Refuse Plastic – Health4earth

A Plastic Trashed Ocean

People have plastic trashed the world’s oceans. Our oceans hold 21,000 pieces of plastic for each person on Earth! That is 170 trillion pieces of ocean plastic, unfortunately there is probably much more.

Creek near my home drains into the Mississippi River, and then into the Gulf of Mexico.

I live in the middle of the United States about as far away from an ocean as possible yet the plastic from my neighborhood can easily reach the Gulf of Mexico. A creek 5 blocks from my house runs into the Mississippi River which runs into the world’s oceans. A plastic bottle from Minneapolis finds an easy, but long journey into our oceans. Everywhere on Earth there are rivers and streams carrying plastic trash. Read more at: Oceans littered with 171 trillion plastic pieces – BBC News

These rivers carrying plastic and other trash drain into the Gulf of Mexico.

What are some things you can do? 7 Solutions to Ocean Plastic Pollution – Oceanic Society

1. Reduce Your Use of Single-Use Plastics

START NOW! Wherever you live, the easiest and most direct way that you can get started is by reducing your own use of single-use plastics. Single-use plastics include plastic bags, water bottles, straws, cups, utensils, dry cleaning bags, take-out containers, and any other plastic items that are used once and then discarded.

The best way to do this is by a) refusing any single-use plastics that you do not need (e.g. straws, plastic bags, takeout utensils, takeout containers), and b) purchasing, and carrying with you, reusable versions of those products, including reusable grocery bags, produce bags, bottles, utensils, coffee cups, and dry cleaning garment bags. And when you refuse single-use plastic items, help businesses by letting them know that you would like them to offer alternatives. More ideas here: 7 Solutions to Ocean Plastic Pollution – Oceanic Society

How much plastic is in the ocean? — 5Gyres.org

‘Unprecedented Levels’ of Plastics Entered World’s Oceans After 2005, Study Finds – EcoWatch

Plastic Consumption Could Nearly Double by 2050 Without Ambitious UN Treaty – EcoWatch

But there is good news about oceans also. Read about the historic ocean agreement: The Inside Story of ‘the Largest Conservation Agreement in the History of the World’ – EcoWatch

Plastic is not Recyclable

If plastic were a country, it would be the fifth largest emitter of greenhouse gases. Plastic is stuffed with harmful chemicals, and even though we are told it is recyclable this report shows how plastic recycling is NOT working!

Greenpeace report finds most plastic goes to landfills as production ramps up : NPR

Greenpeace Report: ‘Most Plastic Is Just Not Recyclable’

“More plastic is being produced, and an even smaller percentage of it is being recycled,” says Lisa Ramsden, senior plastic campaigner for Greenpeace USA. “The crisis just gets worse and worse, and without drastic change will continue to worsen as the industry plans to triple plastic production by 2050.”

Coca Cola produces 3 million tons of plastic packaging a year – equivalent to 200,000 bottles a minute. That needs to change.

How about a dose of chemicals?

Reducing that Pesky Plastic

Weigh your container before you fill with bulk items

Shopping at a grocery store or drug store is one of the most frustrating things I do, everything is packaged in plastic. Luckily, I have some excellent food coops a bus ride away from my house. I save containers and refill them with bulk items. A local meat department in a local grocery store will even refill my containers with meat purchases, which even my coops won’t refill. Science 101 has one of the best articles on reducing plastic that I have ever read, and I learned things from them. Start with a few items to refill. When you get the idea and feel comfortable move to add more plastic-free items. Here is Science 101’s article, on easy ways to reduce plastic. Refilling containers can be fun and satisfying.

Nice screw-top glass bottles that I can reuse forever! Buy products in glass, and reusable glass containers are a win-win!

Only 9 percent of the plastic every produced has been recycled, and no one knows how many hundreds of years it will pollute our environment. It breaks into tiny pieces, ends up in our water sources, is in our food and kills wildlife! Why is plastic harmful? Read here.

Coops will help you get started refilling containers, and I am willing to help if you ask. Let’s all work to reduce our plastic foot-print.

Here are 13 more ways to reduce plastic.

New Beginnings

A new year brings new energy, new projects and hope into our lives. May we move on to a positive new beginning for us all. One thing that 2018 told us is that our Earth is struggling with harmful human activity. Our warming climate and our dependence on single-use plastic can have tragic implications as we move into the future. We can’t predict the future, but plastic waste and climate change are not going away.

If everyone does a small amount it can make a big difference! I have two things you can do to make a big difference on the Earth this new year. Even if you change one thing you do, and focus on that one thing in 2019 you will be making a difference!

How are you reducing your plastic footprint?

When I started this blog years ago, I was trying to get people to recycle. While I hope you will still recycle what needs to be recycled, it has become harder and harder to recycle that pesky plastic. Glass, aluminum and paper have markets, but we just use so much single-use plastic and there aren’t enough markets for plastic. Plastic can’t be recycled over and over like glass and aluminum.

We need to reduce our plastic footprint. Start by changing one thing you purchase in plastic. At our house we refill bottles/containers with bulk at our local coop: soaps, lotions, teas, nuts, rice and almost every dry product we eat. We make our own yogurt, humus and cashew milk. Even as hard as we work on this we can’t avoid all packaging, it is too ubiquitous. As human beings we haven’t figured out our complicated relationship with plastic. The best thing is to avoid it.

Tackling food waste is another way we can all make a difference. If you purchase in bulk you can get just the amount you need. Forty percent of our food in the USA goes to waste, I mourn the valuable water and energy wasted on uneaten food! How have you done on your holiday leftovers? Freeze, cook, eat that food! Be vigilant. I make it into game with myself to be creative making new items from left-overs to keep from wasting food. Just think of the water and energy that we could save! Also, rotting food waste in landfills creates methane contributing to warming the planet.

Some other ideas to make a difference: Make changes in your kitchen and 10 green resolutions from Earth911. PBS offers three science based ideas here.

Some inspiration from Dan Rather: ” I stand at the precipice of 2019, alongside all of you, and breath deep a spirit of empathy and a determination to do our part to help make this world a better place.”

Happy hopeful new year!

The Problem With Plastic

Plastic lasts more than a lifetime! Humans have created 9 billion tons of plastic since 1950 and most of this plastic still exists on earth. Only 9 percent has been recycled, and 11 percent incinerated. That leaves much of the plastic ever produced floating around in our waterways, poisoning fish, or releasing chemicals in landfills. As citizens of this planet we should be doing everything we can to reduce the amount of plastic we use.

The PBS NewsHour is doing an interesting series on plastic this week. I hope you will watch. See below:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/plastic-lasts-more-than-a-lifetime-and-thats-the-problem