SINGLE USE PLASTIC

https://ibanplastic.com/what-is-single-use-plastic/

In just 4 to 5 decades of coming into existence, plastic has become one of the most essential
commodities that the civilised societies around the world, now depend upon.

It has already touched a massive 300+ million metric tons every year. Close to 50% of this number, is
the amount of ‘single-use’ plastic that floods the world every year.

Plastic, for its production, requires fossil fuel. This precious and limited natural resource, which takes
millions of years to form, gets transformed into single-use plastic and gets discarded just a few
minutes after its ‘one-time’ usage.

In the name of convenience, and of course low production cost, half of the total plastic
manufactured is of such low quality that they tend to be used just once, before being
discarded. All such plastic, fall under the ‘single-use plastic’ category. As the single-use
plastic is meant to assist with everyday activities, these inorganic, man-made material have
become an intricate part of most people’s lifestyle. We wear it, work with it, eat and drink
from it. In fact, it is harder to list scenarios free of single-use plastic!

Just the top of the list includes common day-to-day items like single-use plastic shopping
bags, water bottles, plastic food packaging, disposable coffee cups, straws, toothbrush… The
list just goes on. Most of these single-use items, not only do they end up littering the
environment but in a lot of cases, end up littering our own homes too. Over time, without
our realising it perhaps, single-use plastic has become a severe addiction, of the human
race, to convenience.

Apart from the fact that recycling tends to incur a considerable cost, much more than the
value derived from the recycled products, there are many other complications, that
disqualifies recycling as a long-term solution.

Since a lot of crude oil is burnt to make plastic, as well as in its transportation, just the whole process
of producing and then distributing the plastic, becomes a significant source of pollution. And then
comes the monster pile of pollutant, all the discarded plastic. Here are some numbers, that can help
give you a better perspective of the actual scale of the problem. Note that, of the 8.3 billion metric
tons of plastic produced till date, 6.3 billion metric tons have become garbage!

Greedily Eating Up Our Essential Natural Resources

Plastic requires crude oil for its manufacture. This process itself is responsible for a lot of
greenhouse gas emissions. Apart from this, the whole process is also very resource intensive.
For example, over 8 litres of water is required to produce just one single-use water
bottle of 1 litre. Considering the global scarcity of natural resources, wasting such vast
amounts of it over a material that will be used just once, is simply unacceptable.

Polluting And Poisoning Our Food & Water Sources

Most of the discarded plastic that is collected gets either incinerated or disposed of to some
landfill. The ones that are astray, sooner or later, end up in the ocean. Plastic, a petroleum-
based product, takes an unnaturally long time to decompose. Various environmental factors,
however, cause the plastic to break down until it becomes microscopic particles. When the
plastic breaks down, it releases many of the toxic chemicals, such as BPA, which was used in
its manufacture. As a result, the soil in the landfills, as well as the groundwater gets polluted.

The toxic chemicals, once in the soil and water, sooner or later makes its way into our systems.
Already, our bloodstream has traces of these chemicals in it. Studies have linked the presence of
such toxic chemicals to cancer, disrupting hormonal activities, affecting endocrine and immune
system etc. The more exposed you are, to plastic, the higher the chances of your health taking a
nosedive. And the problem is, we are all exposed!

Even though single-use plastic has a comparatively low production cost, the same is not true for its
disposal. Collecting all the billions of pieces of discarded single-use plastic each year, separating,
cleaning and then treating it, incurs a very high cost.

It costs’ us our limited resources to create, our precious health to sustain, and finally our money to
get disposed.

Reducing our individual and community-based plastic usage is of the utmost importance. What you
absolutely need or can’t do without, such plastic items should be reused. And finally, the plastic,
which cannot be further reused, should be recycled. But those flimsy, low quality, resource eating
and poison spewing single-use plastic that cannot be recycled – well it’s a no-brainer, that those
monsters need to be banned entirely!

Knowledge without any action is just as useless as ignorance. Now that you know the consequences
of single-use plastic, it is your responsibility to do your part in curbing the problem.

FACT

1 million plastic bottles are bought every minute. 500 million straws are given out, every day. And an
estimated 4 trillion plastic bags are used worldwide annually, with just 1% of the plastic bags making
it to the recycling plant.
FACTS ON RECYCLING

Get Ready For The Truth: 91% Of Plastic, Never Gets Recycled.

Since plastic takes over 400 years to decompose, is hardly ever recycled or incinerated, most of the
plastic ever created, still exists. Mostly as trash.

Plastic packaging is a terrible choice not just for waste management but also the environment and
your personal health.

Scientists predict that by 2050, the ocean will have more plastic than fish by weight.

The society needs to rethink whether it is worth compromising our environment and our health in
exchange for the cheap convenience that plastic provides.

Plastic was sneaked into the packaging industry as a revolutionary and cheap new way to preserve
food and in turn, reduce its wastage. Alas, like most scams mankind has pulled off in the past, plastic
food packaging too was just all talk and no show.

Plastic is poison. Of course the bottled water you just purchased is not poisoned by plastic, at least
not yet. A lot of toxic substances and chemical additives go into the manufacturing of plastic. Over
an extended period of time, the plastic reacts with the air, water and other environmental factors to
slowly start releasing these toxins into the environment thus contaminating the water and air
around it. Plastic doesn’t decompose easily. It simply breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces
over time. A thin water bottle may take up to 1000 years before it decomposes while a milk jug can
take up to a million years to decompose! During this time the plastic would have broken down into
microscopic particles, known as MicroPlastics and contaminated the marine ecosystem.

If plastic were to be merely discarded by the body then it would not have concerned us as much.
However, the problem is much more severe since scientists have discovered that when plastic
breaks down, it releases deadly toxic chemicals such as Bisphenol A (BPA) and Diethylhexyl phthalate
(DEHP).

BPA is an endocrine disruptor and is known to impede hormonal functions. BPA is often used to
make water bottles, plates, baby bottles, inside lining of soda & food cans etc. Acidic food such as
sauces tend to leach BPA more rapidly. Over the years there has even been an increasing concern
linking BPA to breast cancer.

PVC when burnt releases dioxin, a chemical with carcinogenic properties. PVC is commonly used to
make plastic food wraps often found in grocery stores and the meat department. Other most
common toxins directly released by plastic are lead which is neurotoxic, cadmium which is
carcinogenic and mercury. These toxins are often found in fishes which are then passed along the
food chain to us humans.

https://www.naturespath.com/en-us/blog/single-use-plastics-bad-can/
Businesses like Hyatt Hotels and McDonalds in the U.K. and Ireland—as well as Starbucks, whose
plan to go plastic-straw-free by 2020 will save one billion straws per year.

Plastic bag levies have lead to high reductions in plastic bags use.

A 2018 U.N. Environment report on single-use plastics defines them as plastic “items intended to be
used only once before they are thrown away or recycled.”

According to the U.N. Environment, the most common single-use plastics found in the
environment (in order of magnitude) are:

 cigarette butts
 plastic drinking bottles
 plastic bottle caps
 food wrappers
 plastic grocery bags
 plastic lids
 straws and stirrers
 other types of plastic bags
 foam take-away containers