Single Use Plastics: Experience Quality Assurance

Single-Use Plastics and their Importance

Straws in our iced coffee, plastic bags for our takeout, candy bar wrappers—each one appears innocuous enough on its own. These amenities of modern life are so commonplace, and so easily discarded, that we scarcely give them a second thought. However, there is a high environmental cost to using plastics that only need to be used once. The oceans, wildlife, and human health are all suffering from our collective addiction to plastic.

Products created from petrochemicals, which are derived from fossil fuels, are known as “single use plastics” since they are designed to be discarded immediately after use. Bottles, wrappers, straws, and bags are all examples of single use plastics that find widespread application in the food and beverage industries.

Despite plastic’s (basically) mid-19th-century invention, its popularity didn’t really take off until the 1970s. Plastic is a chain of synthetic polymers. Many products that had previously been made of paper or glass were supplanted by plastic versions that were either more portable or more cost-effective. Half of all plastics ever made were made in the last 15 years, and 8.3 billion metric tons have been created since the 1950s.

Surgical gloves and straws for individuals with impairments are only two examples of the numerous vital and reasonable uses for plastic. However, just a small amount of all single use plastics are contained in these cases. One study from 2017 found that plastic packaging, most of which is for one-time use, accounts for more than half of all non-fiber plastic.

How Come Disposable Plastic Is So Bad?

The use of disposable plastics for a single use highlights the larger issue of our disposable society. We typically choose convenience over longevity and long-term effects when making purchases, rather than investing in high-quality goods. Because of how much we rely on these plastics, trash is piling up at an alarming rate. Half of the 300 million tons of plastic we create each year is used for one-time use. That’s almost as heavy as all of humanity put together.

The most efficient method of preventing this waste (and the consequences associated to plastic production and use) is to reduce one’s reliance on plastic. More on avoiding plastic waste is provided below, but one easy solution is to use reusable bags and water bottles instead of buying disposable ones.

Less waste is produced when plastic is recycled more regularly. Polyethylene terephthalate, the plastic used to create the vast majority of plastic water and soda bottles, is highly recyclable and has a wide variety of end uses, from polyester fabric to auto parts. However, a shocking 91% of plastics are not recycled. Instead, it is dumped or otherwise released into the natural environment. Straws, bags, and cutlery are just a few examples of the kinds of single use plastics that, in the past, recycling facilities have been hesitant to accept because they are too small to fit into the machinery.

When left alone, plastics don’t decompose; rather, they fragment. Microplastics are the result of plastics being broken down by the sun and heat over a long period of time. These tiny pieces of plastic, no more than 5 millimeters in length, are difficult to detect and can be found nearly everywhere. Microbeads used in face scrubs and polyester microfibers are two examples of man-made microplastics. They enter the water supply, are consumed by wildlife, and ultimately end up in human bodies. They have traveled as far as the summit of the remote Pyrenees and as far as the depths of the Mariana Trench. Consumption of microplastics poses serious health risks for wildlife, including perforation of internal organs and deadly intestine obstructions.

Our health is negatively impacted by contact with microplastics and the chemicals used to produce plastics. Numerous studies have linked exposure to plastics to adverse health effects such as hormonal disruption, reproductive issues like infertility, and even cancer. One of many phthalates, DEHP, is used to increase the pliability of plastic products like shower curtains and garden hoses, but it has also been linked to cancer in humans by the EPA.

The Pollution Caused by Single Use Plastics

Although litter on our streets is the most obvious sign of single use plastics pollution, the problem is actually much worse in our water systems. The plastics that people throw out onto the street often end up in storm drains or rivers and streams after being washed away by rain. The plastic pollution in our waterways is especially concentrated, with only ten rivers carrying 93% of the annual global total of plastic that flows into the oceans.

Between 4.8 and 12.7 million metric tons of plastic enter the oceans annually from people residing within 30 miles of a shoreline, according to 2015 estimates from the University of Georgia. The majority of this pollution, which is largely comprised of single use plastics garbage, originates in Asian countries that lack the infrastructure necessary to effectively handle waste. For instance, every day in India, 25,940 metric tons of plastic trash are produced, yet only 60% of that is collected. (It’s also essential to keep in mind that waste management is but one component of the entire global material cycle. The United States frequently sends plastic garbage back to Asian countries for recycling since, for example, most of the plastic manufactured in those countries is for products catering to U.S. demand.

The burden of this increase in trash in marine environments falls on the creatures themselves. The bellies of beached whales were discovered to be filled with plastic debris. In addition, recent investigations indicated that 100% of turtles and 90% of seabirds tested had plastic in their digestive systems. Scientists predict that by 2050, the weight of plastic in the water will be greater than that of fish. Microplastics in the digestive systems of animals are a particularly concerning indicator that plastic pollution is contaminating the seafood that people have relied on for millennia.

Our reliance on disposable plastic also has ecological consequences. A recent study demonstrated that all stages of plastic production result in emissions of greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. Drilling for oil and gas, which are used to make plastic, results in methane leakage and flaring and is typically accompanied by the destruction of forests and wetlands, which would have served as carbon sinks in the absence of the drilling. One of the most greenhouse gas-intensive sectors of industry is oil refineries, which convert crude oil into plastic. Energy-intensive and environmentally damaging are “cracker plants,” which convert ethane (a component of natural gas) into the chemical building blocks of plastic. In 2015, just 24 of these ethane cracker factories produced as much carbon as 3.8 million cars in the United States. A surplus of oil thanks to the current fracking boom is in turn supporting an increase in cracker plants. This is bad news for our carbon reduction ambitions since unchecked plastic production could increase annual greenhouse gas emissions to 1.34 gigatons by 2030, which is the same as constructing roughly 300 new coal-fired power plants.

When it comes to the effects of plastic pollution, those who are already at a disadvantage are the ones who feel the brunt of the problem. Recycled plastic is regularly transferred from developed countries to underdeveloped ones for processing, even if it doesn’t end up in the ocean. Communities are buried under thousands of tons of plastic trash due to the sheer volume of trash produced. This is especially true in Southeast Asia, which now imports a lot of the trash that was once sent to China to be recycled. In addition to wreaking havoc on the environment, incinerating plastic (as is done with non-recyclable plastic at certain illegal operations) releases hazardous gases that can cause everything from skin rashes to cancer in humans. As is the case with many environmental disasters, the hardest hit are already overstretched populations that have few defenses.

Single-Use Plastics: A Ban Worth Considering

Video 01: Single-Use Plastics Challenge: An open invitation to help reduce plastic waste