Shelby Torpy

SINGLE USE PLASTIC

Imagine swimming in the ocean and all of sudden there's plastic bags, straws, bottles floating next to you, not pleasant or ideal am i right? This is the impact single used plastic has, though not all float, as some of the plastic is tossed around,  that much of it breaks into tiny pieces, called microplastics. The impact single use plastic has is critical to our environment where we need to take immediate action. Let's dive into the urgency of why we need to take a stand to ban single use plastics, it's killing our marine life, destroying our wildlife and putting humans at risk.

Our marine life is suffering from a variety of plastic ingestion and entanglement, disrupting fragile ecosystems, and toxic contamination. It is estimated that marine plastics are contributing to the death of more than 100,000 marine mammals every year!!!  Marine plastic pollution has hit a high as 75 to 199 million tons of plastic waste currently is in our oceans, with a further 33 million pounds of plastic entering the marine environment every single year. Start saying no to single use plastics every time you use a plastic straw, a bottle, a plastic bag you are killing not only the marine life but our wildlife, and even putting humans at risk causing harmful toxins in our air and oceans. Plastic is deadly, Marine animals like turtles can choke on plastic bags mistaken for jellyfish this happens more often than you think. It takes up to 1000 years to break down a plastic bag so even when an animal dies, once it decays the plastic goes back out to kill and kill again.

Releasing harmful toxins from our plastic usage our wildlife dies down drastically, they eat it, get caught in it, or get sick because of it. Animals eating plastic can lead to an awfully slow excruciating death. Often birds are eating away at plastic, like other animals filling their stomach with plastic instead of food, they are not always able to distinguish plastic from food. Filling their stomach with plastic reduces their hunger and puts them at risk for having the gastrointestinal tract blocked. Did you know that a sperm whale that had been washed up at the Wakatobi National Park in Indonesia in December 2018 had 115 cups, 25 bags, four bottles and two slippers in its stomach. The total weight of plastic in the whale came to 6 kilos! More than half of camels die from plastic in the United Arab emirates.  That's how serious this is. We are now in 2023 and we haven’t improved anything. Our wildlife and marine life is drastically falling to bits and pieces and it's up to us to help before it is too late.

Do you love releasing balloons into the air? Well as much fun as it seems fun it actually affects our marine life more than u think, most of the marine life or wildlife end up entangled in it or have swallowed it, which now that doesn't seem fun right? Balloons don't biograde, instead break down into smaller pieces mistaken for food. Some people think swapping balloons for bubbles is a safer alternative, no harm to our oceans, or human health.                            

Single use Plastic has toxic chemicals in it risking the health of us humans, just from plastic you could be at risk for silicosis, cardiovascular disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and lung cancer. You didn't ever think of that now did you. Single use plastic has such a huge impact on our ocean, marine life, wildlife, earth, air and especially us humans. If you get a drink change to the paper straws, go shopping, bring your own reusable bags, or paper bags.

So i have told you about how single use plastic has such drastic effects on our everyday life, now it's up to you to decide how to take this information. By 2050 or sooner if we don't make a stop our ocean could be filled with more plastic than fish. Horrific i’d say instead of swimming in a clean ocean you’d be pretty much swimming in a garage dump. We have to stop this before it's too late, what will you do?