Say No to Single Use Plastics

Plastic production has been on the rise since the 1950’s. However, single use plastics have led to the biggest recycling crisis globally that we have ever seen. “This is a story about a plot to trash the planet.” Plastic may be practical but you're kidding yourself if you still think plastic is good for the environment. Everyone loves to use single use plastics because it is easy, effective and cheap. However this is unfair to the recyclers on the back end, because plastic goes nowhere! It doesn't decompose. So, where does it all go? The United States used to ship all of our recycled plastics to China. However in 2017, China decided that they don't want our waste anymore. So, “Following China's waste ban, scrap plastic begins to flood other Southeast Asian nations.” Now places like Indonesia are now covered with Starbucks cups, berry containers, beef jerky bags and red solo cups from various places in the world like Oregon, the UK, Australia, Toronto and New Zealand. But once our waste is sent to Indonesia, then what? — I'll tell you, it just sits there. This isn't a long term solution, or even a good short term solution. We cannot treat other countries like dumping grounds and wastelands. The United States has a very out of sight, out of mind mindset when it comes to our recycling system and single use plastics. This is ignorant, and has resulted in long term problems that we now need to solve. “But a global movement is uniting to change the story.”

Citation:

https://www.storyofstuff.org/movies/plastic/where-your-recycled-plastic-ends-up/