What is that plastic doing there?

History of Plastic: The word plastic originally meant easily shaped and pliable. It has recently become a name for a group of materials called polymers. Polymers are made up of long chains of molecules (8). Just in the last few decades scientist have figured out how to make polymers synthetically. We have found ways to make polymers using cellulose which is a plant material located in the cell wall. The length of the chains of molecules and the order the chains are formatted in is what gives the polymers their characteristics of strength and flexibility (8). The first synthetic polymer was created in 1869 by John Wesley Hyatt (8). It was created for its purpose to be used as a substitute for ivory. This is because of the growing worry of the hunting and killing of many species some to extinct for their horns. The first fully synthetic plastic made, meaning none of the molecules that make it up are found in nature was in 1907 and it was called Bakelite. It wasn't until ...

Plastics Effect on the Economy: Plastics tend to have a huge impact on the global economy even though we cannot measure it accurately. The best estimate suggested that plastics cost humanity 2.2 trillion in the environment and social damages (6). Most of the damage is coming from the oceans. 700 billion is spent as a result of the release of greenhouse gasses from the production of fossil fuel plastics. Plastics also leach chemicals that have been known to cause cancer, obesity, diabetes, etc. Infants and children are at risk the most because they are the most sensitive to plastics. Annually the average US citizen ingests 74,000 particles of microplastics yearly (6). There have been foundations that have been created which try and fight pollution and most importantly plastics. The New Plastics Economy was a plan set that got big companies that produce lots of waste to agree to try and reduce their plastic use (7). Some of them even vowed to make all their plastic waste recyclable o...

Plastic Effects on Animals: Plastic is not only becoming a huge problem for humans but has been hurting animals for a while now especially marine animals. All types of marine creatures have been affected and some killed form the pollution of plastics in the oceans and freshwater. Animals eat plastic because they cannot distinguish plastic from something that is digestible to them. Some do it by accident such as whales who are filter feeders, the microbeads can look like fish eggs to some marine animals, hunting seabirds may think floating debris such as cigarette is shrimp or another source of food and eat it. Plastic doesn't kill the animals quickly either its slow painful deaths for the animals most of the time. It can get caught in the animals' throats causing suffocation or prevent feeding, it also causes sea birds to become entangled in something causing them to either drown or slowly starve to death because they cannot get food or water, and it could also accumulate i...

Alternative Material Options to Replace Plastic: If we are going to significantly reduce our plastic waste we need to start to implement replacement options for single-use plastics such as plastic bags, medical items like latex gloves, etc. One thing that almost all people can and should do is to buy a reusable straw for their fountain drinks at restaurants. So many plastic straws are polluted into the ocean harming the animals. Another simple and easy way we can help clean up our oceans is by throwing away and correctly disposing of cigarette butts. Another big contributor to plastic waste is packing materials. Over 67 million tonnes of packing waste is produced annually just in the EU alone (4). A simple way to combat the pollution of plastic bags is to try and get citizens to buy the reusable bags that you bring to stores such as Target for your goods. Such a few simple changes that if everyone could adapt to in daily life would help our planet immensely. I think it might be h...

Plastics Effect on Humans: Plastic is starting to become more and more a health issue in today's day and age. With so much plastic pollution now and the growing population, the earth is going to get dirtier and most likely polluted more unless we start to change. The way that plastics can harm us the most is by getting into our bodies usually by eating seafood but also through the air and the water that we drink. From all the microplastics in the ocean, many fish and other ocean dwellers end up having traces of plastics inside them if found dead. People who have a heavy seafood-based diet are likely to be more affected by this, but scientists do not know the extent that this will harm the body and some effects may still be to come. Studies have shown that plastic can cause lung and gut problems and that super fine plastic particles can cross cell membranes, the placenta, and even the blood-brain barrier. A number of the components that make up plastic has been found to be endoc...

Facts About Plastic Pollution: Our population in 2016 was 7 billion and as a species, we produced 320 million tons of plastic pollution that year. That number is set to double by 2034 (2). We can not let this happen, we will be in a catastrophe of trash and pollution that will be devastating to life on this earth. Every day around 8 million pieces of plastic are polluted into the oceans, and over 100,000 marine mammals and 1 million sea birds are killed by plastic annually. There could be up to 5 trillion macro and microplastics drifting in the ocean weighing up to 260,000 tonnes (2). Plastic pollution is starting to hurt our oceans baldy and we need to change our ways of life to preserve this beautiful world. Whether it is seeing a whale carcass with pounds of plastic balled up in its stomach that it has eaten or a turtle with a straw in its nose causing it pain, it brings sadness seeing how baldy we have affected the environment. You may not worry about pollution ever affecting y...