Plastics don’t rot the way organic things such as vegetables, cotton clothing, or dead humans do. Plastics just break into smaller and smaller bits. That’s why sea creatures aren’t the only life forms consuming plastic; bits of plastic are in our drinking water, our table salt, and even mothers’ milk.1
But wait, we recycle most of our waste materials, don’t we? No, actually, only about 14 percent of solid waste is recycled. (Estimates vary from 10 percent to 17 percent.) The remainder ends up in landfills, rivers, the ocean, and beaches.
And what happens to the materials we do recycle? As an article in the New York Times explained:
“In the past, the municipalities would have shipped much of their used paper, plastics and other scrap materials to China for processing. But as part of a broad antipollution campaign, China announced last summer that it no longer wanted to import ‘foreign garbage.’ ”2
China let us down and other Asian countries have followed its lead. They are shipping tonsof trash back to the countries where it originated, including the United States, Canada, and Mexico. 3
What will we do with this trash? To get an idea of the problem, I watched an NBC story on line.4 The story left me even more distressed and I wish everyone would watch it. Then maybe we could take on the real problem, which an unfortunate blend of our lifestyle and the politically powerful plastic manufacturers.
1. “Plastic in Your Drinking Water, Table Salt & Mother’s Milk,” earthdecks.com
2. “Your Recycling Gets Recycled, Right? Maybe, or Maybe Not” , May 20, 2018, New York Times.
3.“Malaysia has started returning tons of trash to the west: 'we will not be the dumping ground of the world'”, Newsweek, June 20, 2019.
4.“Recycling Breaks Down: US Struggles to Keep Plastic From the Dump”, NBC, Aug 13, 2018, Broadcast by Chanel 4, Washington.
Copyright 2019 by Shirley Domethem strongerr
No comments:
Post a Comment