Plastic, Plastic Everywhere: Plastic, that handy, lightweight, nearly indestructible stuff is... well, indestructible. We throw a lot of it away, but for plastic there is no 'away'. Most of it ends up in landfills, where it will sit for a few thousand years. A tiny bit, about 9% of the US share, gets recycled. A lot of it ends up in the ocean, about a million tons so far. Of that vast amount, about 35,000 t ons has ended up in those swirling garbage patches – every ocean has at least one of them. But the 965,000 plus other tons of seaborne plastic has just 'disappeared'. But plastic doesn't simply disappear. It'll be back. Shut up and eat your fish.
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
It Never Goes Away
I've gotten to the point where I almost feel guilty dealing with anything that's plastic. It is so ubiquitous. From where you're sitting right now, how many things can you see that are plastic or contains plastic components? Thank goodness I can salve my conscience some by recycling all the plastic waste this one little household with only two people in it generates. But I know it's just the smallest atom of help for a problem that staggers the imagination.
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2 comments:
What I've wondered about for some time is this: what's the total annual tonnage and environmental impact of all the synthetic rubber that's worn off the millions of car and truck tires on American roads? Where does it go? In to air? The ground? Washed into streams, rivers, lakes, oceans? And what impact does it have when it gets there?
I don't even want to think about that, Robert. My guess is it all goes into the water table.
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