Plastic is a material that is used very often everywhere, but exactly how good is it for us? Although it is vital for certain things such as construction and infrastructure, there is still too much wasteful plastic in the world. 10.5 million tons of plastic waste is produced by Americans each year, but less than 5% of it is recycled. Much of the world’s plastic waste is thrown into dumps and oceans, contributing to the world’s pollution. About 50% of the plastic waste falls into one category – single use plastics. Since single use plastics are have health and ecological dangers, the use of single use plastics must be regulated.

Two of the most common types of single use plastics are plastic bags and plastic water bottles. After plastics bags are used once or twice, they are mainly forgotten and usually end up in the streets. These plastic bags eng up in sewers or drainage systems, increasing the risk of clogging such systems. This, in turn, increases the risks of floods – floods that have the ability to submerge countries! Plastics are also very harmful to marine wildlife. Plastics bags that end up in the ocean kill animals through choking and suffocation. Other types of plastics, such as from the netting or lines of fishing gear, also contribute to the 100,000 plastic entanglements of marine life in the North Pacific every year. Plastics are also very harmful towards humans because chemicals from plastics can end up in the human’s body through consumption of seafood, or even through water as someone drinks from a plastic water bottle. Some chemicals in plastics are carcinogenic, which can cause birth defects, skin diseases, vision failure, etc. Single use plastics is currently in a cycle that begins with human production, but ends with harmful effects towards wildlife and humans.

The use of single use plastics must be reduced. Even if the plastics are properly disposed of, its low density allows it to travel downstream into oceans. Plastics are also really expensive to make because they are made of organic carbon based compounds and must be derived from fossil fuels, which are nonrenewable gases. The cleanup cost of disposing plastics is estimated to cost $75 billion, according to the United Nations Environmental Programme. In the long run, single use plastics are harmful to the ecosystem and are very costly to properly maintain the use of it. To minimize the amount of plastic waste, all recyclable plastics must be properly disposed of. Proper legislation should also be taken to reduce the amount of single use plastics in the world to create a better environment to live it.

Sources:

http://ecologycenter.org/plastics/ptf/report1/

http://www.unep.org/gpa/Documents/Publications/ValuingPlasticExecutiveSummaryEn.pdf

http://www.cleanwateraction.org/sites/default/files/CA_Fact%20Sheet_final_0.pdf

http://www.sustainablecommunication.org/eco360/what-is-eco360s-causes/plastic-garbage

As a country, United States produces ⅓ of the world’s solid waste. To put in perspective, the United States only contains 4.6% of the world’s population. Within New York City residents, 12,000 tons of waste are produced every day. Such waste includes paper, food, metal, glass, plastics, and textiles, in which paper is the highest contributor. New York City must be aware of the costly effects of waste production in order to understand that recycling and reducing the amount of paper waste is a huge factor that can reduce our carbon footprint.

In order to minimize the cost of transporting waste from New York City to other states, the amount of waste produced must be minimized. In New York City, 25% of the waste produced is recyclable paper. Commonly found recyclable paper include newspapers, magazines, mail, paper bags, and soft-covered books. These should be placed in the mixed paper and cardboard bin (usually a green colored bin)! Used tissues, napkins, paper towels, laminated papers, cups, and plates, however, cannot be recycled. But food-soiled papers, free of toxic cleaners and chemicals, can be composted, further reducing the amount of paper waste produced. Another way of reducing the amount of paper waste produced is to reduce the amount of paper mail you receive, by opting to get things through email and/or opting out of useless, unimportant catalogs. All such actions can reduce the amount of solid waste produced.

Solid waste is buried in the ground, burned, or recycled into new products. Because New York City does not have any landfills or incinerators, non-recyclable waste is sent to landfills in other states, such as Pennsylvania and Ohio, or incinerated in nearby states, such as New Jersey. It cost New York City $290 million, all of which are taxpayers’ money, to send solid waste to other states in 2007. If all recyclable paper was actually recycled, New York City could gain $7.5 million after paying for costs of solid waste transportation! By reducing the amount of paper waste created, taxpayers’ money can be put into further developing better communities throughout the city.

Aside from recycling paper, action must also be taken to reduce the amount of non-recycled paper being produced. More than 90% of writing and printing paper do not come from recycled paper, but rather virgin tree paper. Greenhouse gases are released from virgin paper when it is deposited into landfills. By reducing the amount of “new” paper produced and producing paper from recycled materials can reduce such gases. Greenhouse gases are further reduced when less trees are cut down to make paper because trees store carbon dioxide, rather than releasing it into the air. Cutting down less trees also prevents deforestation and minimizes damages to ecosystems. According to Paper Newt, a Canadian environmental initiative, if one ton of 100% recycled paper was used instead of virgin paper, then there will be 4 tons less wood consumed, 11,218 less gallons of water used, and 751 less pounds of solid waste.

Recycling paper and making recycled paper reduces the amount of solid waste produced and helps keep the environment intact. New York City produces a lot of unnecessary solid waste, especially by not recycling paper. If New York City recycled all their paper, then New York City taxpayers can save money and live in a better environment.

Sources:
https://www.grownyc.org/whats-your-wastehttps://www.grownyc.org/recycling/factshttp://paper-newt.org/paper-neutrality/recycled-vs-non-recycled-paper/