Insight into Plastics and Its Effect in Our Oceans

With plastic being such a cheap and versatile material, it plays a crucial part in our economy. It is used everywhere from food packaging to electronics to the insulation in our homes, the fact of the matter is that plastic is used everywhere. Despite the qualities of the material, its trade-off brings a concern to the environment around us. With plastic being made from in-organic compounds, it can take nearly 1000 years for this material to break down. Thus, leaving a plastic footprint that would eventually find its way to the ecosystems around us.

In a recent study, it was found that the annual global production of plastic was at 270 million tonnes. Out of that value only ten percent is recycled, the rest is either trashed and left to rot in landfills or littered across the world. With an exponential rising population, projected to reach 9.8 billion people by 2050, the demand for plastic products will rise with it as well. From 1950 to 2015, an estimated 4600 million tonnes of primary plastics went to landfills or were discarded.

A majority of the discarded plastics are found to be at high risk in entering our oceans through wind of tidal transport. With the immense amount of plastic discarded yearly, aquatic habitats are being destroyed by the buildup of plastic within the regions. The estimated 5 trillion plastic particles, have affected these regions by allowing animals to unintentionally ingest these particles, causing a host of health issues from energy depletion, inhibited growth, to fertility impacts. However, another issue that has risen was the issue of entanglement from larger particles. Plastics from packaging, ropes, netting and fish gear have affected at least 344 species to date. Often unless these animals are helped by humans, they die from their limited range of motion due to their inability to untangle themselves. 

Unless we seek better alternatives to plastic or improve our waste management systems, we will continue to see an exponential rise in our plastic footprint. With the documented effects of plastic in our environment, it has given us a view on the destruction that it has caused and what it will continue to do without us reducing our use in plastics.