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plasticPlastic is a very essential item to our everyday life, but it can be extremely dangerous as well. Almost half of our plastic trash enters the oceans and accumulates each year. At least 8 million metric tons of it enters our waters per year. Plastic does not stay in the surface of the water where we can visibly see some of it. It actually ventures all throughout the water column and ends up in the deep sea floor. It has been said that there is 10,000 times more plastic located in the deep oceanic floor than up at the surface. What's worse is that the deep sea creatures can not see most of the time and never go up to the surface so they have never seen what plastic is and will end up ingesting it.
Plastic also disintegrates by the sun and leaks out toxins, such as cancer-causing toxins called monomers, pthalates-bisphenol A (BPA). BPA are endocrine disruptive compounds and affects/alters our hormones. When fish swallow plastic, and fish out those fish, we are swallowing plastic. On the surface of our oceans, there is 6 times more plastic than plankton. That is extremely bad since plankton, especially phytoplankton creates 70-80% of our oxygen. By increasing the amount of plastic in our oceans, depletes us of our oxygen supply and we also end up consuming plastic unknowingly. |
problems
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One of the main problems in the entire world dealing with plastic pollution is the mismanagement of the plastic waste in coastal areas. Due to this, the plastic ends up in our oceans and waterways accumulating until they are huge plastic patches in the sea.
Another problem is, is that we are consuming the plastic due to eating fish. By doing this we are harming our bodies without even knowing it. Polyethylene-terephthalate (PET) in many of our water bottles, has a chemical called plasticizer phthalate that leaks into the PET. The phthalate is found to cause breast cancer and obesity. The Plasticizer is a substance that allows plastic to become flexible and see-through and is attached to all of the Polyethylene (PE) products. |
solutions |
One solution is to stop using plastic overall, even though it is tough to live without plastic. If you click on "How to live a plastic free lifestyle" up top, we can show how to reduce your plastic waste and consumption in very easy ways.
Another solution is by informing our communities and peers. By doing so, people around us will become informed and will want to tell other people what they have learned spreading the word of what plastic does to our environments. |
