Plastic is light, easy to make and it is cheap to produce. Because of these reasons, plastic is used in everyday items to the point where everything we use and see seems to have plastic or is made from plastic. Yet, even though plastic is used in everyday items, its use can have harmful effects: plastic can have a negative lasting effects to the human health, harms the environment, and lastly plastic is a lasting thing that will only break down smaller, making it much harder and costly to clean and all around unsustainable for our planet.
When it comes to looking at your love ones the plastic effect is harm to human health. Reported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “93 percent of people had detectable levels of BPA in their urine.” It is also noted that “people with the highest exposure to BPA have an increased rate of heart disease and diabetes” (ehn.org). PBDEs is used in made home furnitures, the chemicals used is to slow down “the rate of ignition and fire growth.” PBDEs have generated international concern over their widespread distribution in the environment, their potential to bioaccumulate in humans and wildlife, and their suspected adverse human health effects.
Compare to Europe and Asia, the PBDE level is generally 10 to 100 times higher in the U.S. Also from animal testing PBDEs “have revealed the potential” damage on the “developing brain and the reproductive system” Some studies also have linked these chemicals with adverse effects in people, including reproductive abnormalities. (ehn.org) and is “classified” to be “carcinogen” to humans “by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. There can also be more effects of human health, but a large amount of studies is absent, remaining a large “unknown.”
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Not only does plastic negatively affect humans, it also has a negative effect on the environment. More than one-third of all plastic is disposable packaging like bottles and bags, many of which end up littering the environment. PBDEs have generated international concern over their widespread distribution in the environment, their potential to bioaccumulate in humans and wildlife, and their suspected adverse human health effects. More than 180 species of animals have been documented to ingest plastic debris, including birds, fish, turtles and marine mammals.
Plastic is chemically man made to last forever. It is not a renewable source, and contribute greatly on climate change. Climate change is “a change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns when that change lasts for an extended period of time.” There are four main reasons why climate change is deadly; rising temperatures, air pollution, extreme weather, and lastly vector borne diseases. Rising temperatures can make the pests; rats, fleas, mosquito, and more; that spread vector borne diseases to have a bigger suitable environment. High temperature can affect human other than diseases with; drought, heat waves, and heat stroke. Not only rising temperatures affect humans it has an affect on the wild life.
With the change of temperature many of the habitats that certain animals need to survive, will be damaged making the animal endangered or to extinction. High temperatures is make the Arctic melt cause the sea level to rise. Rise in sea level can pollute fresh water with salt water affecting all living things that need water, including humans, animals, and fish that need certain water to live in. Floods, hail, dust storms, and hurricane are some of the few extreme weather, if they are less active it can save money and lives. Air pollution can affect the environment too, but has the fast human health effects; heart and lung disease/cancer.
The reason why plastic should not be banned it because of the usage of plastic. Plastic is cheap and easy to make. Countries that are not going very well need can’t afford or make a alternative. There are a lot of places that need plastic for getting water. They would need something that is a lasting item and that is also light. These people have to travel miles to get water from a well where they then fill the plastic container up and take it back. Along with the years of plastic we have been using, and to switch it over a day is a change that will be hard and difficult.
In the end only places that are doing well and have money can think about the environment. But over all in the short and long time banning plastic or not using plastic any more can be more beneficial to mankind and to planet earth, along with all the other living organism. We have the technology to find a better replacement of plastic.
References
- https://earthday.org/facts-about-plastic-pollution/
- https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2018/05/plastics-facts-infographics-ocean-pollution/
- https://theoceancleanup.com/sources/
- http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.548.6806&rep=rep1&type=pdf
- https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/oceangarbage.html
- https://www.iucn.org/resources/issues-briefs/marine-mammals-and-plastic-pollution
