Did you know that plastic waste has become a significant global environmental and disposal challenge? Single use plastics are the largest culprit of our disposable consumer lifestyle.
Globally, 335 million metric tons of plastics was produced in 2016. Half of this was used for single-use products. That means that 17 million barrels of oil was used to make plastic water bottles. To put this into context, this is enough oil to fuel 1 million cars annually.
What are Single Use Plastics?
Single use plastics, also known as disposable plastics, are materials that are used once before being discarded. These includes plastic items such as grocery bags, water bottles, forks and spoons, food packaging, and more.
What is the Impact of Single Use Plastics?
Plastics are made from fossil fuels and leave a large carbon footprint. Once plastics are used (sometimes only once), only a small percentage is recycled, and plastics take hundreds of years to disintegrate.
Plastics can also cause damage by polluting our oceans, damaging marine animals and birds, leaching toxins into food and drink, and entering our food chain through microplastics and nanoplastics. Plastics now make up 90% of all trash floating on the ocean surface and plastic pieces outnumber sea life 6 to 1. This has caused dead spots with floating garbage in the Mariana and Kermadec trenches of the Pacific Ocean.
What are Some Possible Solutions?
There are several steps you and your community can take to reduce the usage of single use plastics. This will include a combination of awareness campaigns and public outreach to increase knowledge on the subject, along with policies to create an incentive for people and businesses to act. Since each municipality is unique, there will be different answers to this issue. Below are some possible solutions……Read More