Awareness for caring about the environment has increased, yet our level of concern is not keeping up with the pace of human pollution. Every year we dump more than eight million tons of plastic into the seas and oceans and, according to calculations by ecologists, by 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the sea.
We can continue living today and not worry about tomorrow, but there will come a time when the situation will become a serious threat. Not only will the effects of pollution become impossible to ignore, but it will affect the lives and health of human beings. This includes all forms of life on Earth.
It may not be us who will live through the consequences of our actions, but it will be a burden passed onto our descendants to try to fix the world that we have destroyed.
Every industry’s effort to “clean the oceans of plastic” is focused in the direction of recycling. Most of the mass media invades us with advertising about it. But unfortunately, recycling does not end the vicious accumulation of plastic in landfills and the ocean.
Unlike other materials such as aluminum or glass, plastic is a man-made material derived from oil, which takes hundreds of years to decompose in nature. It is a practically indestructible material, up to 1,000 years depending on the type of plastic. Using plastic is a mistake with catastrophic consequences on a global level.
The plastic we generate does not degrade and causes a very serious impact on the environment; it floods our seas, beaches, and the marine food chain has already been irreversibly contaminated. In most of the great oceans, there is already more plastic in suspension than plankton. The plastic is floating adrift in gigantic islands of waste.
Plastics are destroying our environment, and also harming human health. It is estimated that 90% of newborns are contaminated by substances derived from plastic.
The amount of plastic garbage that we perceive in the oceans is far from reality. Tiny plastic particles, or micrplastics, are used in some exfoliants which are polluting the seas and lakes around the world. These microplastics are ingested by fish and other animals, entering the food chain, affecting human health.
There is a new trend, the circular economy, that advocates zero waste, where new materials must be reusable indefinitely and emphasize the importance of products that are biodegradable.
It’s a smart and bold trend, but unfortunately, this isn’t going to actually remove all the plastic that already plagues our oceans.
There is also a problem with so-called biodegradable plastics. Biodegradable plastics are plastics that microorganisms, such as bacteria or fungi, can break down into the water, carbon dioxide, and other biomaterials. However, there are several of them that are not made with biomaterials, such as plants, but from petroleum just like conventional plastics.
The only effective way to avoid plastic waste in our oceans is to reduce the use of plastic in our daily lives. Plastic is so commonplace in our world today that it is almost impossible to imagine life without it. However, the fight for a life without plastic remains a noble goal worth achieving, and increasingly demanded by society.