Earth Day has been around since 1970 and has become a day to celebrate the planet we live on and increase awareness of the environmental impact we have as humans. This year, Keapearthgreen.org and The Earth Day Network have decided to put the focus of Earth Day on the environmental harm of plastics.
Around the world, more than 300 million tons of plastic are produced every year. This ends up being dumped into our landfills or getting thrown into our oceans. Worse still, plastic never fully biodegrades, which makes the situation much worse because it means that all this plastic waste will remain in our landfills or in our oceans forever. Every single piece of plastic ever made is still with us on our planet. We must help decease the amount of plastic waste that continues to hurt our environment and make a better effort to KeapEarthGreen.
You can start with using reusable bags when taking a trip to the grocery store. This will have an immediate impact on decreasing plastic waste that often breaks down into microplastics, which can hurt a wide variety of sea animals because they’re small enough to be mistaken for food. Already, America uses 100 billion plastic bags each year and it takes 12 million barrels of oil to make them; so in addition to the tremendous waste and direct negative impact on animals, the production of these bags increases the number of greenhouse gas emissions in America. So stop accepting single use plastic bags when you’re out shopping and make a direct positive impact on our marine environment and global warming.
Another way you can cut back on the numbers is to invest in a reusable water bottle and quit buying plastic ones. Americans buy 29 billion water bottles a year and according to National Geographic, for every six bottles of water we use, only one makes it to the recycling bin. Get yourself a reusable water bottle; but, at the very least, don’t be lazy and make sure that single use plastic bottles make it into a recycling bin!
Each of you is capable of doing these simple actions. Each trip to the grocery store, stop accepting single use plastic bags. Each day you leave the house, take a reusable water bottle instead of a single use plastic bottle. Stop asking for single use plastic straws. They are all unnecessary! Every action, no matter how small, adds up and will impact our planet positively. KeapEarthGreen! Let’s Do This!
–AK
Works Cited:
Bidouze, Stephane, et al. “Plastic Pollution.” Kids’ Games, Animals, Photos, Stories, and More, 25 May 2017,
kids.nationalgeographic.com/explore/science/plastic-pollution/#earth-day-pollution.jpg.
“Earth Day 2018 | End Plastic Pollution.” Earth Day Network, Earth Day Network,
www.earthday.org/earthday/.Engler, Sarah. “10 Ways to Reduce Plastic Pollution.” NRDC, Natural Resources Defense
Council 2018, 29 Mar. 2018, www.nrdc.org/stories/10-ways-reduce-plastic-pollution. Ian Johnston Environment Correspondent. “How Plastic Is Damaging Planet Earth.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 28 Sept. 2017, www.independent.co.uk/environment/plastic-how-planet-earth-environment-oceans- wildlife-recycling-landfill-artificial-a7972226.html.
Lights, Zion. “What’s So Bad About Plastic Bags?” One Green Planet, 18 Dec. 2014, www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/whats-so-bad-about-plastic-bags/.
“Main Sources of Carbon Dioxide Emissions.” What’s Your Impact, 8 July 2017, whatsyourimpact.org/greenhouse-gases/carbon-dioxide-emissions.
“Plastic – The Popular Pollutant KQED Learning.pdf.” Google Drive, Google, drive.google.com/file/d/0B4z_7euRnnnGeUF0alVtNnNoWkE/view