By negligently discarding plastic items, especially plastic waterbottles, fishing gear and plastic bags, people are unknowingly causingthe deaths of millions of mammals, fish, birds and reptiles each andevery year. We defile the face of the earth with plastic refusecreating waterway contamination.Since the invention of plastic earlier this century, it has become apopular material used in a wide variety of unique and innovativeapplications. Plastic is used to make, or wrap around, many of theitems we buy or use. The problem ribbed shampoo lotion pump comes when we no longer want theseitems and how we dispose of them, particularly the throwaway plasticmaterial used in wrapping or packaging. Plastic is handy, lightweightand easily discarded.
Too easily discarded.Plastics are utilized because they are easy and inexpensive tomanufacture, strong and durable. Regrettably these same usefulcharacteristics make plastic an overwhelming pollution problem.Inferior quality and low cost means plastic is readily discarded.Plastics take around 300 years to photo degrade. Its long life assuresit survives in the environment for extended periods where it can dogreat harm. Because plastic does not easily decompose and requires highenergy ultra-violet light to break down, the volume of plastic waste inthe worlds oceans is steadily increasing. Plastic is now found invirtually all the oceans and rivers of the world, even the most remoteand once pristine.American oceanographer Charles Moore reports the volume of plasticpollution in the worlds oceans is so extensive its beyond cleaning up.A toxic plastic mass of refuse double the size of Texas swirls in thewaters of the Pacific Ocean between San Francisco and Hawaii. There thecrew found that the water contained six parts of plastic for every partplankton, with a five fold increase in the amount of plastic between1997 and 2007.Annually approximately 500 billion plastic bags are used worldwide.That is an unconscionable amount of waste, so much that more than onemillion bags are used every minute and their impact on the planet isdevastating. Plastic bags are only part of the problem. America alone,produces in excess of 800,000 tons of plastic bottle pollution everyyear, and the amount is growing. World-wide our precious planet isdefaced and poisoned with more than 100 million tons of plasticpollution annually.
According to the California Coastal Commission, over 80 per cent ofrefuse within waterways, most of it being plastic, originates on landrather than coming from boats.Fish, shellfish, sea birds and all other forms of aquatic liferequire a delicate balance of oxygen, nutrients and clean water tosurvive. Even small quantities of toxic products in the water candisrupt this balance, with long-lasting effects. Plastic pollutionaffects marine wildlife in deadly ways: entangling creatures and bybeing consumed.Turtles are particularly vulnerable to plastic pollution. All sevenof the world’s turtle species are already endangered or threatened fora multitude of reasons.
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