Plastic and Water Pollution
It is not a secret that plastic is one of the most used materials in the world and at the same time one of the most dangerous for the environment. Because it is practical and cheap people use it all the time, generating one of the major problems the world is facing. On the other hand we have Water. What would be of us without this essential resource? You might have a bottle of water next to you or find it uncomplicated to access. However, this is not the reality for many people in the world, and more specifically, Colombia.
Water pollution affects health in many different ways. Throughout the world about 2 million people drink polluted water and about 1 billion of them get a disease transmitted from polluted water. This affects mostly the low income communities that are situated in places near companies which are the major polluters of these water sources nearby. What happens in water pollution is that chemical pollutants get in many different ways to the water most people use. As an effect of the chemicals in the water they can produce cancer, hormonal imbalance and disrupt brain function. The most common diseases producing an increase in the death rate in communities from water pollution are: diarrhoea, cholera, dysentery, typhoid, and polio (Rinkesh). In Colombia this is a problem that has affected around 6.9% of the population which would be around 1,209 deaths per year (Tiempo). However, water pollution is not only affecting a major part of Colombia´s society but also its environment. The chemicals and heavy metals affect an organism’s life making it shorter and cutting their ability to reproduce. One of the main chemical pollutants in water is carbon. Making the water acidic and making it a challenge for fish and marine species to survive. Finally, water pollution also causes one harmful process called eutrophication in which a marine species gets a lot of nutrients but the oxygen levels decrease and suffocates animals and fishes in dead zones. These are worrying ways that water pollution can affect people and at the same time the environment. Alarming information like this one makes us reflect and think about what we can do to change it.
Scientists and researchers always tell us plastic is bad for the environment but if we want to find a solution we have to go way deeper than that. To solve a problem the most important thing is to fully understand it. Plastic is one of the most used resources by humans. Because of its large amounts and low cost, it makes it the perfect material to carry food, use for reunions or anything. Through time as humans we have created a strong dependency to plastic and replacing it would be a hard task. Plastic is damaging to the environment in many different ways, and one of them is the process through which it is produced. Global warming fuels like coal, oil and fracking gas are an essential part of the production of plastic and that is why plastic is such a damaging material to the world. More than 99% of plastics are made of chemicals that fossil fuels produce (Friends of the Earth). It would end up being a vicious cycle. The more plastic we use, the more petrochemicals we need and when we use those we create more toxic gases to the environment. There are other multiple ways plastic is damaging the environment. The only way to end plastic waste is to burn it. However, burning it means releasing all of the toxic gases that are then released into the atmosphere. It has even affected the food chain because scientists have detected at least 5 mm of plastic in salt, beer, seafood and vegetables (O´connor). Because there is so much plastic production, microscopic pieces often fall off from car tyres, cosmetics and clothes. When entering the rivers, soil and ocean animals ingest it and we eat those animals leading to us eating small amounts of plastics everyday. This could lead to multiple health problems that are still unknown. Plastic is the cancer of the Earth because it starts and quickly spreads through the world’s highest mountains to the deepest oceans. When we try to exterminate it or give an end to it by burning it we affect the earth like chemotherapy in the body creating an unreliable solution.
Microfibers are one type of less obvious plastic that is majorly affecting the environment. Microfibers are microscopic types of plastic of 5mm or less that come from larger plastic products. They can be part of plastic bags that break down in the ocean, microbeads in cosmetics or paintings in the buildings. They can be found basically everywhere. The problem with them is that they are thinner than human hair and the bigger products they are part of shed them through their long lifetime. Polyester, Nylon and acrylic are the perfect material for companies to make our clothes because of its stretchiness, warmth, lightness and durability. One washing load can shead around 17 million thousand pieces of microfiber (Hobson). You may be wondering that if microfibers are so small and microscopic what would the problem be of them entering into our body? Because of their tiny size the amount of toxins and poisonous substances would be more concentrated. Many of these toxins are banned now but escaped to oceans long ago and entered the food chain cycle and did not leave. For example DDT was (Chemical compound ) banned in the United States because of its low solubility and large rate of bioaccumulation, in addition to its long term dangers to aquatic life (US EPA). As microfibers can threaten aquatic life it would also put our health in danger because before microfiber enters the ocean it can get stuck in our kidneys, liver and nervous system. Their microscopic size and high concentration makes it dangerous for humans and natural ecosystems.
Since Colombia is really near to the Pacific Ocean plastic waste can majorly affect the coasts and the oceans there so that is why Colombia decided to take action. To fight this problem, Colombia has produced multiple eco-friendly alternatives. One of them is an increase in the carrying capacity of the plastic bags to reduce how much we use them. This has shown a 27% reduction in the production of them (Semana). During July 2017 the government introduced a tax to the consumers that were going to use a plastic bag. 1 plastic bag cost one US cent and each year that amount would rise 50%. After the implementation of this tax many citizens state that they have seen a positive reduction in the amount of plastic waste and consumption patterns of plastic. Another action Colombia is taking to fight water and plastic pollution was that in 2015 in an island near Cartagena volunteers collected 96 tons of waste which was surprising for such a small location (Semana).
This research and information might scare us and make us fear for what the future of the earth would look like but it also creates motivation to create a positive change. Many people might believe that when dealing with plastics recycling is the solution. However, recycling would only delay the damages plastic would create. For example: If a plastic bottle is recycled then it would turn into microfibers and damage our body and the oceans as already mentioned. This would turn into a cycle in which we would end up where we started. Bio plastics have been demonstrated to be a solution that would help us with our dependency on plastics as humans but at the same time have no carbon or damaging footprint on our Earth. Bioplastics are made by extracting elements from corn or sugarcane and afterwards convert to polylactic acids and they are engineered by microorganisms. They take a maximum of 80 days to degrade and also at a certain warm temperature without leaving toxins in the earth that would have an effect on climate change. Bioplastics degrade and emit less carbon and they are just basically returning the carbon the plants took while growing, reducing its carbon footprint on the planet (GIBBENS).
It is important to open our eyes and see that this is happening right now but we still can do many things to stop it from completely damaging the Earth. Maybe many people do not read news about plastic, water pollution and climate change because they do not want to see how terrible the world is. However, now more than ever we need to be saturated with information and worrying figures. Generating fear in younger people would motivate them to change and write the future they want to see for their world.
Bibliography:
Rinkesh. “17 Critical and Grievous Diseases Caused by Water Pollution.” Conserve Energy Future, 2 June 2017, www.conserve-energy-future.com/critical-and-grievous-diseases-caused-by-water-pollution.php.
Tiempo, Casa Editorial El. “Más de 17.000 Muertes En El País, Por Mala Calidad de Aire Y Agua.” El Tiempo, 21 Jan. 2019, www.eltiempo.com/salud/muertes-causadas-por-la-contaminacion-en-colombia-317364. Accessed 1 June 2021.
“How Is Plastic Made? Climate Change Is a Key Ingredient | Friends of the Earth.” Friends of the Earth, 2019, friendsoftheearth.uk/plastics/how-is-plastic-made.
O´ Connor, Mary. “Microfiber Diet? Humans and Other Animals Are Consuming These Synthetics | Greenbiz.” Www.greenbiz.com, 14 Aug. 2018, www.greenbiz.com/article/microfiber-diet-humans-and-other-animals-are-consuming-these-synthetics#:~:text=There%20is%20also%20concern%20that. Accessed 1 June 2021.
Hobson, Jeremy. “Every Time You Wash Clothes, Millions of Microfibers Are Released into the Water | Here & Now.” Wbur.org, WBUR, 28 Aug. 2019, www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2019/08/28/microfiber-pollution-ocean.
US EPA. “DDT — a Brief History and Status | US EPA.” US EPA, 9 Aug. 2018, www.epa.gov/ingredients-used-pesticide-products/ddt-brief-history-and-status.
Semana. “DIAN Certificó El Valor Del Impuesto Que Le Cobrarán Por Bolsa de Plástico En El Supermercado.” Semana.com Últimas Noticias de Colombia Y El Mundo, 6 Jan. 2021, www.semana.com/economia/articulo/dian-certifico-el-valor-del-impuesto-que-le-cobraran-por-bolsa-plastica-en-el-supermercado/202120/. Accessed 1 June 2021.
GIBBENS, SARAH. “Bioplastics — Are They Truly Better for the Environment?” Environment, 15 Nov. 2018, www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/are-bioplastics-made-from-plants-better-for-environment-ocean-plastic.