Plastics!

By Adwait at 23 January, 2010, 1:32 pm

Are plastics really that bad eh’?
Oh yes sir / ma’am, they really are!

I want to write this as a continuation, to the garbage article I have written earlier. Again, my ‘environment crusader - alter ego’ probing me to write this one.
At the end of the little garbage story, I requested the readers to stop using polythene bags. Here’s why:

There are some natural factors, we aren’t in control of. Global warming, the biggest visible example. It is a natural phenomenon aided by a number of human activities. Global warming is basically, the heating of the earth’s surface temperature. So why is it harmful?

This heating causes the sea levels to rise. Changes in the rain patterns around the globe and the most harmful of all, melting of the Arctic and Antarctic glaciers. This process is catalysed by human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation. This is an environmental issue, where it is quite hard for one individual alone to work alone. It requires the collective co-operation of all the citizens to make a difference.

But there are certain areas where individual effort is recognized, appreciated and most important of all, makes a difference. If we eradicate the usage of all sorts of plastic bags, then you and me, as individuals can make a big difference.

But why stop the polythene bags? They’re so convenient!

Very convenient they are, yes. But as convenient as they are to us, they are equally harmful to our environment. Polythene bags are included under the wide hood of plastic. All plastic materials are harmful to the ecosystem.

Plastics are widely used all around the world. This is because, they are easy and cheap to make and they last for a very long time. Because plastic is so cheap, it is discarded so easily, leading to nothing less than environmental problems.

So what are the actual problems caused?

Plastics are durable. They aren’t easily decomposable. This is an environmental threat. A simple polythene bag can take up to 1000 years to simply decay completely. This is harmful. Animals eat it and die of indigestion (One can’t digest plastic); it creates a voluminous amount of waste. More the plastic, more the environmental damage.

The plastic we dispose, kills animals. Yes. More than 75% of the waste found at sea is composed of plastic materials. In Australia more than 10,000 whales, turtles and bird deaths have been reported every year, just because of the plastic waste found in their environment. Animals suffocate and cannot digest plastic, which eventually kills them.

Plastic bags are not bio-degradable. It is a fact. Thus the only way to get rid of them is to burn them. Burning of plastic is not the best thing for the environment and us. It’s cancerous and since plastic isn’t natural, the chemical toxins released have adverse effects and leave the air polluted. This takes the air pollution levels to a great level.

So please stop using plastics. They are indeed very ‘cheap and useless’. Not at all meant for human consumption!

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Categories : Politics & Society