Question

Why is plastic pollution an environmental problem? Why are people so worried about plastic pollution?

Answer 1

There are a wide variety of reasons why plastic can be considered an environmental problem. 

• Global plastic production has increased and as a result so has global plastic waste. (See: How much plastic waste is there in the world?) 
• Plastic once discarded into the natural environment has many negative impacts. (See: What are the effects of plastic in the natural environment?) 
• Plastic production and pollution affects climate change. (See: How does plastic affect climate change?)
• Plastics may never biodegrade. (See: How long do different everyday plastics take to biodegrade?)
• Plastic is not indefinitely recyclable. (See: How many times can plastic be recycled?) 
• There is an environmental cost to recycling plastic. (See: What is the environmental cost of recycling?
• The problem of single-use plastics - Plastic is frequently used as a single-use, disposable product. For example:   
  1. According to the organisation plastic oceans, 50% of plastic produced ever year is for single-use application. 
  2. Approximately 36% (or 146 million tons) of plastic produced in 2015 was used for packaging alone.  (Geyer et al., 2017)
  3. In 2019, Coca-Cola produced 3 million tonnes of plastic packaging. This is equivalent to 200,000 bottles every minute.   

    

References  

Geyer, R., Jambeck, J.R. and Law, K.L., (2017). Production, use, and fate of all plastics ever made. Science advances, 3(7), p.e1700782. 

Laville, S. (2019). Coca-Cola admits it produces 3m tonnes of plastic packaging a year [online]. The Guardian. Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/mar/14/coca-cola-admits-it-produces-3m-tonnes-of-plastic-packaging-a-year> (Accessed: 24 June 2020). 

Plastic Ocean (2018). Plastic Ocean - The Facts. Available at: < https://plasticoceans.org/the-facts/ > (Accessed: 24 June 2020).