What can you do to help save the planet?
Plastic is like winning the lottery, both are extremely useful and fun in the short term, but are detrimental in the long term. The creation of plastic has opened up the word to so many amazing possibilities, but it also has created a huge issue of how to dispose of it and stop it from ending up in the ocean. There are some ideas of how to get rid of the trash circulating in the water, but they are controversial and bring up the issues with the types of plastic being picked up, and what the pick up process could do to the wildlife in the ocean. One thing that would benefit the planet and help with with the plastic situation would be people going Zero Waste.
Zero Waste would help with global warming and carbon dioxide emissions on top of helping with decreasing the amount of plastic used. If people are buying less plastic and things that won’t recycle or compost then there will be less of those products being produced and that will lead to lowering carbon dioxide emissions and slow down global warming. According to Eco Cycle Solutions, “Zero Waste addresses the entire system of our stuff and can substantially reduce climate emissions by changing what and how much we buy, what resources went into making it, how long it’s designed to last, how much gets reused, recycled or composted, and what we throw away.” This just goes to show that zero waste could be very beneficial in helping slow down or even put an end to global warming.
The best way to go about everyone going Zero Waste is by starting with incoming college students. I was an incoming college student this year and I know that we are all having a new experience and can therefore be shaped for the better. I want to focus on the college students going Zero Waste because I think we are the most open minded and into trying new things. It would also have a huge impact on the future if college students got behind zero waste especially in plastic because we are the future and if we want to save the planet the young people living here need to be educated on what they can specifically do to help the situation not get any worse.
I know college students generally care about the planet and want solutions to the ongoing problems, so by providing this as a way to help it gives the entire world something to latch onto and believe in. This issue is especially compelling to me because I am a human who lives on this planet and I care about not damaging it with all of this unnecessary waste so that it will be around for many, many more years to come. It should also be important to the entire world because we all live here and need this planet to survive and live, because as of right now, there is nowhere else for us to go. We need to come together as a group to figure out how to get the plastic out of the beautiful ocean and stop it from ever being there again.
Zero waste. It sounds a bit harsh. It sounds a bit dramatic. It sounds a bit unnecessary. Zero waste and the idea of it may give you weird ideas of what it means, but let’s be clear it should be what the entire world is striving for, not just environmentalists. All of us living on the earth need to stop throwing so much away because we are killing the planet. If the entire human race tried their very best to go zero waste it would have a huge impact on the world including things like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and even global warming. An article By Brian Hutchinson, Oceanic Society’s vice president of outreach, co-founder of the State of the World’s Sea Turtles Program, and program officer of the IUCN-SSC Marine Turtle Specialist Group, addresses the ways in which the general public could help with both the stopping of using plastic and supporting cleaning up the ocean at the same time. He says people can “Reduce the use of single-use plastics, recycle properly, participate in (or organize) a beach or river cleanup, support bans, avoid products containing micro-beads, spread the word, and/or support organizations addressing plastic pollution.” Brian Hutchinson saying this is helpful because it shows how anyone can contribute to helping get rid of the plastic, and help with it not being there in the first place. This goes hand in hand with the idea of Zero Waste and how it can help with keeping the oceans clean.
The definition of “Zero waste” is — according to Zero Waste International Alliance — “The conservation of all resources by means of responsible production, consumption, reuse, and recovery of products, packaging, and materials without burning and with no discharges to land, water, or air that threaten the environment or human health.” Now this definition is long and confusing but really all it means is don’t use products or materials that can’t be recycled, composted, or reused in some way. Simply don’t use things that will not naturally decompose or be put into something else. Most of what zero waste is getting rid of is plastic, so if the whole world were to use less plastic or simply just not throw away so much plastic then the Great Pacific Garbage Patch would not get any bigger. The floating island of trash “has grown to more than 600,000 square miles, a study found. That’s twice the size of Texas.” (Doyle Rice). We don’t need to have it grow even larger or there won’t be anymore ocean left.
The scary, overwhelming, dramatic, definition of zero waste is exactly what it needs to be to make a difference everyone needs to do their part to save the planet and that involves knowing what zero waste is and how it can help everyone in the long run and save the planet from being destroyed by our own trash.
Now everyone alive today should try to go zero waste for the simple fact that it could help save the planet and if you are alive that should matter to you because if the planet were to not be inhabitable where would you go? Yeah we can’t just leave now and go to Mars because that science isn’t quite here yet. So what everyone needs to do in the meantime is strive for zero waste because even if you don’t get all the way to zero you will land somewhere better than what you are doing now.
So the next time you go to the store stop and look at what you’re buying. See if you can help save the planet by bringing your own reusable bags or not getting a product covered in plastic that you will use once and throw away. If the whole world were to try and go zero waste it would make a dramatic change on the planet. Even if you don’t make it all the way to no waste a little bit can go a long way towards saving our beautiful home. Even if you still produce some waste make sure that you make a meaningful effort to create a smaller footprint on the planet, even if it is just a little bit smaller, for the sake of everyone living here. By educating yourself and others on ways to go Zero Waste it will help everyone around you contribute to keeping the planet and ourselves happy and healthy for many, many more years to come.
Sources:
“Climate Change and Zero Waste | Eco-Cycle Solutions Hub.” Eco, www.ecocyclesolutionshub.org/about-zero-waste/climate-change/.
Hutchinson, Brian. “7 Ways To Reduce Ocean Plastic Pollution Today.” 7 Ways To Reduce Ocean Plastic Pollution Today, www.oceanicsociety.org/blog/1720/7-ways-to-reduce-ocean-plastic-pollution-today.
Rice, Doyle. “World’s Largest Collection of Ocean Garbage Is Twice the Size of Texas.” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 28 Dec. 2018, www.usatoday.com/story/tech/science/2018/03/22/great-pacific-garbage-patch-grows/446405002/.
“Zero Waste Definition.” Zero Waste International Alliance, zwia.org/zero-waste-definition/.
