Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell
Sources
Plastic Pollution: How Humans are Turning the World into Plastic
# What is plastic
– Invention of plastic
– Natural Polymers
– Synthetic polymers
– uses of plastic
– Breakdown of plastic
– percentage of plastic used for packaging
– percentage of packaging waste in the US
– amount of plastic produced since its invention
– all plastic waste piled up makes a cube with a sidelenght of 1.9 km
6.3 billion tonnes = a volume of 6.3x10^12 Liters -> a cube 1.9 km on a side
– 9% of all plastic has been recycled, 12% burned, 79% sticks around
– 8 million tons of plastic leak into the ocean annually
– plastic outweighing fish in the ocean
– marine animals keep getting trapped in plastic and swallowing it
– In 2015 already 90% of seabirds had eaten plastic
– sperm whale dies from eating plastic
# Microplastics
– micro plastics
– 51 trillion micro plastic particles in the ocean
– side effects of plastic additives
– BPA:
– DEHP:
– micro plastic travels up the food chain
– artificial fibers in honey
– artificial fibers in beer, tap water, sea salt
– micro plastics eaten by UK citizens from household dust settling on meals
– adults and babies have phthalates in their blood
– 93% of people have BPA in their urine
– reports say that plastic additives are safe
– energy consumption of a single-use plastic bag compared to a cotton bag
– one third of all food that is produced is never eaten
– plastic packaging is effective in preventing food waste
– 90% of all plastic waste comes from 10 rivers / the Yangtze flushes 1.5 million tons of plastic into the ocean each year
Further reading:
UN Environment:
https://bit.ly/2I1GVaJ
Clean Seas Campaign:
https://bit.ly/2kTkcqL
More facts on microplastics:
– washing a piece of synthetic garment releases 1900 micro plastic fibers:
– amount of micro plastics Europeans ingest by eating shell food regularly
Possible solution approaches for plastic problem: