How knowledge do you consider yourself when it comes plastic pollution? If you are like most people, you would sit somewhere in the middle, that is why this blog will focus on how harmful plastic is on our environment.

We are more dependent on plastic now than we ever have been before. We can see why it’s so attractive to produce, its cheap, its durable and we are consuming it at a staggering rate.

8 million pieces of plastic are entering our oceans every single day.

This is an extremely worrying figure.

Why is Plastic Bad for our environment?

When plastic is disposed of incorrectly, harmful chemical from the plastics begin to leach into the environment, polluting our soil, our oceans, and the air. Proper waste management will prevent microplastics from entering our environment.

A single plastic bottle can last for 450 years in a marine environment slowly breaking down into smaller and smaller pieces which will eventually even up microscopic but never ever truly goes away. What this means is that every piece of plastic that has ended up in our ocean is still there in some form.

Effects of Plastic Pollution on our environment

Essentially plastic pollution is plastic where it shouldn’t be such as in our seas or on our beaches and it is causing harm. Plastic is a substance that the earth cannot digest and is extremely toxic to human health even babies are born pre polluted. Plastic can take hundreds or even thousands of years for it to break down, so the environmental damage is long-lasting. Plastic affects all organisms in the food chain from tiny species through to whales, these toxins can work their way up the food chain and may even be present in the fish people eat!!

Single use plastic and soft plastics has been a major problem throughout the years however, in recent times the government have introduced a ban on single use plastics. This has encouraged the use of paper straws in restaurants and bars across the country which has resulted in a slight decline in the number of single use plastics recorded.  Soft Plastics have recently been added to the recyclable list this will allow people to dispose of soft plastics such as plastic bags and crisp packets in their recycling bins.

If you have made it this far, we are hoping you are looking at that plastic bottle you bought in the shop differently. We hope this post has you thinking differently about plastic use, and we hope it has made you more aware of the impact single use plastics and plastic in general has on our planet!!

Everyone must play their part in helping our environment whether it be recycling your plastics or  a company making the change to renewable energy in order to reduce their carbon footprint.

https://nonplasticbeach.com/blogs/latest/how-does-plastic-harm-the-environment

https://www.thejournal.ie/soft-plastics-recycling-how-it-works-5542462-Sep2021/