Plastics

So, what is plastic? Plastic, according to google, is a synthetic material made from a wide range of organic polymers such as polyethylene, PVC, nylon, etc., that can be molded into shape while soft and then set into a rigid or slightly elastic form.. Blah blah blah.

What they don’t tell you is that its actually a problem. Right now, there are more pieces of plastic in the ocean than there are people in the world. And this number is only going to increase unless we end our addiction to single- use plastic, and switch to better alternatives.

A bit of history...

Plastic has been around since the 1900s, but it plastic in the ocean and in other places started to to be recorded from the late 20th century onward. Watch the video below for more information:

Single Use Plastics

Right now, our whole world relies on single use plastic, and the problem isnt just plastic bags. Its also drink containers, take-out containers, and just all the plastic that you use every day without realizing it. Pens that you throw out after they run out of ink, floss picks, and plastic water bottles. All sorts of things are single use plastics. And they are not good. Animals eat these plastics, and choke and die. They litter our streets, pollute soil and water, worsen floods, and clog drains.

How can you help? Well, one thing that you can do is eat in, and when you don’t, carry a reusable cup. You can also carry a metal or reusable water bottle at all times, so that you don’t get thirsty and need to buy a drink. (this will also save you money) Another important thing is to reduce, reuse, and recycle. I'm sure you’ve heard this term before, but it is extremely important. Reduce, meaning try your best to avoid plastic when you can, reuse meaning to reuse something if it's still worth reusing, like when your toothbrush gets old, wash it and use it as a cleaning tool. And lastly, recycle. I cannot stress enough how important it Is to recycle. With all this plastic in the world, the least we can do is to make it into something else when we're done with it. Did you know that you can recycle crinkly wrappers? That means the wrappers that are super crinkly and have foil in the inside.

Top Seven Plastics for Animals

Plastic shopping bags: animals confuse them for jelly fish, and they are just really bad. But there is a ban starting, that will ban these bags. Remember to bring your reusable bags!
Plastic cutlery: these are sharp, and when they end up in the ocean animals can eat them and end up with internal injuries and pass away. Please bring your own reusable cutlery.
Plastic straws and drink stirrers: they can get stuck in throughts and noses. In australia, an estimated 10 million straws are used each day, and they can take 200 years to break down.

Plastic fruit and vegetable bags: they are soft and light, which means that they can get easily blown away, causing them to go into water ways and the ocean.

Balloons and balloon sticks: Hard to digest and stretchy, balloons wrap around other items in stomachs and cause starvation. they break down into small pieces that look like food. Strings and ribbons from balloons strangle turtles and animals who get caught. If you have a party, make stuff out of paper or something else, and if you do have ballons, please, please don’t let them go.

Plastic bottles and lids: even though they are recyclable, lots still make it into the ocean. The plastic breaks up, and birds mistake it for food.

Plastic take out containers: they can be sharp and cause internal injuries, but the can also cause contamination and diseases, as there can be rotten and moldy food in them.

Clothing and Plastics

You may not know this, but most of the clothes that are made these days are made with plastic. this may not seem too bad because they can be reused, but thats not the case.
Lots and lots of people don’t want to pay more for clothing, so they shop on sites like Shein, and other fast fashion places. It may seem like the right choice, because its cheap and easy to get. But its not. There are a lot of problems with these fast fashion places, but one of them is quality. When something is so cheap, its ussualy because its not good quality, and will rip or break easily.
This leads to people throwing out the clothing, instead of fixing it or recycling the fabric. This leads to giant piles of clothing in other countries, that shouldn’t have to deal with all of our garbage. Trucks dump loads and loads of perfectly fine or fixable clothing, or, if it doesn’t get diposed of properly, it ends up getting washed up on beaches and other places. Here is an example that is more commonly heard of. In the Atacama desert in Chile, an estimate 741 acres of clothing was dumped. It was so many clothes that you could see these mountains from space! This is terrible. And this is just one example of our wastefulness. Others include piles of clothing being washed up on the beaches of other countries, and other terrible occurrences.
This is extremely wasteful, and so its super important to thrift your clothes, or if you need to get new ones get good quality ones.
When you need to dispose of them, please donate the one in good condition to a thrift store or charity, and if they arent fixable, bring them to the recycling depot where they will recycle them.

Go Plastic Free!

Here are some tips on how to make your school (or work) lunches as plastic free/ waste free as possible.
•make your own snacks. Its super easy, and will help reduce all that garbage from the wrapping on your granola bars and other snacks. Weve attached a link to a pdf that will give you some inspiration, but you can always feel free to try out some new things too! The internet will have lots of ideas for you to use. plastic-free-snacks.pdf (nationalgeographic.com)

put your homemade snacks in reusable ziploc baggies. These baggies can be plastic-coated fabric bags, or plastic ones. You can usualy find them at a local store, or you can order them online. This will save you from using plastic ziploc bags everytime you eat a snack.

use washable napkins: these are really an amazing option to reduce your paper towel use. My family uses these every night, and it really saves a lot of waste. After you're done with them, you can just toss them in the washing machine (on cold), and reuse them.

use reusable cutlery. Like I've said, plastic cutlery can be very damaging to the environment. If you or your caregiver(s), don't feel comfortable sending you to school with metal cutlery, use bamboo ones instead! These are a great alternative because they are light and are better for the environment.

reuse your lunch bags each year. (well, unless they're disgusting) wash them if they get food on them to prevent that. Shopping for back to school can be exciting, but if your lunch bag from the year before still works, keep using it.

love your local refill centre: these places are amazing. The average person uses 10-16 bottles of shampoo each year, and cutting even just that can save a lot of plastic. Also refilling your dishsoap, and other things that you use without thinking about everyday can really help.
use metal food containers instead of plastic ones. They are much nicer, and you can even get metal lunch containers instead of lunch bags. They have dividers, and are quite nice.

sew your own fabric reusable bag out of old t-shirts. This will help you reduce your plastic and your emissions. You arent buying new reusable bags, you're making your own, and you arent using plastic bags.

Thanks so much for reading! Remember, the planet takes care of you, and now you need to help take care of the planet.