Plastic. Can we imagine our planet without it?

In the last century plastic has become one of the most essential things we need for our daily routine. It has become so frequently used material, we don’t even realize it’s everywhere around us. When you go to the store, do you see all the plastic surrounding you and question yourself what will happen to it in a month or less? We don’t realize that a bag containing apples we bought a week before, maybe killed a bird today.

In the last year plastic became number one topic, because we finally started looking around ourselves and seeing things we have been doing.

China is number one in polluting and it is all because of China’s growth of industry. Eight million tons of plastic enter the sea each year via China. We are trying to change things but with what we are doing right now, we cannot even save one country. Something drastic has to happen, if we want to help our only planet.

Where does your bag go when you dump it in a garbage bin?
Only 9% of plastic is recycled (because it takes 85% more energy to recycle it, than to make it), so if your bag is in those 91% that isn’t recycled, where does it go? It takes up to 1000 years for it to decompose. It takes about a week to make it and then transport it to the store, where you grab it and use it for approximately 20 minutes. So, then what? What does it do for the next few decades?

John Cancalosi

What can I actually do to help our problem?
Words are just words on a paper, until they are turned into actions. Anyone can write down a problem and then a solution. But not many can turn it into action. We normally think we cannot do anything about it, so we turn our heads and ignore the problem. Luckily, not all people think like that, some actually try and make a change to better the world. By 2019 free plastic bags will be banned in all shops in Slovenia. It doesn’t save our planet, but it’s a start. By 2020, Starbucks will ban all plastic straws. Countries such as Germany, Norway and Sweden have a Deposit Return Scheme and it helps these countries recycle over 90% of their plastic bottles.

Even though life without plastic may now seem like a return to the stone age, it’s an urgent act we must try, if we don’t want to completely ruin our planet for future generations.
Source: National Geographic June  2018.
There is a big chance it ends up in the ocean, where it floats for as long as an animal mixes it up with food. One million birds and 100 thousand sea animals are killed each year because of it. Most of them suffocate, others get poisoned. But wait, your bag’s life cycle has not ended yet. In the last decade, scientists found out that even we, the humans, have plastic in our bodies. It’s called micro plastic and we get it from other animals we eat. An average person eats up to 70 thousand micro plastic per year. So, not only we ruined nature, we ruined ourselves as well.
Brian Lehmann