Plastic Trash Essay

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“PLASTIC TRASH” PASSAGE SET Source 1 How Plastic is Trashing the Planet Plastic was invented to make our lives better. But our dependence o nit has created an environmental crisis. Can we reduce our use befo re it’s too late?

By Laura Anastasia

1.Beep! Beep! Beep! The alarm on your cellphone shakes you from sleep. You stumble to the shower, dress, brush your teeth, and run a comb through your hair. There’s just enough time to grab a cereal bar and a bottle of orange juice before the school bus rolls down your block. Throwing your binder, folders, and a bag of chips into your backpack, you race out the door.

2.You’ve been awake for barely an hour, but you’ve already used or touched plastic dozens of times. The material is a huge part of our lives; it’s in everything from electronics and food packaging to medical devices and airplane s. Most plastic is human-made, produced using oil and other fossil fuels.

3.What makes plastic so popular? Unlike natural materials such as wood and glass, plastic is lightweight. It’s also cheap and durable.dBut the very qualities that make plastic so useful to us also make it incredibly dangerous to the environment. Plastic doesn’t just go away. Instead, it breaks down into tiny pieces over time. And those pieces will stick around for hundreds— or perhaps even thousands—of years.

4.For decades, people have sipped from plastic straws and toted groceries in plastic bags without a second thought. And all that plastic— much of it used only once- has added up. Worldwide, we’ve produced a staggering 9.2 billion tons of plastic since the 1950s. (Think of it this way: One of the heaviest statues in the United States, the Statue of Liberty, weighs 225 tons.)

5.Where does all our discarded plastic go? Only a small amount of it is ever recycled. Much of the rest ends up in the ocean, threatening the lives of the creatures that inhabit its waters.

6.The problem is massive—and projected to get worse. “The amount of plastic produced is growing more and more rapidly,” warns Ted Siegler, a global waste management expert. By 2050, it’s estimated that we’ll have created 13 billion tons of plastic waste.

7.That’s why, around the globe, individuals, companies, and even entire countries are working to reduce their plastic usage. But will those efforts be enough?

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Source 2: The Rise of “Throwaway Living” 448 million tons of plastic produced globally in 2015 Published by National Geographic

1.Synthetic, or human-made, plastic was invented in the early 1900s,fbut production started to soar during World War II (1939-45). Natural materials were in short supply during the war, so people turned to plastic to help construct lightweight planes, parachutes, and supplies.

2.Because plastic was cheap and plentiful, manufacturers continued to use it after the war. Production really ramped up when companies began to make household goods—such as plates, cups, and utensils—with the material. The items were marketed as disposable and as a way to save precious time.

3.A 1955 Life magazine article titled “Throwaway Living” celebrated the plastic revolution. The piece shows a smiling family tossing plastic plates and utensils into the air, noting that those items would typically take hours to wash and dry after use but now “no housewife need bother.” People could make their lives easier by simply throwing out their family’s plastic ware after every meal.

4.And in many ways, plastic has made our lives easier. More important, the material actually saves lives every day. Plastic is in car seat belts and airbags, in the helmets that firefighters and soldiers wear, and in the incubators that help keep premature babies alive.

5.Such products are designed to last for years. But about 40 percent of all plastic produced is meant to be used just once then thrown away. Items like the sandwich bags that hold your lunch, the ketchup packets at your favorite fast- food restaurant, and the packaging of just about anything you buy online are all driving up the total amount of plastic waste we produce.

6.It’s the plastic we use once and toss away, experts say, that is putting the environment in crisis.

B y t h e N u m b e r s 448 million

Tons of plas tic prod uced globally in 2015 Source: National Geographic

1 8 % Percentage of plastic recycled around the wor ld annually

Source: National Geographic

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Source 3: Trash Published by National Geographic

Asia’s Trash Problem

1.In your town, workers probably pick up garbage regularly and cart it off to a landfill. But imagine if the trash in your neighborhood were never collected. All that garbage would pile up.

2.In some countries—particularly certain island nations in Asia— that’s a fact of life. They don’t have reliable trash collection or properly maintained landfills. Instead, people leave their garbage in heaps on the ground or dump it into local waterways, where it eventually is swept out to sea Experts estimate that 9 million tons of plastic end up in our oceans each year and that by 2050, we’ll have created 13 billion tons of plastic waste.

3.To make matters worse, people in these largely poor Asian nations have started using more singleserve packets of things like condiments, detergent, and shampoo. Many of them can’t afford to buy bigger sizes. All that non- recyclable plastic packaging only adds to the problem.

4.In the Philippines, for example, some rivers are now so clogged with trash that people can hop across the water on piles of discarded plastic rather than cross by bridge.

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5.When plastic waste ends up in the ocean, the results are often tragic. Last year, rescuers found a sick pilot whale near the shore of southern Thailand. It couldn’t swim. In fact, it could hardly breathe.

6.Later, as veterinarians tended to the animal, it vomited five plastic grocery bags. The whale died shortly after. Tests eventually revealed that it had more than 17 pounds of plastic in its stomach, including anotherd80 or so plastic bags.

7.That’s just one example of how plastic can be deadly to animals. Nearly 700 ocean species—from zooplankton and fish to sea turtles and dolphins— have been harmed by plastic. That damage ranges from eating it to getting stuckdin it.dFor example, some animals get trapped in plastic six- pack drink holders.Others,dincluding many bird species, suffocate inside plastic grocery bags.

8.And, of course, many sea creatures-like the pilot whale- eat plastic. In the ocean, the material gets broken down by sunlight, waves, an d heat, resulting in pieces that are often tinier than a pinkie fingernail. Those bits,dcalled microplastics, become coated with algae over time, making them smelldlike food tto many sea creatures. They stuff themselves with it, to the point that they don’thave room left in their stomachs for any actual food. They die from starvation as a result.

9.Eating plastic hurts animals in other ways too. The toxins in the plastic can seriously affect their behavior and digestion, and the ecosystem as a whole, says Matthew Savoca. He is a scientist who studies the effects of plastic on marine life.d“It affects not just the individual animals that eat plastic, but the animals that eat those animals,” he says.

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Source 4: How to Make A difference Published by National Geographic

Putting Plastic in Its Place

1.Many people are trying to help solve the world’s plastic crisis. In the United States, for example, plastic grocery bags are now banned or taxed in some cities, including Seattle and Washington, D.C. And there is a nationwide movement to encourage people to stop using so many plastic drinking straws. Some countries are taking even bolder steps.

2.Global companies including Starbucks and Hilton Hotels recently announced plans to reduce or eliminate their use of plastic straws. And earlier this year, Alaska Airlines switched from plastic stirrers to paper ones on its flights, thanks in part to one teen’s letter.

3.What’s more, last December the U.S. and 192 other countries passed the United Nations Clean Seas agreement. The pact is a formal declaration of those countries’ intent to stop polluting the oceans with plastic waste.

4.Experts say such steps are promisingdas long as the efforts ultimately include funding and the manpower to help developing countries manage their plastic trash. “We need to develop wastedcollection systems around the world that are capable of managing the waste that is being generated,” Siegler says. “That’s really the key issue.”

5. Individuals also have an important role to play. Experts advise focusing on plastic that’s meant for one-time use, either using those items or avoiding buying them in the first place.

6.“When I was a kid, Ziploc bags were a singleduse item,” Savoca says. Now when he and his family use plastic bags, they treat them like Tupperware. “We wash them and reuse them and don’t get rid of them until they’re practical ly destroyed. If more people do things like that, it would make a difference.”

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Source 5: Can We Save Our Planet From Plastic? The problem of plastic trash can seem overwhelming, but many people around the globe are working to solve it. Here’s how you can join them.

But what?

3.This is a question that a growing number of people around the globe- from kidslike Anna to renowned scientists, corporate executives, and politicians- are asking. And they’ve come up with some pretty exciting ideas to solve the world’s plastic trash problem.

Here’s what they are doing and how you can help.

Tiny Pieces

4.After what happened on the beach that day, Anna decided to research the problem of plastic ttrash. She learned that in the ocean, sunlight, waves, and heat break down plastic intotiny pieces, from chips the size of a pinkie fingernail to bits so small they’re invisible to the naked eye. These pieces are called microplastics, and scientists estimate that trillions of themdare scattered throughout our oceans.

5.Anna also learned that microplastics are very difficult to get rid of. They are often too small for humans to spot easily. What’s more, algae can grow on microplastics, which makes them blend in with other, natural particles in the ocean. This is what makes microplastics so dangerous for marine animals, many of which get sick or die after eating them.

1.Anna Du, 12, was walking along t the beach one day in South Boston. She was collecting sea glass to make jewelry. But then, to her shock, she noticed something else scattered across the sand— something that wasn’t supposed to be there: tiny pieces of plastic. She picked one up. And then another. And another. Itdsoon became clear that thousands of pieces of plastic trash littered this beautiful beach. 2.Anna was horrified. She knew she had to do something.

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6.Anna wanted to tackle the problem of detecting microplastics. So she decided todconstruct a robotic device that could do what humans couldn’t. Anna’s device uses a special infrared camera and different types of light to detect the presence of microplastics on the ocean floor. The lights spot colors in plastic that make it stand out from sand and plant life.

Rachael Lallensack/Smithsonian.com Anna Du’s invention earned her a spot as a finalist in the Broadcom Masters, a national STEM competition for middle schoolers.

Ditch Plastic

7.Of course, finding and removing plastic already in the ocean is only part of thesolution to the problem. Experts say we must also seriously reduce the amount ofdplastic waste we create. To do this, many cities, states, and even entire countries are now passing laws banning certain plastic products. In the U.S., 349 cities, counties, and states have banned or taxed the use of plastic bags in stores. Thirty- two countries have plastic bag bans as well. Some cities, including Seattle, Miami Beach, and several cities in California have banned plastic straws in restaurants.

8.Businesses are joining in too. A new service called Loop is working to partner with companies that make foods, personalhygiene products,and household good s.Loop will package and deliver items in reusable containers made of glass or me tal instead of plastic. It works like this: When, say, your shampoo bottle is empty, someone from Loop will come pick up the used container and return it to the factory, where it will be cleaned, refilled, and sent out again.

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What We Can Do

9.New laws, business practices, and hightech robots are not the only things that can make a difference. We can too. Indeed, there are many small changes we can make in our everyday lives to reduce the amount of plastic we throw away. Switching to a reusable water bottle instead of buying plastic ones, packing lunch in reusable containers, and giving up plastic utensils are just a few of the ways we can all help. 10.You can also be an advocate for change. In fact, several campaigns against disposable plastic products were started by students. In 2016, Bella Rossborough, then 12, helped pass a law that banned plastic bags in stores in her hometown of Kennebunk, Maine. In 2017, Shelby O’Neil, then 16, reached outdto Alaska Airlines and convinced the company to stop using plastic straws. Last year, 12-year-old Chloe Mei Espinosadconvinceddleadersdofdher school district in California to stop providing plastic straws in 33 school cafeterias.

11.There is no doubt that solving the world’s plastic crisis will be challenging. Butthe key to progress will be persistence. If we all follow Anna’s example and takedaction, whether it’s by inventing a new technology or by reducing the amount of plastic we throw away each day, change will definitely come.