An Invention Gone Bad — Our world’s Plastic Pollutions crisis
As a little girl I always dreamt of living in Barbie’s Dream house. A glorious pink mansion, a bedroom the size of an apartment, the world’s largest closet filled with rows and rows of glamorous clothes.
If you told little 7-year-old me that I would be living in a similar life now, I’m sure I would faint. Though, this plastic mansion I always fantasised about isn’t what i expected.
Like Barbie, we live in a world overflowing with plastic, and as you read this, you can probably point out at least 10 things made of plastic right where you are.
Barbie lied. A life of plastic isn’t glamorous at all.
After Belgian American chemist, Leo Baekeland created the first real synthetic, mass-produced plastic called ‘Bakelite’ in 1907; humanity has learned how to turn natural elements such as coal, natural gas and crude oil into shiny, hard plastic.
This is the invention that would change our lives in numerous ways by providing cheap, readily available solutions to convenience us humans.
Although what we once thought was an innovative, magical technology, plastic has turned sour, practically saturating our everyday lives. Invading our environment, animals, waterways, and humans.
We invented it, now it’s come to bite us back.
Before we delve into the true mess that is plastic pollution, I think it’s important we take a short science lesson into what plastic is.
Plastic is made from natural existing polymers that can be found in hair, DNA and silk, just to name a few. We have found a way to create polymers by breaking crude oil or coal and rearranging their components, thus forming synthetic polymers.
These synthetic polymers became revolutionary as they are lightweight, malleable, durable and require a short amount of manual work to be made. Therefore, plastic can be easily mass-produced and moulded into any shape we desire cheaply and quickly.
However, the downside to this magical discovery is plastic’s resistance to degradation. Plastic is so durable; it takes between 500 and 1,000 years to break down. Even worse, us humans have mutually made the decision to utilise this long-lasting material in order to create objects that are designed to be thrown away such as packaging, plastic utensils, water bottles. You name it!
Since its invention, we have produced about a whopping 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic. More than 6.3 billion metric tons of plastic have become waste since 1907.
But, what did we do with all this waste?
9% of our plastic waste has been recycled, approximately 12% has been incinerated, while the overwhelming 79% of it still lingers around us, accumulating in landfills and our environment. The majority of us use these products every day without a single thought about where they end up after it serves its purpose.
Around 8 million tons per year ends up in the ocean. In fact, a report from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation predicted it will outweigh all the fish in the ocean by 2050.
Millions of our animals are slowly dying by plastic every year. Nearly 700 species are known to have been affected by plastics. In fact, according to CSIRO, 90% of seabirds had ingested plastic in just 2015 alone.
But that’s not all. Plastic has not just affected our precious sea creatures. It also reaches land-based animals such as elephants, hyenas, zebras, tigers, cattle and many more large mammals.
Just when you think it can’t get any worse, wait until you hear about plastics small, but equally as deadly friend, microplastics.
According to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the European Chemicals agency, microplastics are pieces smaller than 5 millimetres. They enter our environment in plain sight through objects like cosmetics, toothpaste and clothing. However, most microplastics result from floating waste that is constantly exposed to UV radiation and crumbles into tiny, minuscule pieces.
Approximately, 51 trillion such particles float in the ocean where they are even more easily swallowed by more than 100 aquatic species. These include fish, shrimp, and mussels. Are you a fan of seafood? Well, these poor creatures are unfortunately destined for our dinner plates.
While microplastics have been found in marine life, they also find themselves in other products you may not have expected. Microplastics have been found in honey, sea salt, beer, tap water and in the household dust around us.
It’s safe to say that we definitely lost control of what we first thought was a step to a more convenient world.
Well, now you might be asking… What can we do?
Ban plastic?
It’s easier said than done, I’m afraid.
Plastic pollution is not the only environmental challenge we face. Some of the substitutes we would use for plastic, may have a higher environmental impact in other ways.
According to a recent study by the Danish government, making a single use plastic bag requires very little energy and produces far lower carbon dioxide emissions compared to a reusable cotton bag. This means that you will need to use your cotton bag approximately 7,100 times before it would have a lower impact on the environment than the plastic bag.
It is quite obvious that the challenge of plastic pollution will be difficult to tackle, as everything has an impact on the environment somehow and we as a society still do not know the right balance between them.
Nevertheless, making small changes here and there can still make make a big difference in the end. So here is a short list of changes you can make to your everyday life:
- Refuse disposable plastics and convince others to do the same
- Pressure companies and politicians to take the necessary steps to keep our oceans and our food safe
- Donate and learn about the Plastic Pollution Coalition
- Purchase from business that make reusable house hold items. Here are a list of businesses:
- ‘Untrashy’ —aims to provide sustainable, ethical and practical alternatives to single-use plastic products.
- ‘Beegreenwraps’ — creates beeswax wraps to eliminate single-use cling wrap and plastic zip-lock bags.
- ‘Bigbiteeco’ — produces sustainable essentials that will have you living the zero-waste life.
Your actions may be small, but it is still one step to changing our world’s plastic pollution crisis.
