Plastic

Plastic is bad

Somehow we have all heard this before and know that we should avoid it if possible. But what exactly is the problem of plastic? The practical plastic material is extremely popular in industry. This is because it is cheap to produce and light in weight. It is also very adaptable, can be shaped into any shape and does not break or tear as easily.

Taking it easy

The consumer, in turn, loves plastic because it is simply practical and cosy. For him, too, “breaking or tearing” is a key argument, just like the fact that plastic is often a one-off product . Especially with regard to the largest application area of plastic, packaging, this is a matter of convenience for the end user. We live in an incredibly fast-paced society, to-go products in all forms are becoming increasingly popular, but coffee, smoothie, cereal bars, ready-made salad and the like are almost always wrapped in plastic so that consumers are not responsible for the packaging. Instead, it can be “easily” disposed of in the next trash can.

There is no "just gone"

Unfortunately, this approach is completely wrong. The consumer gets rid of the garbage and has thus ticked off the product, à la out of sight, out of mind. The plastic does anything but disappear. Because that's where the big problem is when it comes to the all-rounder material: its immortality. Plastic is a basic material that is usually used for products that we only use a few times, sometimes only for a few minutes or even seconds. The material itself practically never disappears.

Plastic is forever

Plastic products have only been on the public market for 70 years . It also means that we don't know that much about this material, which we use so freely to pack almost all of our food. For example, for some types of plastics it is not yet known how long the decomposition time lasts. What is known, however, is the fact that plastic never degrades like other organic materials, but simply breaks down into more and more and smaller plastic particles.

One credit card a week

This makes it easier to get to different areas of our ecosystem. Again and again plastic has been directly detected in our foods such as fish and sea salt and in the human body. Recently, the new, very vivid, news came to the media that we eat so much plastic with our food every week that the amount equals the weight of an entire credit card. The influence that plastic has on our bodies is not yet known. The material appears to affect our hormone levels, but how and what exactly this can have consequences has not yet been sufficiently researched.

The plastic numbers

In order to better understand this information, the following facts from Surf Against Sewage may be helpful:

There is approximately 51 trillion microscopic pieces of plastic, weighing 269,000 tons. That is about the same as 1345 adult blue whales. And 500 times the number of stars in our galaxy.
In 1950, the world’s population of 2.5 billion produced 1.5 million tons of plastic; in 2016, a global population of more than 7 billion people produced over 320 million tons of plastic. This is set to double by 2034.
Every day approximately 8 million pieces of plastic pollution find their way into our oceans.
As we know, plastic is strong, flexible and durable making it extremely useful, however that also means it never really breaks down.
A plastic bottle can last for 450 years in the marine environment, slowly fragmenting into smaller and smaller pieces which eventually end up microscopic but never truly go away. This means that every piece of plastic that has ever been produced is still with us, in some form. Yuck!
With 1 in 3 fish caught for human consumption now containing plastic, the question is no longer are we eating plastic but how bad for us is that? In seawater plastic absorbs chemicals like PCB’s and DDT’s which have been linked to endocrine disruption and even some cancers, becoming more powerful as they work their way up the food chain.
Plastics consistently make up 60 to 90% of all marine debris studied.
Only 1% of marine litter floats, with the vast majority sinking to the sea floor. Even if we tried to ‘scoop’ up that 1%, in international waters who would pay for it? To further complicate matters, the majority of it is microscopic.
Recent studies have revealed marine plastic pollution in 100% of marine turtles, 59% of whales, 36% of seals and 40% of seabird species examined.
It has been imagined that it would take 67 ships 1 year to clean up less than 1% of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
A plastic bag for instance is used on average for 15 minutes, yet could take 100 – 300 years to fragment.
Approx 5,000 items of marine plastic pollution have been found per mile of beach in the UK.

Recycling is not a solution

Recycling, is unfortunately not a real solution. The simple reason is that plastic is not an infinitely renewable material. In contrast to glass, for example, plastic cannot be recycled indefinitely, but loses quality with every recycling process until it can no longer be reused and then has to be disposed of somewhere where it can be stored forever. In addition, much of the plastic used in industry is still made from non-recyclable plastic. Therefore, the use of old plastic should not be demonised in principle. Of course, it is still much better to use existing materials so as not to introduce more plastic into the environment and, of course, to save valuable resources.

We have to take action

The sheer (and ever increasing) mass of plastic and the problem of how to deal with these quantities, the danger that the plastic flood poses to the environment, marine life, our ecosystems and also for ourselves, shows that it is important and correct is to act. To make sure that you make more conscious consumer decisions, tries to reduce your own plastic consumption wherever you can.

You can find some tips on how to do just that here under Plastic-free. Why not join me at out next local beach clean or one near you!