A Victim of Plastic Littering

Author's note; I recently posted the product concluding the impacts on the environment. This is my follow up piece for that project. My goal before I started was to write a different kind of piece than I usually write. My focus was learning a new organization as well as a focus on making it persuasive. 

I sit in the sand, helpless as I watch the damages of plastic waste. The sea turtle's breathing slows as the plastic has already been digested; its intestines have given up. The marine veterinarian's van pulls up a minute later, but at that point it's too late. The turtle has become another statistic, a victim of plastic littering. Poor decisions made by careless humans have cost this innocent creature so much, and at this point where is the blame placed? How can this scenario be prevented in the future? These questions can't sit any longer. They need to be addressed, acted upon, before more animals fall victim to plastic litter.

In oceans or in landfills, plastic never truly decomposes. Although plastic seems to break down over time, the reality is that it's just breaking into smaller and smaller pieces, the small pieces being just as hazardous as the large pieces. Unless plastic is specifically engineered to be biodegradable, it can cause serious problems to wildlife and their habitats. When animals get caught up in large quantities of plastic, their swimming capabilities are limited, and unless the problem is addressed quickly, the animal will drown. On the other hand, the smaller pieces are more easily swallowed by marine life, and most times it will clog up the digestive system, making it impossible to survive.

In other instances, when animals low on the food chain ingest the plastic and survive, it can still create just as much of a problem as when the animals don't survive. When these smaller creatures are then eaten by predators, the infected animal is then inside the predators systems. In extreme cases in which the level of plastic litter in the ocean is higher, the ingested plastic will work its way up the food chain until the point where humans are then eating their own litter. Just one split-second decision to not throw away a piece of plastic can make a difference to hundreds of animals as well as a regular person going out for Friday Fish Fry.

Over 100,000 marine mammals and one million seabirds die each year from ingesting or becoming entangled in plastic that doesn't degrade. An average American contributes 185 lbs of plastic each year to that statistic. Each and every one of those pounds takes at least 500 years to decompose. By the time current plastic waste is degraded, there will be far too much plastic in landfills, and the amount of landfills will increase substantially. This can lead to huge problems with pollution caused by landfills as well, which affects not only the wildlife, but the contributors to the original problem as well.

The first step towards changing to biodegradable is being currently activated in grocery stores across the country. Rewarding green friendly customers that reuse grocery bags with discounts is a small part to a healthy future. There are also organizations and companies trying to get plastic bags replaced with biodegradable bags in places such as grocery stores. Besides thinning plastic products like garbage bags and tupperware, and replacing bags in grocery stores, not much has been put in place for this cause.

The concept of biodegradable bags has not been progressing fast enough for the drastic change that's needed, but every small step helps. As the centuries go by and regular plastic is still degrading, biodegradable bags popularity will hopefully increase, and the health of wildlife and their habitats will improve as well. This vision can only be achieved if the protection of wildlife goes up in the list of priorities throughout the world, and the setting up of a strong foundation will take a lot of effort. Now the only question left to answer is: who’s up for the challenge?