Environment & Plastics

In the United States of America, plastics are a multimillion dollar business and are fast growing. Plastics are used in major markets in United States such as packaging, construction, consumer goods, piping and many more. 

Plastics encompass a large and varied group of materials consisting of different combinations or formulations of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and other organic and inorganic elements. Most plastics are a solid in finished form; however, at some stage of their existence, they are a liquid and may be formed into various shapes. The forming is usually done through the application, either singly or together, of heat and pressure. There are over fifty different, unique families of plastics in commercial use today and each family may have dozens of variations. 

 Plastics are basic materials, just like metals, woods, glass and papers and they are the essentials to the daily human lives. As lifestyles change, plastics will become ever more valuable to tomorrow's advanced new concepts in architecture, aerospace, communications, transportation or even to medicine and the arts. Today, plastics are indispensable in homes, offices, and industries.

So why are plastics used?

Plastics can be found everywhere in our environment. At home, school, work, markets, and even in clothing. Wherever you look, there is no doubt that you will see things that contain plastic. A trip to the grocery store, you will see plastic-packaged items, and use plastic baskets to carry the items and after purchasing, the groceries will be put in a plastic bag. 

Some of the man-made plastic materials include the following. Plastics can be found in Expanded Polystyrene foams, cups and boxes which are used for disposable packaging. Clear Acrylic was first used to make aircraft canopies since they are ten times more resistant to impact than glass. The plastic industry also introduced Polyamide in the 30s which is known as Nylon. It has been used to make clothing, ropes, etc. Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) is useful because it resists fire and water. The rigid type is used to make pipes, roofing and guttering while the plasticized type is used for suitcases, hosepipes, electrical wiring and floor coverings.

Plastics are preferred materials because they’re light weight, inexpensive, and generally waterproof. The most common type of plastic use would be in the form of plastic bags.

What would happen to the environment?

Over years Plastics has been proven to be harmful on sea life. Sea living get confuse plastic bags with their own food, which mostly leads to death of these animals. 

Plastic prevents Sea turtles from getting food

 Sea turtles are good example that could be taken regarding the effects of plastic bags effect on the sea living. A study was held by the University of Queensland “Plastic bags turtle's biggest killer” lead by Dr.Townsend regarding the curial way turtles dies because of plastic bags which human through in ocean. Dr.Townsend explained the process sea turtles go through before their death because of plastic bags, 

1- “Sea turtles have downward facing spines in their throats which literally prevent them from regurgitating,” Dr Townsend said. 

2- “The plastic gets trapped in the gut, preventing food from going down and the spines prevent it from coming back up. 

3- “The trapped food decomposes, leaking gases into the body cavity and causing the animal to float. 

4- “The turtle then slowly starves to death or succumbs to other secondary life threatening conditions such as boat strike.”

Sea turtles dying of plastics 

 Regardless plastic bags effects on sea living. Plastic bags manufacture adds tonnes of carbon emission into the air. Furthermore, studies shows that most plastic bags TAKE OVER 400 year to biodegrade. Some figures indicate that plastic bags could take over 1000 years to break down. Plastic bags seem harmless enough to an adult human but they can suffocate unsuspecting animals and even babies.

Plastics still not decomposed after Sea turtles' death

Plastics littered by people inconsiderately

Is using paper the more effective way to replace plastics or are we endangering the environment by cutting down more trees?

The most efficient way to plastics in order to save the environment is by using paper bags. However, there is a question of whether or not the papers will harm the environment, and this is because when we talk about papers, we talk about cutting more trees in order to produce the paper bags. Paper is the absolute worst thing for landfills. Studies have shown that after 20 years paper is still clogging landfills. Paper that is burned adds huge amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.

When we use paper bags, it is true that we reduce the use of plastic bags but on the other hand, it also means that we are cutting down more trees. Is this the best replacement that we can find for plastic bags? The statistic shows that 3 billion to 6 billion trees are being cut every year. Out of this figure 1.6 billion or 43 percent are used only to produce papers. As it escalates every year, this could do more harm to the environment than the plastic bags themselves.

Plastics garbage bags placed on the roadside

       

History shows that the westerners were the ones who introduced the use of plastic bags to us. We used to practice this way of bringing our own bags for grocery shopping, etc. but, over the years, the use of plastic bags have become worse because most of us think it is more convenient than bringing our own bags.

Sure, the government has introduced a day off for plastic bags on every Saturday. But people still do not mind to pay the extra twenty cents to carry their things that they bought at the shopping malls. Therefore, from what we have found, we do not think it is the best way to solve the problem.

It can be concluded that even papers would not be the best to replace plastic bags. The best replacement that we can think of right now is to use the reusable cloth bags as they do not harm the environment as much as paper and plastic bags do.

Reusable cloth bags