Plastics

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"A person writing at night may put

out the lamp, but the words he

has written will remain. It is the

same with the destiny we create

for ourselves in this world."

- Shakyamuni

Plastic is EVERYWHERE. We all use it. Today, plastic is used to make - or to wrap around - many of the items that we buy or use. Plastics are easy and cheap to make and they can last a long time. In fact, unless plastic has been incinerated, every piece of plastic ever created remains with us today (plastic can take 500 years or more to degrade in a landfill)! But the same qualities that make plastic attractive also make it a huge problem. While offering advantages such as flexibility and light weight, it creates problems including: consumption of fossil resources; pollution; high energy use in manufacturing; accumulation of wasted plastic in the environment; and migration of polymers and additives into foods.

Are bioplastics better? No - they are not. Using crops (corn, soy, wheat or potato) to produce plastic diverts those plants from the food supply, and new cropland is cleared at the expense of carbon-absorbing forests Also, crop production requires the use of oil. Lastly, bioplastics do not readily degrade in a landfill, but must be composted commercially for ten days at temperatures as high as140^o F in order to break down.

Bisphenol A (BPA), a hormone-disrupting chemical that is the building block of polycarbonate plastic, has recently been found to leach out of baby bottles (95% of all baby bottles on the market are made with bisphenol A). According to a recent study by the University of Cincinnati, heating bottles or pouring hot liquids into bottles, the presence of acidic or basic foods and beverages, and repeated washing have all been shown to increase the rate of BPA leaching from bottles. Exposure to BPA can cause birth defects and developmental problems, as well as cancer, diabetes, obesity and attention-deficit disorder.

Also, cancer-causing compounds found in plastic products used to wrap or contain food and beverages can leach out of the plastic and migrate into food. This is more likely to happen when the container or packaging is heated or when the plastic is scratched or old. Click here to learn more about toxins, endocrine disruptors and carcinogens that migrate from plastic containers.

Most of the marine debris in the world is plastic. Plastic comprises between 60 to 80% of global marine debris and, in some regions, is as high as 90 to 95%. In the Central North Pacific Gyre, pieces of plastic outweigh surface zooplankton (the populous animal plankton that forms the base of the aquatic food chain) by a factor of 6 to 1. Mammals, birds and fish eat plastic, thinking it is zooplankton.

Hundreds of thousands of sea turtles, whales and other marine mammals die every year from eating discarded plastic mistaken for food. Turtles think the bags are jellyfish, their primary food source. Once swallowed, plastic bags choke animals or block their intestines, leading to an agonizing death. Also, seawater eventually breaks down these plastics into microplastics, which can absorb high levels of PCBs and pesticides like DDT. These pollutants bioaccumulate in the tissues of marine organisms, biomagnify up the food chain, and find their way into the foods we eat. On land, cows, goats and other animals suffer a similar fate to marine life when they accidentally ingest plastic while foraging for food.

Just 5.7% of all plastic in our municipal waste stream is recycled. This is because it is difficult to automate the sorting of plastic waste, and so it is labor-intensive. Consumer products often are made of many parts consisting of over a dozen different types and colors of plastics. The labor-intensiveness of the recycling process makes plastics expensive and unprofitable.

Also, the recycled plastic most frequently manufactured in the U.S. is not clean enough for the most profitable recycling, which is turning plastic into food and drink containers. Instead, it is converted into industrial packaging and textiles, which earn the recycling companies less money and make it difficult for them to compete with firms in China and Vietnam where the recycling industry is flourishing because of cheap labor, virtually non-existent worker standards, and lax environmental regulations. As a result, much of the plastic collected for recycling in the U.S. is shipped to Asia. In 2006, the U.S. plastic industry exported $2.8 billion of plastic scrap to China, and this export industry is growing. Click here to see an example of the environmental and health impacts associated with recycling in China, as presented by British reporter Holly Williams.

Did You Know . . .

Our municipal waste stream generated 28,910,000 tons of plastic in the U.S. in 2005, but just 5.7% was recycled (EPA report-latest available).
The U.S. sends much of its plastic waste to China. who manufactures packaging and cheap plastic goods for export to the world's cost-conscious consumers.
Although China is working to improve environmental and health regulations, standards remain low. Emissions from plastics, which must be melted to be recycled, are toxic and cause lung disease and chemical wastes are dumped into water supplies.

We Are Sending Our Plastic to China

Click here or on the image above to watch this 2007 video by Britain's Sky News that brings you to a Chinese facility that recycles plastics from all around the world

Plastic Debris, Rivers to Sea

80% of marine debris is land-based and 90% of floating marine debris is plastics. Click here or on the image to learn about marine debris in our ecosystem in this video.

Our oceans are turning into plastic

... are we?

A rubbish dump twice the size of the U.S. has been discovered floating in the Pacific Ocean. Click here or on the image to this provocative article by Susan Casey. The photograph is by Gregg Segal.

What Can We Do?

A lot. Click here to take action today!

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Eco-Justice Collaborative

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ejc@ecojusticecollaborative.org ▪ www.ecojusticecollaborative.org