UNLESS… Earth-friendly Chroniclers: Challenge 2~ PLASTIC WASTE REDUCTION

PLASTIC WASTE and the necessity to reduce it

On February 12, 2015-  data from a new study detailing where plastic trash ends up was published in Science Magazine by a team of researchers from the University of Georgia. This was the first large-scale research done since the 1970s to try to quantify how much plastic waste ends up in the ocean each year.

The conclusions should come as no surprise- The environment is on overload with plastic debris…

• most of it lies in landfills- those plastics will sit there for thousands of years waiting to degrade;
• only about 9% of plastic we consume gets recycled;
• a vast amount ends up in the world’s oceans- either from people throwing/dumping litter into waterways, or from storm-water runoff carrying plastic debris to the coasts;
• ocean currents carry metric tons of trash into five known massive swirling garbage patches  or gyres in every ocean on Earth. (A horrifying amount of trash plastic- 8 million metric tons- found their way to the world’s oceans in 2010 alone.)

The problem is forecasted to become even worse…

UNLESS better waste-management techniques are adopted and practiced world-wide:

• Recycle, reuse plastic products,
• Reduce packaging materials,
• Eliminate or reduce the use of disposable, one-time use items.

What  Earth-friendly action(s) are you taking to reduce your plastic footprint?

Share a photo(s) that lets us see how you are making a difference.

Plastic Waste in the News:

Seattle Times: Study: World dumps 8.8 million tons of plastics into oceans (PDF)

Vox: We Dump 8 Million Tons of Plastic into the Ocean Each Year: Where Does it Go? (PDF)

NBC News: Millions of Tons! Scientists Tally Up Plastic Pollution in Oceans (PDF)

 The Wall Street Journal: Which Countries Create the Most Ocean Trash? PDF)