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ALL ABOUT : PLASTIC
t is no secret that plastic waste is becoming a widely recognized problem. Everywhere you look, there is always plastic around. The use of plastic increased in the 1940's, when it became one of the fastest-growing global industries. Although it does make our lives more convenient and cleaner, plastic causes many environmental effects. So, what is plastic and how can we reduce or better, eliminate it fully from our lives?
The term 'plastic' is commonly used to describe a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic materials that are used in a huge and growing range of applications. These materials takes forever to decompose and lasts as long as 1000 years. Even then, these plastics never fully decompose, they just photodegrade under UV light and turns into smaller and smaller pieces of plastics.
Plastic plays a big role in species extinction, mainly towards the marine life. Plastics are light therefore they tend to be carried
by the wind and end up in the ocean. Large accumulation of plastic on the Earth’s environment is known as the term, “Plastic Pollution".
It has the potential to poison animals, which can then adversely affect human food supplies.
Some marine species, such as sea turtles, have been found to contain large proportions of plastics in
their stomach. When this occurs, the animal typically starves, because it blocks the animals digestive tract and these mammals often get entangled in plastic products such as nets, which can harm or kill them.
In addition, the inability to untangle themselves, causes them die from starvation or from their inability to
escape predators.
That is to name a few examples.
Other than the ocean being one of the biggest place of plastic disposal site, landfills have
been the most common and cheapest method of organized waste disposal and remain so in many places around the world. Although it may seem harmless, these landfills take away habitats, it attracts rodents and causes odor problems. Due to this, we should always consider reducing single-use plastics to avoid depositing so much into existing landfills.
Maybe you’re not ready to break up with plastic altogether, but there are some low-hanging fruit that
can make a big difference in reducing the amount of disposable plastic in your life.
Maybe you’re not ready to break up with plastic altogether, but there are some low-hanging fruit that
can make a big difference in
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