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Harmful effect of plastics in our environment essay
How is plastic effecting the environment
Effects of plastics on the environment essay
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Most of the necessities humans need are provided in supermarkets, in fact supermarkets have become a necessity for our everyday life. They are now the main source of water, food, clothes and everyday tools. Therefore, the plastic bags demanded and supplied in this industry increase every day. In the past decade, we produced as much plastic as we did in the whole twentieth century (Freinkel, 2011). This exponential increase of a non-biodegradable material has negatively impacted our environment immensely. Plastic production requires our dwindling fossil fuel resources, robs away animal lives, litters our beautiful landscapes and even affects our very own well-being. Hence, if plastic production doesn’t diminish immediately, we will suffer great …show more content…
Since paper bag manufacturing requires the use of a large amount of wood. That could lead to deforestation, loss of animal habitats, soil erosion and increase of temperature in the atmosphere. When people do think about the pros and cons of the type of bag, they are usually limited to thinking about cost and ease in use. Plastic bags are cheaper to make by 85 percent than paper bags, and they are also much lighter and can carry up to 1000 times their weight. This is not the true cost that comes along with the production of plastic bags though, the true cost is our health and environment. Plastic bags require 1.62 lbs. of petroleum to make a thousand bags (Interplase.com, 2015). Petroleum is not only a scarce source of nonrenewable energy, but its thermal capacity escalates the greenhouse effect, making our atmosphere unwantedly warmer. When paper bags are deposited into the environment, wither on water or on land, it takes very little time to degrade and leaves no harmful trace, while plastic breaks apart but does not disappear and slowly accumulates in soil. This delays the uptake of water by plants and many land animals to choke and die on it. Though plastic bags may be much more appropriate in its strength, looks and cost. On the contrary, lives should be a priority over money and
Which means their obviously bad for the aquatic marine life environment & are cause many different forms of damage for them & us as one. On p.g. 23 of The New York Times upfront magazine “Birds,fish, sea turtles, & others are getting tangled in plastic bags or mistake them for food & choke”. Someone else might argue that they could the plastic bags in landfills instead of oceans. But that counter- argument is flawed because you’re just polluting by burning plastic which is bad on our part we’re not doing our part to support & taking care of the earth. Plastic in the ocean isn't just bad for plants & animals but for humans too because of the food chain some of us eat animals as a meat source such as aqua marine life like fish. If the fishermen catch fish that have been eating plastic then it's in our food supply if we eat that fish it's gonna be bad for us so many will end up getting sick from the plastic inside of the fish then what will we do our aqua marine food supply will go down the drain we couldn’t eat the fish since it's basically contaminated with plastic that we’re dumping there instead of trying to fix it & getting rid of plastic bags for good for the good of the earth. We’re causing damage towards the earth by dumping all that plastic into the ocean which damages our water supply it’ll poison us although we clean the water it depends on how big the plastic particles are, it’ll make us sick & sense it’s been lying in the oceans could bring in new pathogens &
Every year, an estimated 8 million tons of plastic waste enters our environment, severely polluting oceans, beaches, forests, and even the towns and cities we live in. In the ocean alone, it is believed that 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic pollutes the waters (“Plastic Statistics”, Ocean Crusaders).The majority of plastic pollution can be traced back to single-use items, such as grocery bags, bottles, and plastic packaging. According to United Nations Environment, “At the rate we are dumping items such as plastic bottles, bags and cups after a single use, by 2050 oceans will carry more plastic than fish…” (“UN Declares War on Ocean Plastic”, UN Environment). This pollution is a major problem and endangers not only the environment, but human
I believe plastic bags are unacceptable and are not favorable to the environment . One reason I am against using them is, they kill marine animals. Another reason is, all the plastic bags and garbage are drawn together by the ocean’s circling currents which has been patched together as a patch.. These are two reason I believe this to be true.
We are increasing our own chances of illnesses and disorders yet we still continue to throw plastics into the ocean every day, whether your a vegan, a seafood lover, a meat lover you still get affected by plastics. You drink them in when you use disposable plastic water bottles, you eat them when you heat plastic tupperwares in the microwave, they are everywhere there is no escaping them. 10% of cancer patients are diagnosed because of their consumption of plastic, and 70% of of those patients
The food we consume everyday touches plastic infinitely, whether it is during the preparation stages, packaging, storage or even just eating the food from a plastic plate. There is no escaping the fact that the food we eat has a huge contact with plastics. However, what does this mean for our food? There is an adverse effect to plastics and their contact with foods, particularly acidic, fatty or salty foods. The chemicals in plastics go through a process called “leaching” or “migration” which leads to transfer of polymer additives, impurities and polymerisation solvents into packaged goods with a consequent risk of toxic hazard to the consumer (Crompton, T. (1979). [book]). In this
Therefore, with the information and research obtained it is acceptable to say that banning bags is a good idea overall. The banning of plastic bags will help the environment tremendously. According to statistics it takes an estimated 12 million barrels of oil to make as many bags as we use. Thousands of marine animals and more than 1 million birds die each year as a result of plastic bag pollution. It is said that even when plastic bags photo-degrade in landfill, the plastic never goes away, and that toxic particles can enter the food chain when unsuspecting animals ingest them. Yes, banning plastic bags seems like a great idea reading ...
In the last few years, a lot of controversy has been coming up about paper and plastic. The debate that comes up touches on which material is more harmful to the environment. Paper and plastic bags are both harmful to the environment in their own way, but which one is worse? Paper bags are said to use harmful chemicals and tons of fresh water, but facts will prove plastic bags to be much harder on the environment. The first thing that needs to be taken into consideration is how the bags are made.
The exorbitant amount of waste humans all around the world are producing each and every day is astonishing. In major developed cities, trash is easily forgotten about due to the lack of an impact it plays on peoples' lives after it is disposed of (Lohuizen 2017). Furthermore, the problem is expected to grow; as nations begin to develop, trash will shortly follow. Packaging for items uniquely becomes more intricate as a nation develops, and as a result plays a critical role in how much total garbage actually ends up in a landfill. A culprit to the landfill problem is plastics, due to the extraordinary amount of time it takes for them to degrade.
The world population is living, working, and vacationing along the coasts. They are contributing to an unprecedented tide of plastic waste. Pollution is defined as the process that alters a substance or molecule on planet earth, the pollution is caused by the physical contact of an organic decaying particle with a clean particle in the same spot, at the time the two particles join together is when occurs pollution in which the environment is greatly altered. Too many, plastic is a modern day miracle, versatile, inexpensive and durable (Rochman 2014). To others, it is a scourge, a non-degradable pollutant that threatens to choke the global environment. Plastic pollution has led to the deaths of many animals, natural resources, and people (Rochman 2014). It is time to change America’s thinking and to learn from past mistakes.
The methodology adopted in this paper was the following. First, the composition and the life cycle of plastics were briefly discussed. Second, the benefits from plastics were elucidated and their inevitability in India established. Third, the ecological harms and health hazards caused by plastics were elaborated. Fourth, the viability of command-and-control measures for addressing these harms and hazards was 21 investigated. Finally, the competence of market-based solutions in this regard was
According to Davis, “Traditional plastics and other non-degradable materials, such as glass and metals, provide a stable landfill material”. So, even though plastic is often placed in landfills, if this plastic was another form of packaging, such as paper, there would be more space in landfills for things that need to be placed there. Therefore reducing the amount of waste in the environment and saving some space. This is especially important when space is becoming an issue when it comes to landfills in certain places (Hopewell). “Traditional plastics Landfills have “long-term risks of contamination of soils and groundwater by some additives and breakdown byproducts in plastics, which can become persistent organic pollutants
The global production and consumption of plastic is enormous. In 2012, 288 million metric tons of plastic were produced worldwide (“Tiny plastic,” 2015). In a report on environmental issues, the United Nations published that in just a decade, between 2004 and 2014, global plastic production increased by 38 percent (Forster, 2016).
This essay will discuss the various harmful effects of plastic bags, and demonstrate the risks that these bags impose on humans, animals, and the environment. It will also discuss a series of suggested solutions that could help reduce plastic bag usage. Although plastic bags appear to be fragile and light, their negative environmental effect is devastating. Plastic bags may cause large amounts of pollution at every step of their limited life cycle, from the extraction of raw materials, production, transportation, and recycling or disposal. Plastic bags can be defined as the most damaging form of environmental pollution.
A huge problem with plastic bags is the fact that they are non-biodegradable. They will eventually break down into small toxic pieces, but will not decay completely. Th...
In the 1870’s, plastic was discovered in the United States when John Wesley Hyatt was trying to create a different material to make billiard balls (Manrich, 3). Little did he know it would majorly evolve into material we use everyday. However, plastics are now taking over our landfills. The average American throws away one-hundred and eighty-five pounds of plastic a year (Popescu, 121). The answer to decrease this statistic is easy: recycling. I believe that recycling will help eliminate littering and the growth of landfills, while also creating jobs for the unemployed. Not only does recycling plastic help eliminate littering, but also reuses the plastic so there is not a production of additional unneeded plastics. The