By CLAIRE JOHNSON
Staff Writer
Wake up, grab your plastic yogurt cup and spoon, and drive to work. Make a cup of coffee using a Keurig pod, add some milk and stir. Pop a plastic lid on your foam cup so you don’t spill and head back to your desk and work. At the lunch meeting, enjoy an eight-ounce bottle of water and a rice bowl for lunch. Someone offers Starbucks. You opt for an iced latte. You pick up kids from school and some takeout from a local restaurant. How much single-use plastic have you used today? How much did you put in a recycle bin?
Recycling is not a viable solution for the plastics we use every day. We must do more. We must ban single-use plastics. There are several reasons why recycling is not enough. Most plastics do not get recycled, plastic is not biodegradable, and the production and disposal of plastics are hazardous to the environment and animals. The convenience of single-use plastics is not worth the harm in which they cause. Single-use plastics should be banned.
Putting “recyclables” into recycling bins is not enough. In fact, most of what we recycle does not actually get recycled into other reusable products. The small amount that will be recycled into other plastic products is “downcycled” into inferior plastics that cannot be further recycled. Eventually, that material will end up sitting around in a big pile of trash, the ocean, or out floating in our air.
Most of what we put in our recycling bins actually ends up in landfills. Blown into the ocean or burned, contaminating our air, today’s society seems to be ignorant of where plastic items go. People feel as though once they have recycled an item, they have done the right thing. They feel as if they have done their part to help the environment or have just cleaned up after themselves. We have been told over and over to reduce. We have been told to reuse. We have been told to recycle. We have been told that we are doing an accurate thing. In the end, we have just focused on recycling and not at all on the reduce or reuse. This needs to change. Single-use plastics need to be banned, forcing all of us to reduce and reuse.
Some may say it is only one plastic water bottle, straw, lid, spork, plastic bag from my lunch and I will just recycle it, but the truth is these single-use plastics are polluting our land, sea, and air. The environment is crucial for all life to thrive. The water we drink, the food we eat, and the air we breath are consistently polluted through the manufacturing of all plastics. The plastics that end up in landfills around the world are single-use plastics like shampoo bottles, food containers, straws, and plastic bags. These are buried or burned or piled up for hundreds of years. Plastic toxins from the plastics that burn or break down contaminate the earth, waterways and the air we breathe every day. Single-use plastics like microbeads or plastic wrap are found at all depths of the ocean, even in the smallest forms. As plastics break down and float around, they are easily mistaken for food by a variety of marine life, disrupting food webs and even affect the food that we eat.
Sadly, our society relies on the convenience of single-use plastics. These products are cheap, effective and reliable as utensils, packaging, and storage. We have a “throwaway” culture and a reliance on cheap plastic products. Companies that make plastics have indoctrinated buyers that recycling daily waste is enough. It’s not enough because the production is much more than what could ever possibly be recycled. The convenience of single-use plastics is not worth the harm. Some emphasize that the cost to change from single-use plastic to more sustainable or compostable materials is too expensive or too difficult. It is not when we consider no change is putting society and the environment’s health on the line.
Some people are unaware of the reality and impact of single-use plastics and others might not care that the water bottle they toss in the recycle bin today might be around for decades and decades. We have to make them aware. To start tackling this problem, we need leadership. We stand in need of government support and solutions like bans on plastic drink bottles and plastic utensils. The current plastic dilemma is out of reach for individuals and local communities to tackle on their own. States, countries and the United Nations should ban together and make laws that will help protect our future from our current selves.