Preview

Negative Effects of Plastic Essay Example

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
640 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Negative Effects of Plastic Essay Example
Negative Effects of Plastic It’s everywhere, just look around you. It is even man-made and we use it to build almost everything, our computers, vehicles, furniture, cell phones and every electronic ever made. Plastic use has increased a lot the past century and still continues to increase each year. People use and depend on plastic everyday and never question it’s harmfulness towards our world. Plastic is a growing problem and effects the environment around us and wildlife. Recycling and waste management solutions must be made to help reduce waste of plastic. Plastic has become very popular over the last and current century. The amount of plastic manufactured in the first ten years of this century will approach the toal produced in the entire last century. A very scary amount of plastic will be produced in a couple decades if we keep up this pace. That amount of plastic cannot just be easily unmade, it takes years to breakdown plastic. This could bring many negative effects to the environment in the future. More than one-third of all plastic is disposable packaging like bottles and bags, many of which end up littering the environment. This is why everybody should give atleast a little effort to recycle, bnecause it’s that little effort everybody gives that makes a big difference. Plastic is so resilient that even burying it deep within the earth doesn’t keep it from impacdting the environment. Currently it accounts for approximately 10 percent of generated waste, most of which is landfilled. This percentage of plastic waste can be reduced if we recycle and reuse our plastic and can help reduce the litter and waste in our environment. As a matter of fact, our litter and plastic waste not only effects the environment but also effects our wildlife. The process of producing plastic involves harmfull chemicals that can even effect humans. Plastic debris, laced with chemicals and often ingested by marine animals, can

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    Kate Chopin’s short story The Awakening is set during a time where women were expected to live in a patriarchal society. More specifically, this story tells of the well-to-do Creole lifestyles in New Orleans during the mid to late Nineteenth Century. Chopin’s personal experiences as a woman during this oppressive time and her growth as an individual inspired her to write about Edna Pontellier, a woman who tries to break from the expectations of society to be her own woman. As Edna Pontellier in The Awakening experiments with the oppositional or alternative roles of Adele Ratignolle, Mademoiselle Reisz and of herself in the role of a "free woman," she gradually transforms into an individual apart from the conventional male dominant society, a society in which she craves happiness but never seems to find peace until she ends her life.…

    • 2502 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Earth Science Study Guide

    • 1036 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Animals may be entangled in plastic and die of starvation, they may also ingest the plastic and be poisoned by its chemicals.…

    • 1036 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Often times, there are debates surrounding controversial environmental issues, such as global warming, deforestation and nuclear power. But then, there is little or no public debate on the impact of plastic bags on the environment. Plastic bags kill tens of thousands of animals every year. In the marine environment plastic bag litter is lethal, killing tens of thousands of birds, whales, seals and turtles every year as they often mistake plastic bags for food such as jellyfish (planetark, 2015). Various experts estimate that up to a million birds and 100,000 marine mammals are killed each year from plastic debris including bags (One Green Planet, 2015). It is estimated that between 500 billion and one trillion plastic bags are used worldwide each year ( One Green Planet, 2015). This means that plastic bags is serious environmental issue. Given this, we as sustainability leaders should start to think of a way to trigger some public debate on this issue. Sustainability is about…

    • 469 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Recycling greatly benefits many aspects of the world, particularly the environment. Almost everything used in today’s society is manufactured from plastic (i.e. water/ shampoo/ mouthwash bottles, food containers, furniture, technology, etc.). Due to this, not recycling plastic can lead to many problems in our environment. Recycling plastic promotes the conservation of energy and natural resources. It also contributes to the decrease of water and air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. To add, recycling plastic can save landfill space, or structure…

    • 772 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Plastic waste has been a challenge in the world though there are recycling plants only few waste bottles find their war to the plant. Most people love the…

    • 563 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    We 're treating the oceans like a trash bin: around 80 percent of marine litter originates on land, and most of that is plastic. Plastic that pollutes our oceans and waterways has severe impacts on our environment and our economy. Seabirds, whales, sea turtles and other marine life are eating marine plastic pollution and dying from choking, intestinal blockage and starvation. Scientists are investigating the long-term impacts of toxic pollutants absorbed, transported, and consumed by fish and other marine life, including the potential effects on human health.…

    • 1096 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The plastic bag pollution effects animals who swim and feed there self in the ocean. Plastic bags tend to disrupt the environment in a serious…

    • 732 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    As the Earth’s population grows and grows, more and more resources are consumed. Every minute, one million thin plastic bags are consumed worldwide by grocery stores, department stores, and street vendors. Americans alone consume approximately one hundred-two billion bags a year. This means that the average American consumes about five hundred bags each. Plastic grocery bags are recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the “Most Ubiquitous Consumer Item in the World”, and Susan Freinkel, author of Plastic: A Toxic Love Story, stated that “Plastic bags have come to represent the collective sins of the age of plastic” (Doucette 37). The use of plastic and plastic bags is much larger of a problem than what the general public is aware of.…

    • 2895 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Every year, more than 300 million tons of plastic is made, this poses as a threat when you take a look at how much of this plastic is only intended to be used once and thrown away. Throughout the entire planet, plastics are being used more often and are being thrown away rather than using the recycling bin. When you throw these plastics away, they are taken to a landfill which often times will bury the garbage underground; nevertheless, although you can no longer see the plastic waste, it is still taking a toll on our health. Burying these products creates issues with the ground water that we humans, as well as our pets and other animals, drink from. When the plastics are buried in landfills, they have the potential to leak harmful chemicals into the ground water. Not only do these plastics effect our ground water, but they often times will find their way to the ocean if the landfill is found near a beach. The trash that has found its way to an ocean can float for thousands of…

    • 596 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Housekeeping activities have negative environmental impacts. Discuss these activities and state the actions programs to curb the negativities.…

    • 2420 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Plastic pollution

    • 813 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Whenever you walk on the beach do you notice the plastic in the water or on the sand? Do you ever think that something should be done about this? Plastic pollution is something that’s hurting the environment and is growing more and more every year. Plastic pollution is caused by people using the ocean as a trash can. People are careless and would rather litter than throw the pastic bag away or recycle it. Convinenece to people is better for them than the environment. Throughout the years the pollution has gotten worse. In the last few years like in 2008, global plastic consumptin has been estimated at 260 million tons. It is estimated that in the year 2015, 297.5 million tons of plastic debris will be in the water. Last year 150, 000 tons of marine plastic debris ended up on the shores of japan and 300 tons a day on indias coasts. What we have to accept is that plastic never goes away and harms the environment very badly. Think about the things used in peoples daily lives like grocery bags, drinking bottles, and straws. Virtually every human being on this planet uses plastic materials directly and indirectly every single day. Plastic pollution kills, pollutes the water, and is difficult to clean up.…

    • 813 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Littering Effect

    • 627 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Litter is harmful to wildlife as well. Plastic can cause animals such as birds to choke, when they mistake it for food. And, even worse, small bits of plastic can accumulate in the stomach of a bird, never digesting or decomposing, to the point where there is no more room for real food and the bird starves to death with a full stomach.…

    • 627 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Help the Earth

    • 1014 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Every once in a while, government give out orders banning shops and markets from providing plastic bags to customers, but this doesn't last for a long time. Plastic bags are very popular, because they are cheap, strong, easy to bring around and convenient. But have we ever thought of what will this do to our environment?…

    • 1014 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Plastics have been around for a long time now. It has been said that even before Alexander Parke’s major pioneering contribution to the development of plastics from cellulose nitrate in the 1850’s, plastic like materials have been in use by mankind for centuries. Now life without plastic cannot even be imagined. Almost every piece we use day to day is either a plastic or has plastic components in it. Because plastics can be made into products of different strengths and flexibility we can find plastic products ranging from car bodies, home and office furniture, computers, water bottles and as package materials for almost everything that needs transportation and storage. Besides since plastics are mostly made from the byproducts of the petroleum manufacturing processes, they are very inexpensive. The increasing use of single use plastic has also resulted in it being added to the Municipal Solid Waste according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Single use plastics are basically the plastic products used for packing purposes of almost all manufactured products from the most high tech equipment like computers to the most basic ones like drinking water. Single use plastics may be convenient but at what cost to human life and the planet.…

    • 1033 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Say No to Plastics

    • 740 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Whales are not the only animals dying from plastic bags. Birds become entangled, nearly 200 species of sea life including seals, sea turtles and dolphins die, because they mistake the bags for food.…

    • 740 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays