We use plastic in some form every single day, There is hardly a day go by without using the plastic. Plastic is strong, cheap and most are designed to be used just once. But do we know how is it going to pollute our planet and affect lives ?
How much Plastic do we use ?
300 million ton of plastic is produces every year all around the worlds, and about 8 million ton ends up in ocean.
More than 500 billion plastic bags are used every year around the world more than a million every minute. The average life span of a plastic bag is about 15 minutes.
In U.S.A alone 500 million drinking straws are used every single day. Which means 20,833,333 every hour 347,222 every minute and 5,787 single second.
The great pacific garbage patch
The great pacific garbage patch is the biggest garbage dump on the planet. It is located at North pacific gyre. It is combination of two smaller gyre west pacific gyre located between Japan and Hawaii and east pacific gyre located between Hawaii and California. And Great pacific garbage patch is not alone there are 5 or 6 more ocean garbage patch.
Why Plastic waste is a big deal and why should we care about it ?
Plastic does not degrade very easily. Study shows plastic takes about 500 yeas to degrade and it does not bio-degrade instead it photo-degrade, which means these plastic waste in ocean when come in exposer to the sun they break down to smaller and smaller version of it original self. These smaller versions are called Nurdles or Mermaid Tears.
Nurdles not only contains the original chemical to make plastic but they also have capability to attract other pollutants in the ocean like oil slicks turning Nurdles in to toxic. Nurdles are eaten by the sea lives and ends up in our plates when move up in the food chain.
What can we do about it ?
The plastic waste we are generating now will still be there even numbers of generations down the line, I am sure that is not what we want to leave behind for our descendant.
Reduce the use of plastic where ever possible, why not use the paper bag instead of plastic bag.
Rethink before using a plastic product is there a alternative of that.
Refuse Say no to plastic.
Small changes can bring big difference.
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Cheers !!