PLASTIC VS EARTH

Plastic pollution is an overwhelming problem that is not going anywhere because plastic is forever, it does not biodegrade, it does not break down into its elements, it does not just dissipate and disappear, it is on earth forever. The first plastic straw from the 1960s is till somewhere on earth. Wildlife and our ecosystem suffer from our lifestyle of plastic and disposables. 

Plastic is photodegradable hence breaks down into smaller pieces that gets into the food chain. Seabird populations are dwindling due to their ingestion of plastic pieces that drive them into starvation and death, marine are ingesting plastic and microplastics that are cycling back to us through the food chain. Poison in our food, all the fish we eat, all the animals we eat that eat fish. Coral reefs, a major producer of oxygen for our planet are being suffocated by plastic. 

We’re already cutting down more trees than can be replenished for our oxygen supply. There are islands like The Great Pacific Garbage Patch made up of plastic waste twice the size of Texas! People around the world are living on landfills made up of a lot of plastic. Plastic waste is moving through the waterways to oceans to every continent. 

Our waste has nowhere to go, our earth is a capsule. Giving up a straw may seem trivial and insignificant, think about this, in the USA, we use 500 million plastic straws EACH DAY! Plastic pollution is smothering and suffocating our earth, plastic is forever, it is not going anywhere. in the USA, we use 500 million plastic straws EACH DAY, and it is estimated that as many as 8.3 billion plastic straws pollute the worlds beaches. 8million tons of plastic flow into the ocean each year and plastic straws comprise 0.025% of that.

Plastic straws are not recyclable, they are too lightweight to make it through mechanical recycling sorters, so they end up in landfills, waterways, and inevitably our oceans. 

“One million sea birds and 100,000 marine mammals are killed annually from plastic in our oceans. Forty-four percent of all seabird species, 22 percent of whales and dolphins, all sea turtle species and a growing list of fish species have been documented with plastic in their bodies.” Says Tessa Hempson, operations manager for Oceans Without Borders, a newly launched foundation from luxury safari company &Beyond.

We cannot wait for someone else to do something. While the grownups learn to make decisions with laws and conventions and treaties, we don’t have to sit around and watch the world we will inherit just waste away. We have the power to stand up and take responsibility for our earth. Stop the destruction, the plastic straw is our gateway action, it is an easy place to start.