3 Facts About Plastic Pollution That Will Flip You Out
Inside The Garbage of the World
Inside the Garbage of the World is a great film that is full of so much information and insight and the more we watch it the more we want to take action, but we need help. In fact, we pretty much need the help of everyone in the world to reverse the damage caused by plastic pollution. This is definitely a big undertaking, but we are optimistic we can all help turn things around. To help inspire you here are three facts about plastic pollution you might not have known.
3 Facts About Plastic Pollution That Will Flip You Out
- If We Don’t Fix What We Are Doing to the Ocean, We Ruin The Building Blocks of Life – The human legacy we are leaving on the earth, although full of innovation, isn’t something to be proud of, at least not the way things stand right now. The planet functioned beautifully without the threat of irreparable damage pretty much from the dawn of the Earth’s existence until about 100 years ago when humans ramped up industrialization and consumerism. This increased industry dramatically increased the production of greenhouse gases and the use of nonrenewable resources while irresponsible handling of the items generated by industry is polluting our oceans, and this is bad news for the planet. Plastic trash is a problem that can be found throughout the world’s oceans and our ocean life is eating it and guess what, we are eating them and in turn, the plastic they have consumed.
- The Pacific Trash Island is Part Myth and Part Frightening Fact – When most people hear trash island or garbage patch they think of a solid mass, maybe something big enough and substantial enough to walk on, but that really isn’t the case with the Pacific Trash Island. The garbage patch is more like a soup – a collection of bits and pieces of trash that is floating on and in the water. The distance between the debris actually makes it more dangerous because it is harder to cleanup. If the garbage patch was a big tangled mess of trash cleanup would be a snap, but because there may be a bottle cap here and a fragment of plastic bag a few miles away it seems almost impossible to clean up this mess.
- Not All Garbage Floats, so the Problem at the Surface Isn’t the Whole Thing – Again, there is a misconception that all plastic floats, but that is not always the case, and even when plastic is buoyant, if it is tossed around in the ocean and breaks apart into smaller and smaller pieces, those individual fragments may not float. The trash visible at the surface is just a part of the problem – there is debris at the ocean floor and basically everyplace in between.
How Change Begins
To solve the world’s plastic pollution problem there are two areas that need to be addressed. First, we need to stop making the problem worse. The solution here is actually pretty easy – if people stop using disposable products in favor of reusable items and responsibility dispose of items that are no longer useful, that will prevent the problem from growing larger.
The second issue to address is cleaning up the existing trash. This can be as simple as picking up litter when you see it, volunteering for cleanup efforts and supporting organizations that coordinate and handle larger scale cleanup. It is completely within our ability to fix the plastic pollution problem – we just need to band together and get started.
What do you do to help solve the plastic pollution problem? Let us know in the comments and please reach out to us HERE to create a custom reusable bag for your brand that will be a small step to solving this problem.
Just think about this, when our reusable bags reach thousands of companies like yours, they green millions of consumers, and that my friend is how change begins.