a Source for Atmospheric

Microplastics.” PLoS ONE, vol. 15, no. 5, May 2020, pp. 1–14. EBSCOhost,

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0232746.