The Damage That Plastic Creates In Our Environments

Plastic is a commonly used item in the everyday household and a lot of people have no idea how polluting plastic can really be. Plastic is taking over our environments and it is polluting our planet. UN secretary general António Guterres says, "If present trends continue, there will be more plastic in the world's oceans than fish". This is incredibly alarming because just think of how much fish there are in the ocean. I looked up just how many fish there are and it is estimated that there is 3.5 trillion fish are in the ocean right now. If the amount of plastic exceeds the amount of fish that will cause major environmental pollution and damage to marine life. We can do something about this issue and it's just a question of whether or not we will do anything about it. We can all be more Eco friendly in one way or another whether it may be recycling or just not buying plastic anymore. We can all make some sort of an impact even if it's small. One less plastic item in our oceans means that maybe one less animal could be affected by plastic in a negative way. Maybe just one more animal could be given the opportunity to have a chance at life. 

The Arcadia power blog wrote, "Scientists estimate that 1 million seabirds are killed by consuming plastics every year". Just think of how much fewer birds would be killed if we just started being more aware of our plastic problem and taking action to control what ends up in our environments. Just when you thought it couldn't get worse the ocean crusaders writes on their website, "100000 marine creatures a year die from plastic entanglement and these are the ones found". This is a global issue and many animals are dying because of it. Do you want to see another dead sea turtle washed up on the beach? And do you want to see another intelligent dolphin entangled in plastic net? I don't think this can go on any longer because what are we going to do when all the fish are gone and all the water is polluted. This issue needs to be addressed and it needs to be addressed now. 

To talk about my personal experience with this issue. I am a nature and motivation blogger and I'm all about visiting local wildlife environments. I have seen the environmental pollution first hand everywhere. There is trash in local parks, creeks, rivers, and lakes. I can't even count how many times I've seen trash at falls lake or the neuse river. It's just sad when you want to visit the river and then you see trash everywhere and then the water looks more red and polluted than it did last time. It's sad looking at all of the trash on the ground and knowing that if people were more responsible the trash it wouldn't have been there in the first place. It's sad seeing fish and turtles swim around in contaminated, polluted water. I feel like a lot of people are blind to this issue because they haven't seen it for themselves. Maybe after reading this today just go out and see it for yourself. Visit a local nature area and go see how much trash you can find on the ground just by taking a simple walk. 

One could argue that plastic pollution isn't that big of an issue compared to other things. What they don't know however is that this problem is only increasing through time and it is causing more and more environmental problems. The Huffington post writes, "If it weren’t for plastic packaging, I don’t know that local, organic meat producers and dairy farmers would be able to ship their products to stores". While this is a concern there is other options for packaging. You could use biodegradable corn-based plastic that is more environmentally friendly. There is also other alternatives like glass, metal, silicone, liquid wood, and milk protein. All of these materials would work just the same way that plastic would if not better, plus it's Eco-friendly. Qz.com writes, If we were to get rid of plastic today, the loss of the primary form of food packaging would make hundreds of thousands of people sick". While I do believe that plastic is the primary material used for packaging I do think that there are other materials you could use in place of plastic that would be just as safe. I mentioned some of the alternatives earlier on in this article and those would work really well in place of plastic. Some people bring up how plastic is preferred compared to other materials. The green biz writes, "Independent studies show that plastic bags are environmentally preferable to paper". While plastic may be more preferred that doesn't make plastic somehow okay. Plastic is a non biodegradable material and all of the non recycled plastic ends up in our environments and sits there for millions of years.

The plastic problem in our world is only growing year by year and when are we as people actually going to do something about it? According to greenpeace.org they report, "Of the 260 million tons of plastic the world produces each year, about 10 percent ends up in the Ocean". This is a very sad statistic and while some people may argue that it's not as bad as other things going on in the world but it is still very alarming. According to the arcadiapower blog, "Scientists estimate that 1 million seabirds are killed by consuming plastics every year, as are 100,000 mammals. In fact, 44 percent of marine bird species have been studied to show that such materials have affected them in some way".This problem cannot be ignored and this is I'd say one of the biggest environmental problems in our modern day world. Some people will claim that we need plastic for food safety and that there is no other good alternatives. They are obviously wrong because there are many alternatives. Now it just comes down to the fact of whether or not people want to accept the alternatives and change their way of living. Some people may also want to downplay this issue and say that everyone is "overreacting". I think people are just now discovering how bad plastic is and it is not overreacting. I think everyone is just now realizing how polluted the environment is really becoming and that is why people are upset by this issue. This is not just one fish, this is thousands even hundreds of thousands of marine species getting effected by plastic in a negative way. 

This is something that I wrote for school and I thought I would share it on here because it has a lot of good information and it's very powerful. This is a lot more informational than my regular posts but it's important so I hope you guys enjoyed it. Until next week! Stay mindful. 

“Plastic Pollution Coalition.” Plastic Pollution Coalition, www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org/.
Guern, Claire Le. “When The Mermaids Cry: The Great Plastic Tide.” Plastic Pollution, plastic-pollution.org/.Power, Team Arcadia. “15 Key Facts & Statistics About Plastic Pollution.” Blog, Arcadia Power, 21 Aug. 2017, blog.arcadiapower.com/15-key-facts-statistics-about-plastic-pollution/.Rodale, Maria. “Is Plastic Really That Bad?” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 25 May 2011, www.huffingtonpost.com/maria-rodale/is-plastic-really-that-ba_b_820067.html.NOAA's National Ocean Service, oceanservice.noaa.gov/hazards/marinedebris/plastics-in-the-ocean.html.“By 2050 There May Be More Plastic in Oceans than Fish – UN.” News24, 5 June 2018, www.news24.com/Green/News/by-2050-there-may-be-more-plastic-in-oceans-than-fish-un-20180605.Chepkemoi, Joyce. “How Many Fish Live in the Ocean?” World Atlas, Worldatlas, 25 Apr. 2017, www.worldatlas.com/articles/how-many-fish-are-there-in-the-ocean.html.Admin. “The Most Common Eco-Friendly Alternatives for Plastic Packaging.” Trending Packaging, 25 June 2015, www.trendingpackaging.com/the-most-common-eco-friendly-alternatives-for-plastic-packaging/.