Plastic & the Environment

If you stop to take a look around you right now, theres a very good chance youll find more than a dozen items made from plastic. If youre reading on your computer then your hands are on plastic. Pens, water bottles, cellphone cases, bags, and even clothing are all made from plastic.For more than a century weve had a love affair with plastic. We make everything from the material. From cars to electronics and even furniture, we live with plastic around us. Why do we love plastic so much? There are three primary reasons why plastic has invaded the world.Three Reasons Why We Love Plastic So Much

1. Plastic is inexpensive

All plastics are polymers, which mean that theyre long chains of molecules. These synthetic, i.e. man-made, elements are relatively cheap to produce - much cheaper than the alternative.

For example, if youre making a desk from wood and metal, the metal has to be forged and shaped. The wood needs to be harvested from a tree and formed into a desktop.

Both materials are natural materials that need to be acquired before theyre made into a desk. A plastic desk simply needs to be poured into a mold and then shaped. The elements that make up plastic dont need to be harvested; they are made and the production process can be automated. A person can make fifty plastic desks in the time it takes to make one metal and wood one.

2. Plastic is lightweight, flexible and malleable

Plastic can be bent and molded into just about any shape. Think about the difference between a plastic straw and your television which is mostly plastic. The bumper on your car is probably plastic, as are the shampoo bottles in your shower. Plastic is also flexible. You can bend, squeeze, and twist many plastic items and they bounce right back into shape.

Its also inexpensive to ship plastic products because theyre much more lightweight than the alternatives. Compare a plastic cooking pan with a ceramic or a cast iron pan and youll immediately see the difference in weight.

3. Plastic is durable

While plastic certainly isnt as durable as metal or wood, it is durable enough compared to the cost. A plastic desk can last for decades. Depending on the type of plastic, it is relatively non-breakable. Think about some of the plastic items that you have - your cellphone case for example. Its pretty durable.

We love plastic because its easy. Unfortunately, the reasons that we love plastic are the same reasons that its destroying the environment. The durable and inexpensive polymers arent natural and theyre abundant in the environment. Its causing problems with our health and its killing wildlife. Plastic bags and bottles seem to be one of the largest problems.

Lets take a look at the dangers of these two common products. In fact, you probably have a plastic bag and bottle in your home right now. Most people do. The Danger of Plastic Bags and Bottles

Every time you go to the supermarket you probably come home with a plastic bag. Were not just talking about the bags that your groceries are loaded into when youre checking out. What about the bags that you put your produce in? Buy a half dozen apples and you put them into a plastic bag to keep them from rolling around, right?

Plastic bottles are almost as popular as plastic grocery bags. Americans used about 50 billion plastic water bottles last year. However, only about 23 percent were recycled. That means that 38 billion water bottles find their way into landfills and oceans.

Californians use over 19 billion plastic grocery bags each year. That averages to 552 bags per person. It creates 147,038 tons of waste in the landfills and oceans.

The Effect on Your Health and the Environment

The vast amount of garbage created from plastic bags and bottles is bad enough. Unfortunately, scientists are learning that the dangers of plastic lie far beyond overfull landfills. In fact, it can be quite harmful to our health.

Chemicals added to plastics are absorbed by human bodies. Youve probably heard of bisphenol A or BPA, which has been shown to alter hormones in the human body and has other negative effects on human health as well.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 93 percent of people had detectable levels of BPA in their urine. The report also noted that the high exposure of premature infants in neonatal intensive care units to both BPA and phthalates is of great concern. We'll come back to BPA in the next section.

Phthalates are used in vinyl flooring and wall coverings, food packaging and medical devices. Eight out of every ten babies, and nearly all adults, have measurable levels of phthalates in their bodies. Plastic buried deep in landfills leaches harmful chemicals that spread into our groundwater.

Its harming animals, too. Plastic debris is often ingested by marine animals. Scientists have found that plankton, the bottom of the food chain, are feeding on microscopic plastic fragments that have worked their way down and are polluting deep ocean sediments.

The food chain means that, eventually, were consuming fish that have consumed plankton and were consuming plastic. And the vast amount of plastic garbage found in the ocean is literally choking and killing marine wildlife. In addition, all of the floating plastic waste now serves as little boats for invasive species, who are now able to float to new habitats and wreak havoc.

We breathe, eat, and drink plastic residue and the problems are only going to get worse. The solution is to begin eliminating plastic from our lives and to find better materials to use. Next, well take a closer look at one of the most problematic elements in plastic bisphenol A.Plastic and Your Health Bisphenol A

One of the ingredients often found in many common plastics is bisphenol A, mentioned above. You may have heard about this chemical but dont know exactly what it is and how it causes health problems. Lets take a closer look.

BPA is a chemical thats used to harden plastics. So youll find it in hard product plastics like medical devices, dental sealants, water bottles, the lining of canned foods and many other products - including baby bottles and sippy cups for children.

Most of the BPA in our bodies comes from eating foods that are packaged in containers with BPA, as it leeches from the plastic and into the food. However, you can get it from the air and from water too.

The Risks of BPA

While the FDA originally claimed that BPA was safe, theyve changed their stance on the chemical. Today they express "some concern" about the effects of BPA.

BPA has been shown to act as a hormone disruptor. This means that it changes your bodys production of and reaction to hormones. One of the hormones that is specifically under closer scrutiny is estrogen. Its believed that BPA can behave like a hormone in your body.

When you produce more of a hormone, or your body believes youre producing more of it, other hormone levels are impacted. Your body establishes a new set-point. This may seem like a small thing, having too much estrogen. However, estrogen is responsible for more than sex characteristics.

Its responsible for:

Height

Fat burning

Maintaining blood vessels and skin

Reducing bone resorption and formation

Protein synthesis

Blood coagulation

Cholesterol levels

Fluid balance

Regulating stress hormones

Digestion

And thats just the beginning of what estrogen is responsible for. If BPA interrupts hormone levels, the human body is in a lot of trouble. BPA has also been linked to brain and behavior problems.

In fact, the National Toxicology Program at the FDA is concerned about the effects on infants and young children. Some studies have shown a link between BPA exposure and cancer, heart problems, and other conditions including obesity, diabetes, and ADHD.

The bottom line is that BPA needs to be removed from the plastic manufacturing process. However, BPA free plastics are still far from safe. The ultimate solution is to get plastic out of your home and your life. Lets take a look at the places where plastic waste is most common.

Places Where Plastic Waste Is Most Common

The environmental protection agency, EPA, states that the United States leads the industrialized world in municipal solid waste. Each person in the US generates an average of 4.5 pounds of waste each day. How does this compare to other countries and where does the waste go? Lets take a look at the data.

Canada produces 3.75 pounds of waste per person each day.

The Netherlands surprisingly comes in third in the world and produces 3 pounds per person per day.

Germany and Sweden generate the least amount of waste for industrialized nations. Their citizens produce around 2 pounds per person per day.

Recycling Is a Small Solution

While the US also leads the industrialized world in recycling, its not enough. In the United States, recent figures show that 2 million tons of plastics were recycled yearly.

At the same time, 29.2 million tons ended up in landfills and 2.7 tons were incinerated. Incineration results in the release of carbon dioxide, and other air pollutants, including carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and dioxins.

Now extrapolate that information to the following data - on average, 300 million tons of plastic are produced around the globe each year.

Where Does All This Waste Come From?

50% of disposable products like packaging come from plastics. Plastics make up 85% of medical equipment, and 25% of hospital waste is plastic. In fact, U.S. hospitals discard approximately 425,000 tons of material annually.

If consumers can change their habits, they could eliminate 50% of the plastics in the world. The future of the environment and your familys health begin with eliminating plastics. But, before we talk about how to cut back on your consumption of plastics, lets take a look at the environmental impact in our oceans and with our wildlife.

What Are Plastics Doing to the Ocean?

One of the biggest problems with plastic is that it just doesnt break down. Remember earlier when we talked about why plastic is so wonderful? We mentioned that its durable. This durability is a problem as well as a benefit.

How durable is it? A single plastic bag has a life expectancy of up to 1000 years. Thats pretty darned durable. Plastic bags and bottles are killing our oceans. Much of the landfill waste in the world ends up in the ocean. This may be pretty disgusting to think about but its actually worse than you might imagine.

Hundreds of thousands of pounds are cleaned up on the shores of our oceans each year. Much of that waste is plastic bags. In fact, during the 2014 International Coastal Cleanup, volunteers collected 830,581 plastic bags and 940,170 plastic bottles.

They also found 555,007 plastic straws. Its fair to say that plastic is a problem in the oceans but what does it do to the environment?

In the ocean, plastics break down into small particles. They contain toxins and outnumber plankton six to one. Additionally, marine wildlife often mistake plastic bags for food. Large numbers of animals including whales, dolphins, seals, puffins and turtles have been found with plastic material, usually a plastic bag, blocking their airway or impeding digestion in their stomach.

Animals are dying because of plastic waste in the oceans. Its estimated that over 1,000,000 seabirds and marine mammals die each year from plastic ingestion of entanglement. In fact, its so dangerous to some animals like the turtle that were at risk of losing certain species.

For example, 85 percent of all sea turtles will be injured or killed by plastics in their lifetime and the endangered leatherback turtles that summer in Massachusetts Bay before migrating to the tropics to mate are no exception. Plastics are killing this rare turtle.

The Garbage Patch

Theres a span of ocean between Virginia and Cuba thats called the Great Atlantic Garbage Patch. Its called this because its literally a plastic soup. The water is so contaminated with plastic particles that it barely resembles water anymore. It contains up to up to 26 million plastic particles per square kilometer.

Where does the waste come from? More than 80 percent of plastic material in the ocean comes from land-based waste. The Great Atlantic Garbage patch is created from waste traveling from the east coast of the United States.

Plastics in the ocean arent the only problem. Plastics cause a number of health and environmental problems on land too. Lets take a look at those next. How Plastic Impacts Wildlife and the Environment Outside of the Oceans

On land, plastic causes environmental problems as well. You might be surprised just how damaging a single plastic bag can be.

You already know that plastic degrades slowly. It takes more than 1000 years for it to degrade in the ocean. In landfills it also takes centuries to degrade. Solar radiation and oxidation causes it to break down.

When it degrades, small molecules which are still plastic polymers enter the air. Plastic waste becomes plastic dust which you, your children, and your pets all inhale.

Weve talked about the problems that plastic causes in the human body, including causing hormone disruption and a possibility of cancer, diabetes, and even heart disease. Breathing in plastic on a daily basis isnt helping anyone improve their health.

You might be drinking plastic too. Plastic buried deep in landfills breaks down and leaches harmful chemicals that spread into groundwater. When you turn on the faucet to get a drink of water or to rinse off your vegetables, youre rinsing them with plastic particles.

Producing plastic causes problems too. About 4 percent of global oil production is used to make plastics. Oil production releases greenhouse gases into the air. A similar amount, 4 percent, is also consumed as energy in the production process.

Manufacturing plastic produces air pollution. Even something as seemingly beneficial as biodegradable plastics cause air pollution. As theyre broken down in the landfills, they release methane which is a powerful greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming.

Okay, so plastic causes air pollution, water pollution, and soil pollution. It kills animals and it harms human health we just dont know how harmful it is yet. Are there solutions? Whats being done?

One avenue that many manufacturers are taking is to produce biodegradable plastics. Its not the only option; however, its one that is growing in popularity. Unfortunately, there arent as many benefits to biodegradable plastic as you might hope.

Lets talk about biodegradable plastics next.

Are Biodegradable Plastics a Realistic Option?

As an attempt to solve the disastrous plastics problem, biodegradable plastics were created. Biodegradable means that the plastic is able to be broken down. It may sound like a good thing, right?

If plastics can be broken down then the accumulation of plastics in landfills and in the ocean will cease. Plastics will instead decompose and everything will be okay. Unfortunately, thats not the whole story.

Biodegradable plastics require specific conditions to be broken down. Biodegradable plastics can be broken down by microorganisms which include bacteria or fungi. Theyre broken down into water, carbon dioxide (CO2) and some bio-material. This process produces methane gas. Methane is one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gases and a primary cause of global warming.

Biodegradable plastics arent necessarily made from plants or bio-material. In fact, many biodegradable plastics are made from oil in the same way as conventional plastics. The manufacturing process requires an abundance of energy and produces the same degree of air pollution.

Where Can You Find Biodegradable Plastics?

There is a lot of confusion about biodegradable plastics and there are some plastics, made from corn for example, that are truly biodegradable and compostable. However, there are also plastics that are called biodegradable but arent.

Youll find that most truly biodegradable plastics are used primarily for eating utensils, food containers, and compostable bags. Food packaging that is biodegradable can be composted with the content of the container, making it useful.

Other biodegradable plastics include plastic sheeting for gardens and agriculture. This sheeting can be ploughed into biodegradable mulch. Additionally, absorbable sutures and tiny devices containing medicine are made from biodegradable plastic and can break down inside your body.

While biodegradable plastic isnt an ideal solution, it is one positive step toward reducing plastics. Its important to keep in mind that just because its biodegradable doesnt mean that it will completely go away and that the broken-down particles wont cause environmental damage.

To find truly biodegradable products, look for products with theBiodegradable Products Institutelogo. To be certified, a manufacturer has to comply with strict standards.

Next, lets take a look at the future of plastics.

The Future of Plastic

While bioplastics (plastics made from corn and soy which are compostable and truly biodegradable) are still being developed and may hold a promising future, they represent only a small portion of the plastics being manufactured. More steps need to be taken now to begin to reduce the environmental impact.

Lets take a look at some possibilities.

Recycling

Most communities dont offer recycling and those that do, often dont recycle many plastics. Plastics are difficult to recycle and theres little demand for recycled plastic. The most commonly recycled plastics contain PETE.

If youve recycled plastic, then these are the containers that are labeled with the number one. Plastics have been coded so that people in communities that offer recycling know what they can recycle and what they have to throw away.

#1 PETE is easy to recycle. Theres also good demand for the recycled materials. Examples of plastics that are in this category include soda and water bottles, medicine containers, and other common consumer product containers.

The recycled material can be used to as fiberfill. It can also be made into rope, car bumpers, tennis ball felt, furniture and other plastic bottles.

#2 Plastic is generally for heavier containers like laundry detergent, shampoo, motor oil and milk. This is a little more difficult to recycle. However, the materials can be made into lumber, rope and even childrens toys.

#3 through #7 plastics are more difficult to recycle and many programs dont take them. You can often find independent recycling facilities that do take these plastics; however, independent facilities often charge a fee and dont receive high volume from consumers.

Recycling is one option. However, due to the large number of plastics that municipal programs dont accept, like plastic grocery bags, theres still a huge problem. And many communities simply dont have recycling programs. This puts the burden on the consumer to find a facility and most people just dont make the effort.

This has caused some communities and states to issue legislation to not only reduce plastics in the environment but also to motivate people to recycle.

Legislation and Community Reduction Efforts

Several states have gotten involved in the recycling issue. For example, many states require people to pay a small deposit on soda cans and bottles. When the consumer turns the bottles and cans into the recycling center, they get their deposit back. In Michigan the deposit is 10 cents per can or bottle. This means that a case of soda turned into the recycling center returns $1.20. Its a program that has proven to be effective.

Another example of legislation and community efforts includes local legislation to charge consumers for their plastic bags. The goal is to motivate consumers to use reusable bags instead of paper or plastic. And other communities have banned water bottles.

While about 87 percent of the population in the U.S. has access to recycling centers and pick-ups, only about 63 percent of the population actually uses them. The good news is that as awareness continues to increase, so too does the countrys recycling efforts.

Next, lets take a look at some ways to reduce your use of plastics. Then well wrap it up to talk about some options for plastic and how to make the switch away from plastic.

Ten Ways to Reduce Your Use of Plastics

It might seem like reducing plastics is impossible. Its in everything around you. However, youd be surprised the many simple ways that you can reduce your use of plastics. Here are some useful ways to kick the plastic habit.

1. Stop using straws. Sure, straws make drinking fun. However, remember that plastic straws are one of the most common pieces of garbage found in the ocean.

2. Have reusable grocery bags. Stop using plastic or paper and bring your own cloth bags. You can wash them in between uses. And you dont need a plastic bag for most of your produce. Just place it loose in your cart. You can also purchase reusable produce bags. Theyre usually made from cotton.

3. Get a water bottle. Instead of buying plastic water bottles, invest in a single bottle. You can also find water bottles with built-in filters if you prefer filtered water.

4. Stop chewing gum. Gum is made from plastic. It really is.

5. Buy household cleaners in boxes. You can buy laundry detergent, dishwasher detergent and many other cleaners in boxes instead of plastic.

6. Reuse your glass containers. Spaghetti sauce, jam, pickles and other containers can be washed out and used for bulk items like beans, popcorn, and nuts. Buy these items in bulk with a reusable cotton bag instead of a plastic one.

7. Picnic responsibly. Dont use plastic silverware and avoid plastic take-out containers. You can use compostable materials instead or bring your own dishes from home.

8. Bring a reusable mug. Love coffee from the local shop? Buy a reusable coffee cup and bring it with you.

9. Skip synthetic fibers. Many clothing items are made from plastic. One of the most common materials is fleece. Wear clothes made from natural products or if you must have fleece, then buy fleece made from recycled materials.

10. Upcycle. Instead of getting rid of your items made from plastic, try to find other uses for them. Drop them off at a consignment store or donate them. Make sure your plastic products have the longest life possible and keep them out of landfills.

These tips are just the beginning of whats possible. While you may not be able to completely eliminate plastic from your life, you can make a big difference. To wrap up, well take a look at how to get started and make the transition to using less plastic.

How to Make the Transition and Use Less Plastic

While plastic is everywhere, cutting back may not be as difficult as you might think. Keep in mind that as you reduce your use of plastic, youre also simplifying your life so theres an additional benefit. Youll save money, improve the environment, and life will get a little bit easier.

Step one: Assess your use

Take a look at your lifestyle. What plastic items do you use most often? Chances are youll find that plastic bags and bottles are the biggest problem. Food storage like plastic bags and plastic storage containers are also a common household plastic.

Look at the containers for your household cleaners and personal products as well. Simply make a physical or a mental list of where you use an abundance of plastics.

Step two: One small change

Once you know how and where you use plastics, you can choose one area to change your habits. For example, you can replace your plastic food storage containers with glass ones. Recycle the old plastic containers as they break or wear down.

Dont throw them away. If plastic bags are the area you want to change, recycle the bags you have, purchase reusable bags and commit to never using plastic bags again.

Step three: Repeat the process

Once youve made one small change and lifestyle habit, identify another change you can make. Gradually repeat this process as you continue to reduce your consumption of plastics. Start buying items that arent made from plastic and do your part to protect the environment and your familys health.

Plastic will probably never be replaced. However, you can make a difference in the environment by reducing your consumption of the most prevalent and harmful plastic products. If you want to become even more involved in removing plastics from the environment, volunteer. Help clean up the environment and join community initiatives to reduce consumption.http://enquirerdaily.com/Page 2