When I think about the Great Pacific Garbage patch, I get sick to my stomach. It's twice the size of Texas, and it is caused solely by us and our overconsumption of this ozone depleting, never biodegradable substance.
And despite my very best efforts, some of it ends up in the garbage. Every piece of plastic I have ever used is on Earth (or in our oceans) to stay. This is not okay with me.
Neither are pictures like the one above. The pile of plastic is from one bird. One dead bird, who ate all of what we threw away.
Researchers and developers are searching for a "greener plastic" options. With the environmental impacts of plastic, and the environmental health consequences of using plastic, this should be a priority. Not only do we ingest these chemicals in our bodies, but they accumulate in our air, water and soil.
Here's a statistic from canada.com that stopped me in my tracks:
"We are recycling less than five per cent of all our plastics, and this year 260 million tons of plastic will be manufactured worldwide."
Where is it all going? Our landfills, oceans, and forests. This kind of number is devastating. Way too much plastic is being made and thoughtlessly consumed. I fall pray to this blind consumption at times, too. Just today I forgot my water bottle, and bought a drink in a plastic bottle.
The article details differnt types of green plastics, which all come with their own problems.
The best option, is backyard compostable plastic, "The most promising - and greenest - option is compostable plastic. Made from plant materials such as grasses, corn, soy and sugar - basically anything with cellulose content - these plastics break down at the same rate as paper, leaving nothing but compost."
We need to wake up to the realities of plastic. It poisions our bodies, our oceans, our forests and our landfills. Our blind consumption is far from sustainable. I will think before buying any plastic, and work hard to find products that contain less plastic packaging. Parents and environmental advocates should push for greener packaging from our grocers. We need a sea change, here, for any of these efforts to amount to anything.
4 comments:
Great post. We definitely need to bring more awareness to the problems with plastic and the Great Pacific Garbage patch. I am not sure I would say that green plastics are where we should focus our energy on though. Most of the compostable plastics can't break down in most backyard compost and the amount of corn, soy, or sugar to manufacture them only takes away from land to grow food. Perhaps it try avoiding plastic altogether. Something I am still working on myself.
I know, this makes me want to cry. I am eliminating plastic day by day. I can't contribute to this unknowingly anymore! I did a plastic tally for 1 week (on fakeplasticfish's challenge) and found ways to eliminate my plastic consumption. I blogged about it here:
http://www.puremothers.com/?p=1017
Give it a try!
Thanks, commenters. I will check out the challenge!
We should start discarding and using plastic items form our homes and protect our families and friends from the deadly emissions that occur due to reaction of plastic and sunlight.
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