Plastic Waste Psychology
The produce of plastic by humans has been extremely large within the last 100 years. It has many advantages; a durable, strong and light material, while also being very affordable. This gives us many reasons as to why we continue to use mountainous amounts of it, but there are some very detrimental reasons as to why we should steer far away from this immortal substance, reasons that thoroughly outweigh the financial positives.
Once you create plastic, it’s impossible to destroy; you either leave it to sit there for infinite years, or melt it into something else that is still… plastic. Unwanted plastic will never leave and because of this, have many awful effects on our environment and wildlife, particularly within the sea.
You’d think because of these intimidating facts, we would make sure that we are turning to recycle all of our rejected plastic goods, but in reality the majority of plastic material doesn’t get that far. It’s not recycled by anyone, nor reused. It just sits there, completely rotting our natural environment and deeply polluting our atmosphere.
Each year approximately 12 tonnes of plastic; street litter, domestic and industrial waste, sewage treatment, product packaging and cosmetic rubbish are found within the ocean. David Attenborough highlighted the alarm of this through his infamous Blue Planet series.
To be more specific, let’s think about the graphic outcome of such careless litter. Animals, particularly within the sea are prone to getting tangled up in plastic by swimming through it or simply just confusing it with food, which is fatal for these creatures. Looking deeper into the sea and its plastics around animals, we learn that damaging chemicals involved in plastic have actually been found inside sea animals.
Thinking about it, it’s not that difficult to just get into the habit of giving new lives to the plastic we use over and over. Don’t take new plastic bags when you can just reuse your old one. Reuse plastic straws rather that just picking a new one out of the box, it might seem minor and easier at the time, but the effect it has on many innocent animals in the sea is more big than you can imagine.
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