Plastic Pollution

 Did you know that plastic can take up to 1,000 years to decompose? Plastic is great! It’s used for everything, it’s very useful as it is really durable but because of how durable it is, it’s really horrible for both our environment and animals. Plastic pollution has been a huge problem for a very long while. It’s an abundance of unwanted plastics here on earth. 

The four r’s, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and Repurpose. Reducing the use of plastic can be a huge help to plastic pollution. Why should we reduce the use of plastic? It’s really important because plastic production requires an enormous amount of energy and resources. This causes carbon emissions and contributes to global warming. What are some ways we can reduce the use of plastic? Well firstly, we can start by avoiding single-use plastics like straws, plastic shopping bags, water bottles, etc. 

Reuse, Why should we reuse plastic? By reusing plastic instead of manufacturing the same grade of material every time, we are effectively reducing the footprint of the plastic on dump sites across the globe. How can we reuse plastic? Reusing plastic isn’t that hard. We can reuse the plastic by using it the way it was manufactured to but we can also repurpose it. 

Recycle, Why should we recycle? Recycling takes about 88% less energy than making plastic, it also helps with reducing fossil fuel consumption. Not only does plastic take ages to break down it also makes up a huge amount of our solid waste, and because of how long it takes for the plastic to break down when we dump plastics into landfills, it doesn’t break down easily. Thus causing it to clog up valuable landfill space. 

Lastly, Repurpose, like mentioned in reduce we can repurpose the use of plastic. Not only is it easy it also saves us money. Plus, properly recycling these plastics benefits the environment by reducing the need for more landfills. We also conserve a lot of energy by repurposing/recycling plastic.