Plastic
… And then there’s the problem of too much plastic
We must make a change, and it needs to be drastic…
Plastic is an amazing man-made material - over 400 million tonnes are produced every year! Wherever you look there is plastic and it’s many uses make modern life possible BUT every piece of plastic that you’ve ever used still exists somewhere! Read on to learn all about plastic, some fantastic plastic facts as well as the problems that is can cause and how it can affect wildlife. Finally read all about the enormous trash islands clogging up our seas.
*Remember to check out the Glossary at the bottom of the page
What is plastic?
Today there are more than 50 kinds of plastic; it is strong, lightweight and easy to create. As it is so cheap it has replaced many other more expensive natural products such as wood, metals, silks and animal skins.
Plastics are produced from natural materials like coal and oil. The first synthetic plastic (made entirely from man-made materials) was called ‘Bakelite’ and created in 1907 by a Belgian chemist called Leo Baekeland. Many chemists continued his work and soon other plastics were developed.
But there is a downside to this useful material… nearly half of the plastic that is produced today is designed to be used just once and then thrown away - for example, plastic bags, balloons, straws, food and drink packaging.
Because of its durability and long-life it can stay in our environment for years…
Did you know?
★ Around the world, people throw away roughly 4 million tonnes of rubbish every day - that’s enough to fill ten Empire State Buildings!
★ Some experts predict that by 2050 there will be more plastic in the oceans than fish.
★ One third of fish caught in the UK contained tiny pieces of plastic (Source: Study by University of Plymouth, 2017)
★ The largest ocean ‘garbage patch’ is known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch’ in the North Pacific Ocean and is estimated to be the size of Europe! One enormous floating island of rubbish…
★ Worldwide, 73% of beach litter is plastic, mostly cigarette butts (the filters), bottles and caps, food wrappers, grocery bags, polystyrene containers.
★ Approximately 500 billion plastic drinking bottles were sold across the world in 2017. Around the world, nearly a million plastic drink bottles are sold every minute.
★ A trillion plastic shopping bags are used worldwide every year, and 100 billion in the United States alone.
★ Denmark passed the first bag tax in 1993 and now the average Dane uses just 4 plastic bags per year!
★ Since the UK’s 5p plastic bag charge was introduced in 2016, plastic bag use has reduced by 85%.
★ Every day in the UK, seven million disposable coffee cups are thrown away but only one in 400 are recycled.
★ Plastic recycling rates are low… globally just 18% of plastic is recycled - up to 30% in Europe, 25% in China but just 9% in the US.
What is the problem with plastic?
The big problem with plastic is that most of it is not biodegradable - so it doesn’t get broken down in the environment by bacteria and other living organisms.
Every piece of plastic that has ever been made is still on our Earth somewhere. Some of it will gradually breakdown, getting smaller and smaller but never actually goes away. Some plastics are thought to breakdown after hundreds of years but most will last forever.
Another issue is that a lot of plastic cannot be recycled, either because of the way it is made or because it is too expensive or too difficult to do so. For example, seven million disposable coffee cups are thrown away each day in the UK – that's 2.5 billion every year! As many have a waterproof plastic liner only 1 in 400 will be recycled. So much of the plastic that we throw away ends up in landfill sites; these are huge holes in the ground that we fill with rubbish.
An awful lot of plastic will end up in our oceans, it may have been dumped there but may also have been blown there from ships or beaches from overflowing rubbish bins or landfill sites, it may have been carried into the oceans by rivers or even flushed down the toilet into our sewers.
Microbeads:
Worryingly, a lot of products that we use at home contain small particles of plastic called microbeads. These tiny plastic balls, less than 1mm in size are found in toothpastes, glitter cosmetics, face washes, shower gels and body scrubs. Because they are so tiny, they end up getting washed down the drain - just one shower is thought to send 100,000 microbeads down the drain and into the ocean, causing serious harm to marine life.
Fortunately, the UK government banned the sale of products containing microbeads from 19 June 2018, but many countries still allow them.
Synthetic fibres:
Synthetic or man-made fibres, including polyester, nylon and acrylic are types of plastic and account for around 60% of the material that makes up our clothes worldwide. These fabrics are cheap and extremely versatile, however studies have shown that their fibres can seep or ‘leach’ into the environment just by being washed.
It is possible that a single load of laundry could release hundreds of thousands of fibres from our clothes straight into the water supply, contributing to ocean plastic pollution.
Scientists estimate that more than 8 million tonnes of plastic enters the world’s oceans each year!“Right now, eight million tonnes of plastics end up in the oceans every year… the actions of any just one of us may seems to be trivial and to have no effect. But the knowledge that there are thousands, hundreds of thousands of people who are doing the same thing – that really does have an effect.”
How does plastic effect wildlife?
Plastic can affect all animals whether they live on the land or in the sea. Microplastics, abandoned fishing gear and other plastic pollution are among our biggest environmental threats.
Animals can get trapped in larger pieces of plastic waste, for example birds can be strangled in the plastic six-pack rings from drink cans or they may get tangled in discarded fishing nets.
Turtles often eat discarded plastic bags that are floating in the sea, believing them to be one of their favourite foods, jellyfish. Smaller pieces of plastic or microplastics are often eaten by animals who believe it to be food, not only is this toxic to them and often affects reproduction but as it can’t be digested it leaves no room in their stomachs for real food.
Marine animals will suffer for many months before they eventually die. It is estimated that one in three marine turtles and 90% of seabirds have eaten plastic.
When plastic is swallowed by fish and other marine animals and birds, the toxins are absorbed into their tissues and will be passed up the food chain, eventually to humans.
Each year over 100,000 animals
in the sea are killed by plastic “Industrial pollution and the discarding of plastic waste must be tackled for the sake of all life in the ocean.”
What are 'trash islands' or 'garbage patches'?
Because of the natural movements of the oceans currents, much of the world’s rubbish ends up being swept into giant swirling ‘patches’ or islands of plastic out at sea; there are five of these areas in the world. From a distance these look like patches of land but are made up of floating plastic rubbish, many are held together by discarded fishing nets. The largest, in the North Pacific Ocean is known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, it is located halfway between Hawaii and California and is estimated to be the size of Europe. Plastic pollution from these ‘garbage' patches’ pose a severe risk to the health of marine animals but also impacts humans as well.
“We are being choked to death by the amount of plastic that we throw away. It’s killing our oceans. It’s entering into our bodies in the fish we eat.”
Glossary
biodegradable: Material that can break down or rot naturally when attacked by bacteria
ecosystem: A community of living organisms (plants and animals) in a particular area
landfill: Disposal of rubbish by burying it in the land
microbeads: A tiny sphere, or ball of plastic
pollution: The introduction of a harmful substance into the environment
pollutants: A substance that makes something such as air or water impure and or unsafe
recycling: The process of taking materials ready to be thrown away and converting (changing) them into reusable materials
synthetic: Materials produced by humans from chemicals or artificial substances rather than from natural ones
toxins: Poisonous or dangerous materials or substances