Issues

Plastic is cheap and can be used for many things. This has resulted in more and more plastic made since the year 1950. Since most plastic is non-biodegradable and not able to be broken down, there’s still 4.9 billion metric tons out there in our environment (Barnes, 2019).

Of what’s been made:

9% of plastic = recycled

12% of plastic = burned away

79% of plastic = into landfills or our environment

(Geyer et al., 2017)

Plastic is the most found trash item on shorelines and beaches (Barnes et al., 2009).

It is most commonly found in landfills, oceans, waterways, and specifically closed off waters. Plastic lasts a long time in these waters (hundreds to thousands of years!) and even longer in some environments like deep seas. Also, when in the water, plastic can choke and starve living beings and absorb chemicals that break it down into small pieces of plastic that are easily eaten (Barnes et al., 2009).

There is still a lot of plastic being made, but there is not a lot of recycling or burning it away because communities that use a lot of it think it’s “out of sight and out of mind” (Barnes, 2019). Some countries send plastic waste to other countries because they cannot recycle it all at once. And there’s countries that still need plastic for money, even though their area cannot contain the large amounts of plastic and are causing leakage into the environment.

Sources

Barnes, D. K., Galgani, F., Thompson, R. C., & Barlaz, M. (2009). Accumulation and fragmentation of plastic debris in global environments. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 364(1526), 1985–1998. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2008.0205

Barnes, S. J. (2019). Out of sight, out of mind: Plastic waste exports, psychological distance and consumer plastic purchasing. Global Environmental Change, 58, 101943. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2019.101943

Geyer, R., Jambeck, J. R., & Law, K. L. (2017). Production, use, and fate of all plastics ever made. Science Advances, 3(7). https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1700782