I found it really surprising that I was willing to eat, drink and completely trust that whatever plastic was made up of was safe. However, I really don't know what sort of chemicals and toxins go into the plastic making process that causes it not to be biodegradable. Plastic takes anywhere between 700-1,000 years to decompose, yet it never really goes away. Plastic simply breaks down by sunlight, salt water, and other natural occurring things wearing it down to the point of it becoming little bits of the same plastic we purchase every day in which animals constantly mistake as food.
Consider this: the plastic we pay for to be produced for our convenience that doesn't necessarily make our overall life any "better" is used for a short amount of time usually. After we're done using it, some plastic gets recycled, but the rest end up in the ocean or in a landfill. There seagulls and other birds or sea life consume the small parts of plastic such as bottle caps or view a plastic bag as a jelly fish and try to consume it. In some cases, animals actually suffocate from plastic bags! :( To continue, the animals who consume plastic bits are consumed by us... Therefore one could argue that we are consuming the garbage and plastic that was produced for our convenience and harming not only our health, but also taking over the only planet we have.
•The
average American purchases 167 bottles of water per year.
•90%
of the total price we pay goes towards the plastic, yet only 10% goes towards
the actual water.
•Plastic
makes up approximately 90% of all trash floating in the ocean.
•Plastic
production uses 8% of the world’s oil to produce.
Can we live without plastic? Are we in such a huge demand for it that we're willing to
ultimately be living on top of our own plastic that will out live not only us, but many
generations after us? If we were to reduce our consumption of plastic so drastically that
companies stopped making money off of it we could change the irreversible direction we're
leading our ONE home to. Not to mention that we'd be saving more money by reusing glass jars
and reusable bags. What if our supermarkets would take egg cartons back, provide all milk in
glass containers that we could simply refill or also return to the store so it could be sanitized
and reused. What if we didn't rely so heavily upon grocery stores in general and bought
everything we need to survive from the local farmers again like we once had? Plastic containers
seem to be overwhelming our lives, we can put an end to it though. Everything produced is
created for the people right?
Plastics, like diamonds, are forever.
