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More handpicked essays just for you.
Three negative impacts of plastic in the environment
What part should plastics play in our future
Effects of plastic on the marine ecosystem
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Plastic is a material in our earth that affects us in lots of ways. If you look around you, you probably will notice that a lot of things around you are made of plastic. And this isn't a bad thing, because plastic is a very strong, light, and cheap resource. However, plastic can affect is in some bad ways as well. For example, plastic tends to get into the ocean very often, which ends up killing many sea life because they mistake it for food. Also, making plastic requires a lot of oils and fossil fuels, which is a resource that we are running out of right now. But for all its bad effects on the planet, plastic is much more important to us then you may think. As I mentioned before, plastic is incredibly cheap when it comes to money, and can be made into almost anything solid. Also, plastic helped weaken
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The PMP's goal is to collect plastic bottles that are littered and return them to the owner. That way, the owner doesn't have to look everywhere for trash, and instead can just empty the PMP into the recycling. In order for the bottles to get to the recycling, however, there is a certain process that must take place. Firstly, each plastic bottle has a tracking tag attached to it so that the PMP can locate the bottle. Then, once the PMP has located the tag through the tracking room, the vacuum in the back will begin to suck up the bottle through the tube. To make sure the bottle will fit through the tube, there is a saw in the tube that will shred up the bottle until it can fit through the tube. Once shredded, the bottle remains will be stored in the holder, a box that stores the plastic until the owner empties it. Then, once there is no plastic bottles nearby, the PMP will head back to where it's owner is. The owner will detach the holder by using the handle, and dump the plastic shreds into the
Cities, towns, streets, everything has plastic litter all about and this too has repercussions. Source F tells us that there is a multitude of litter and plastic bags are the most easily spread. Plastic bags are light so they can be blown all about and can get stuck on things such as streets and fences. Since plastic bags are so versatile in their spreading Source B tells us that they can often clog drainage systems causing floods later on. Causing problems for us as humans, a bigger reason why plastic bags should be removed or banned. Generally plastic lying all about can really make an area look horrendous. Source C reports a high amount of plastic items. With all this junk lying about it makes our cities and beaches look dirty and ragged. What better motivation to get of plastic when it hurts us as humans. Plastic bags cause way too much problems compared to their ability to aid
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 &
There is also debate on how much better biodegradable plastics are in the first place. This is because as biodegradable plastics break down, they break up into smaller and smaller pieces, but never quite disappear. This leaves the potential that the plastic would continue entering the food chain. But although biodegradable plastics aren’t perfect, they are still much safer than standard plastic and present a much lower risk. In addition, by making the shift to ban single use plastics, research towards better plastic alternatives will speed up and better solutions will become available. Over time, these new alternatives to plastics may spread to other items that aren’t single use, making an even greater impact on the health of humans and the
Plastic water bottles have been the new trend in ECMS lately. But are they worth the costs? No not in my opinion. One time use plastic water bottles should not be allowed at ECMS. Plastic water bottles are unnecessarily expensive, negative to the environment, and not very healthy for our bodies.
Ironically, plastic, which is a material designed to last forever, is generally used for things we tend to throw away. Every year, about one hundred to two hundred billion pounds of plastic are manufactured. Only 31% of that plastic is actually recycled. Biomass packaging estimates 10% of that plastic ends up in the ocean annually. About 20% of it coming from ships and other platforms, and the other 80% coming from land derived sources, such as international garbage dumping, winds or tides, either way it finds its way to the ocean.
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.
Bisphenol-A (BPA) is all around us: in food containers, toys, baby bottles, dental products, CD/DVD discs, water bottles, register receipts, fax reports, newspapers, toilet paper and cereal boxes. BPA can cause cancer, behavioral problems, diabetes, ADHD and many other hormonal issues. 1 There is an increased risk of developing behavior problems when one is exposed to BPA at an early stage of life. As a parent, I am concerned about my children’s exposure to BPA. We tend to use plastic frequently as glass can break easily which is not safe for the children. Disposable containers and packaged food are convenient and readily available. 1 I searched on PubMed and Google scholar for peer reviewed articles related to BPA and its effects on children. The focus of this article will be to discuss some of the sources of BPA which children encounter and some examples of health risks children face due to BPA in the environment.
Plastic bags waste valuable natural resources. Consider that plastic bags are made from petroleum, a nonrenewable and problematic resource. Petroleum is oil, which damages the environment when it is extracted from the ground and gives off dangerous greenhouse gases when burned. According to the National Resources Defense Council, it takes 12 million barrels of oil to make the 70 - 100 billion plastic bags that Americans use each year.
Being convenient enough for everyday use and even tasting better to some, plastic bottles are a popular way of consuming beverages. They are convenient and to some people, can even taste better. However, the process of manufacturing and transporting the millions of bottles produced is detrimental to the environment. Continued use of plastic bottles could exponentially hurt the planet. Given all the negative effects that come from plastic, why are people still participating in this poisonous cycle?
There is a current discussion as to whether or not plastic bags in grocery stores should require a fee. This is mostly brought up because of the amount of plastic waste that humans are creating each year is quickly lowering the health of our planet. Between plastic bottles, bags, and various other products, the amount of waste is drastically increasing and humans seem to fail at recycling as well as they should. This leads people to discuss things like bag taxes to try and promote more people to participate in a more eco-friendly lifestyle. Althought there are positive and negative contributions to every argument, this argument is, for the most part, unreasonable. It is more harmful to our society to add a $0.25 bag tax on plastic bags than it is beneficial. Adding a bag tax is not only inconvient for store employees, it is an excessive amount to tax and many low income families will not be able to afford it.
The ongoing debate over the chemical Bisphenol-A, lining plastic bottles and containers, sold in our grocery store, is far from over. Most notably we see BPA in plastic water bottles, plastic food containers, and other packaged foods. Plastic bottled water is terrible for consumers and should only be given out in situations such as natural disasters and severe drought to save lives when no additional clean water source is available. Plastics lined with BPA should be banned altogether.
The world has become very dependent upon plastic products. From household items to industry and aerospace, plastic in its many formulations has transformed modern manufacturing and created conveniences and economies unimagined in the early decades of the 20th century.
It is sad to say but humans have played their part in deteriorating the earth. We have polluted and killed the very thing that takes care of us. If you ride by any lake or river you find trash and debris around it. In the “The Call of the Wild” the author says that we have committed war against the earth by the dumping of poisons and explosives upon it (337). Unfortunately, plastics are the things that are doing the most harm to our environment. Plastics are convenient and we use them everyday and these are the things that we find in the oceans, rivers and lakes. They are harmful to the earth as well as human health by directly intoxicating us with lead, cadmium and mercury. Plastic debris laced with harmful chemicals are often found inside of our marine life and can poison them. Plastic can survive for thousands of years and many invasive species are found in them which can disrupt our habitats. We need to limit our consumption of plastics and make sure that they are disposed of in their proper places.
The purpose is to allow the plastic water bottles to be molded into any desired shape. This also makes it suitable to manufacture the plastic bottles are wanted depending on the brand.
One huge aspect of recycling is that it gives the recycler the fulfillment of helping the environment. W. Kip Viscusi a professor at Vanderbilt University said, “The warm glow environmental benefit that a person receives from recycling will be greater for those who place a higher value on the environment .” Therefore, the benefit of helping our environment is the greatest benefit of all. Although it might seem as if plastic is thrown away than it can not harm the environment, however, that is incorrect. Plastic is not biodegradable, therefore, it will never be able to completely decompose into the earth. With plastic not being able to decompose it takes up a large amount of space while also being capable of traveling through the air. Sati Manrich, the author of Plastic Recycling said, “The mounting volume of plastic residues, coupled with their extremely low biodegradability, generated a serious problem regarding the amount of space they took up.” Therefore, when plastic is thrown away it will last for at least four-hundred and fifty years before degrading in the landfills; thus allowing all the plastic that was thrown away in the last four-hundred and fifty years to start a stockpile in the landfills or even travel somewhere else.(Manrich