Reducing the Use of Plastic

By: Ashley Walden, Bailey Bernhard &

Macey Fuller

Table of Contents
Title page............1
Table of Contents......2
Position..........3
History of Problem............4
Causes of Problem..6
Consequences of Problem.7
Proposed Solution of Problem...9
Position of Those Who Oppose10
Graphs, Charts, Diagrams, Etc11

Work Cited..13

Position
Bottle Bandits position is to inform the public on the environmental hazards of
using plastic, to encourage using less plastic, and to persuade to recycle. Recycling is
one of the easiest ways to help reduce plastic pollution but not very many people do it.
Our planet and our environment are our home and we as a community and human
population should keep it clean. Out of all those millions and millions of planets
floating around there in space, this is our planet, this is our little one, so we just
got to be aware of it and take care of it. Paul McCartney (English musician) .
Biodiversity refers to a variety of plants, animals and other living things on our
planet. Biodiversity is important and plastic pollution can negatively affect the
environment and ruin biodiversity. Global warming is another fiery issue that the public
always discusses. No one event directly leads to Global Warming but pollution obviously
does not help this issue. A healthy planet/environment is essential for a healthy life. The
more people that don't care about the environment, the more it becomes dirty, unclean,
and polluted. Air pollution can cause diseases and cancer. Water pollution is also
another hazard to using plastic. Liter and other plastic gets in waterways and oceans
and pollutes water and kills marine animals. Plastic can be convenient and cheap but

the environment is more important in the long run and for future generations of humans.
Keep the environment clean, your health depends on it !

History of Problem
Plastic pollution has been around as long as plastic has been itself. The first
synthetic polymer was created in 1869 by John Wesley Hyatt and the use of plastic has
been incessant ever since. In the first decade of the 21st century, there was more
plastic made in the United States than all of the plastic made up to the year 2000.
Plastic has found its way into our oceans by wind and rain and now plastic products
make up about 40% of the Worlds oceans surfaces. According to a report released by
the World Economic Forum and Ellen Macarthur Foundation there will be more plastic,
by weight, than fish in our oceans. USA Today informs that the U.S. alone dumps a
garbage truck size load of plastic into the oceans every minute and is suspected to
increase to 4 garbage trucks worth by 2050.
Plastic takes over 1000 years to decompose, resulting in every piece of plastic
ever created still existing today, with a large portion of it polluting our oceans and
harming wildlife. The ocean is not the only thing polluted by plastics. Plastics are
harmful in many other ways some including the toxic liquid leaching from landfills into
groundwater, plankton eating microplastics and poisoning the food chain, and the
harmful chemicals that enter the human blood and tissue like carcinogens. The gravity
of the problem has become more and more evident as plastics find their way to places
they don't belong especially in the ocean and on the ground as litter.

The Plastic Pollution Coalition is a global alliance of individuals, organizations,

businesses and policymakers working toward a world free of plastic pollution. They
have created a website that lists all of the ways that plastic can harm the environment
and invites people to take a pledge against the single-use of plastic. There are other
groups and organizations that also make people aware of the harm of plastics and call
them to take action in saving the environment.
The APPS (33 U.S.C. 1905-1915) is a law preventing plastic pollution from ships
and was amended by the Marine Plastic Pollution Research and Control Act (MPPRCA)
in 1987 which requires the Environmental Protection Agency and National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration to research the effects of improper disposal of plastic into
the ocean and methods on how to solve the pollution problem. Other legislation that has
worked toward tackling the plastic pollution problem is the Shore Protection Act (SPA).
The SPA applies to the transportation of plastic goods on vessels in the ocean and the
EPA and Coast Guard have the responsibility of creating regulations under the SPA.
One final example of legislation that protects our oceans from plastic pollution is the
Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act (MPRSA). The MPRSA establishes
regulations against the transportation of plastic material from the United States for the
purpose of dumping, transportation of material from anywhere from the purpose of
dumping by U.S. agencies or U.S. flagged vessels and, the dumping of material from
outside of the United States into United States territorial waters.

Cause of the Problem

The cause of plastic pollution is the improper disposal of plastic bottles and other
plastic goods resulting in the material ending up in our oceans and on our shores.
Although the lack of proper disposal and lack of recycling of plastic products is
ultimately what causes plastic to enter the environment, a large contributor to the
problem is simply the overuse of plastic in our society. Plastic is everywhere, from a
water bottle to a microscopic plastic bead in a product, and when these are thrown
away or washed down the drain they enter the environment and have negative effects
on the wildlife and ecosystem. Since plastic is inexpensive there are countless amounts
of plastic being used on a day to day basis in the world. The major problem with plastic
is that it is engineered to last and is virtually impossible to get rid of unless it is burned,
which can pollute the air and release poisonous chemicals that can result in respiratory
problems for humans and animals living in the area. The cause of the problem is the
over manufacturing of and overuse of plastic that can only find itself existing in a new
place or form and cannot be gotten rid of.

Consequences of Problem
Manufacturers use petroleum to make and transport plastic products. Every time
you buy a plastic drinking bottle, you also are using some of the worlds limited supply of

oil. The plastic bottle production in the U.S. requires millions of barrels of crude oil
annually. There are harmful chemicals in the bottles which include bisphenol-A, or BPA,
and phthalates, and more. Phthalates are commonly used in the U.S. to make plastics
such as polyvinyl chloride (PVC) more flexible. The chemicals can leach into the water
especially when exposed to heat or when the water bottle is old. It has been strongly
linked to a host of health problems including certain types of cancer, neurological
difficulties, early puberty in girls, reduced fertility in women, premature labour, and
defects in newborn babies.
Americans recycle only one out of every six plastic bottles, according to National
Geographic Kids. Plastic water bottles are found on sidewalks, in parks, front yards and
rivers. If you chop them into tiny pieces they still take more than a human lifetime to
decompose. When you throw away a plastic drinking bottle, it will sit in a landfill for
hundreds of years without decomposing. The growing piles of our plastic garbage and
litter threaten our wildlife and natural areas, making our world a less beautiful and less
healthy place. In addition, cleaning up all the litter and trash costs taxpayers hundreds
of millions of dollars each year, according to the Container Recycling Institute. Plastic
bottle tops are currently not recyclable, and as with plastic bags they often end up at the
bottom of the ocean, and in the stomachs of a variety of animal species that mistake
them for food. One albatross that was recently found dead on a Hawaiian island had a
stomach full of 119 bottle caps.
If we continue to use plastic bottles in the future, the amount of plastic bottles in
the world will affect the wildlife and environment in a negative way. According to
[Link], there are 100,000 marine mammals killed by plastics in our ocean. 44

percent of all seabird species, 22 percent cetaceans, a growing list of fish species, and
all sea turtle species have been documented with plastic in or around their bodies.
When the plastics arent recycled, they have a high chance of ending up in the oceans
or landfills, where they cannot decompose. Plastic water bottles take over 1,000 years
to biodegrade. Only about 25 percent of plastics are recycled. If we recycled 75 percent
of the plastics, we could save 1 billion gallons of oil and 44 million cubic yards of landfill
space annually. In the near future, many animals could go extinct because of human's
unconscious thoughts of throwing away plastic water bottles. The numbers and
percentages of water bottles in the landfills could be doubled in the next twenty years.
The water bottles would stay in the landfills or around the world from litter for 1,000
years. Almost every plastic water bottle that was ever made is still on earth, unless it
was incinerated. If we do not recycle more plastic bottles the environment is in trouble
and so are the living things that are on this Earth.

Proposed Solutions
There are many proposed solutions to using plastic and most of them are quite easy
tasks. The first easiest and most common way to help the environment is to recycle. Recycling
is a process that changes materials into new products to reduce waste and pollution. Another
easy way to help reduce waste is to buy in bulk. This means buy the bigger container to use
less plastic. People can lower the amount of plastic waste by not buying water. Drink refrigerator
or sink water at home and when you go out, use aluminum rewashable to go bottles. In one

year, a person usually uses 167 disposable plastic bottles and only recycles 38. Buying plastic
water is also expensive. Boycott microbeads is a more strenuous solution. Microbeads are little
plastic balls that are in cosmetic products such as, face wash and lotion. Microbeads give a nice
texture for the skin. The problem with microbeads is they get washed into the waterways
because they don't disintegrate completely. They can appear into oceans and harm marine
animals such as fish. Then humans eat fish who contain microbeads. The use of microbeads is
not healthy and therefore we should ban them sooner than later. Another solution that is not
always simple is cooking. If people would cook more instead of buying fast food, we would use
less plastic. Home made meals are more healthier than eating fast food. People should bring
their own garment bags to stores instead of using the plastic bags that the stores use. Reducing
the amount of plastic bags being used will definitely help the environment and reduce plastic
pollution. Lastly, purchase items second hand to avoid having the item wrapped in plastic like it
is in stores. Some of these solutions seem strenuous and unrealistic at times but if you care
about the environment, you will make sacrifices.

Positions of Those Who Oppose

While researching organizations who are for the use of plastic water bottles, the
majority of the websites that came up were organizations that are against the use of
plastic water bottles. I searched the pros of using plastic water bottles, the only pros
they had were it helps prevent dehydration and it is convenient to carry around. You can
have the same pros with a reusable water bottle and it can be safer for the environment.
The only people who would be for the use of plastic water bottles would be the
companies who produce the bottles because they get money from selling the water
bottles. We should not have anyone for the use of plastic water bottles because of all

the damage they have and will do to the environment. More people are against the use
of plastic water bottles and that is a good sign for our future.

Graphs, Charts, Etc.

Work Cited
"The History and Future of Plastics." Chemical Heritage Foundation. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 May 2016.
Staff, Luke Roney Newser. "By 2050, Our Oceans Will Hold More Plastic than Fish." USA Today.
Gannett, 25 Jan. 2016. Web. 12 May 2016.
"OCEAN PLASTICS POLLUTION:A Global Tragedy for Our Oceans and Sea Life." Ocean Plastics
Pollution. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 May 2016.
"6 Reasons You Should Care About Our Environment - The EcoAdmirer."EcoAdmirer. N.p., 16 Mar.
2013. Web. 13 May 2016.

"10 Ways to Reduce Plastic Pollution." NRDC. N.p., 05 Jan. 2016. Web. 13 May 2016.
"Bottled Water Facts." Ban the Bottle RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 May 2016
"13 Impressive Pros and Cons of Bottled Water." ConnectUS. N.p., 22 Aug. 2015. Web. 16 May
2016.
"Water Bottle Pollution -- National Geographic Kids." National Geographic. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 May
2016.
"Don't Trash The Future: Recycle." Odyssey. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 May 2016.
"What's the Problem with Plastic Bottles?" One Green Planet. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 May 2016.
"The Negative Effects of Using Plastic Drinking Bottles." [Link]. [Link],
28 Jan. 2014. Web. 16 May 2016.
"Laws That Protect Our Oceans." EPA. Environmental Protection Agency, n.d. Web. 16 May 2016.

"Causes, Effects and Solutions of Plastic Pollution - Conserve Energy Future."

ConserveEnergyFuture. N.p., 01 Nov. 2015. Web. 17 May 2016.