3 Reasons To Refuse Single Use Plastic !

91% of plastic isn't recyclable. It means waste is just being piled up or burned.

Last year I was working at a busy coffee shop in Dublin and being there has taught me a significant lesson. While working there I've handed hundreds of paper/ plastic cups covering them with plastic lids, doing and thinking nothing, but loving my busy job and just trying to make a few quid to get by. (Which I'm thankful to the company that paid enough to make ends meet, as FYI, there's another sub-genre fitting at the same time in Drama, Melodrama, Tragicomedy, Horror genres called "Rent in Dublin")

But the wind of change for me was yet to come.

What kind of change? Well, standing on a path of refusing plastic.

I felt the light breeze of that wind, when a customer would refuse to take plastic cutlery showing an environmentally friendly approach. Then I started to come across the horrible pictures of animals dying due to malicious grips of plastic. Turtles choking on plastic straws, seals eating plastic bags and then dying of indigestion, dead whales found with kilograms of plastic stuff in their stomachs etc. All of it is real and last summer I started to think about it in full seriousness. At that time, after witnessing and assisting in the usage of plastic cups, lids and straws I finally, woke up from a longest dream .

So What's The Problem With Plastic?

Versatile, useful and convenient plastic has served us for 100 years. Clearly, this period of time isn't long, but the intensity of its usage is at insane level. Excessive use of it has led to multiple severe issues in the multiple areas shown below. Half of plastics ever deposited on Earth have been produced in the last 15 years.

Volunteers with Greenpeace Philippines clean up a heavily polluted beach in Manila

1) Environment - Each year around 8 million tons of plastic enter oceans and 70% of it is single use plastic. Single use plastics are - straws, ear buds, plastic bottles, plastic cutlery, generally all plastic instantly got disposed of after being used.

It takes 400-1000 years for plastic to decompose in the environment. During this time incredible amount of toxic substances are being released to the atmosphere. This release contributes to air pollution and dirty oceans. Following the raising results it is believed that b the year of 2050, there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish.

The unaltered stomach contents of a dead albatross chick photographed on Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge in the Pacific in September 2009 include plastic marine debris fed the chick by its parents.

2) Animals - World oceans are the last destination (Earth's sink) for the all plastic debris accumulated on Earth.

That's why marine animals are the most fragile creatures of the planet, in the face of the current problem.

Around 100 000 marine animals die from plastic ingestion (Eating plastic) or plastic entanglement (Fishing nets) . Approximately 1 million of sea birds die of same reasons.

Estimations show that plastic has been found in 700 marine species including, whales, turtles, fish, shellfish and of course, birds.

But wait, ocean/sea plastic can be brought back to land in micro-pieces. Wonder how?

The answer is mosquitoes. Recent scientific findings show that mosquito larvae eat tiny bits of plastics while they're at a growing phase. As they become adults, much of those micro plastic pieces stay inside them. The problem of plastic contamination exacerbates, when they're eaten by animals with a life cycle involving living both in water and on land.

Plastic Impact On Human Health Source: tryforgood.com

3) People - While mentioning toxins, don't forget that air pollution affects our health as well. Increasing amount of pollutants in the air, straight proportionally increases our chance of developing cancer. On top of that, an average person consumes thousands of plastic particles per year. Micro-plastics are found in food, especially seafood, as the result of marine animals swallowing plastic particles in seas/oceans. The other source of micro-plastics are water bottles. (Surprise-Surprise!) A study published in Frontiers Chemistry analyzed samples from 259 plastic bottles and found that 93% of 259 bottles contain micro-plastics. Bottles of some brands are discovered to have 10000 micro-plastic particles per liter. That's insane isn't it? The photo on the right side will help you to visualise all the consequences plastic brings to our health.

Now, after becoming familiar with all three reasons, don't you think it is better to refuse single use plastic bottles both for the environmental reasons and your health?

You can always replace them by buying your own reusable water bottles and start to make a positive contribution to the environment.