Let’s take a look at the numbers and see how humanity has turned a blind eye onto this situation. Just for the record, we have 9.2 billion tons of trash on Earth – which is significantly more than the human population. Out of those 9.2 billion tons of trash, 6.9 billion is turned into trash, and out of that 6.9 billion, 6.3 billion tons are not recycled. Further, an estimated 5.3 million – 14 million tons of trash are found in the ocean annually as a result of being thrown off ships.
Once again, someone needs to come up with some type of solution, because sooner or later, our precious Mother Earth will go to waste. Leaving plastic the way we do will only lead to the accumulation of more and more waste yearly. Plastics may take up to a maximum of 1000 years to decompose, and only adding more to the pile won’t make matters any better. We cannot simply keep stacking up plastic waste on top of each other, they do take up space – alot of space. If all the trash in the United States were to be dumped into one landfill for the next one-hundred years, it would take up 647.5 square kilometers, and would be 121 meters deep. This emphasizes how critical the state of our plastic usage is. Astonishingly, this situation is not known by many people and is neither taken seriously; however, it is the ugly truth that needs to be accepted by many. This reason alone is why there lacks enough effort from people to reduce plastic waste.
While these numbers are shocking, what might even be more is our limited action on this problem. The current awareness that people have in this situation is not even close to slowing down plastic waste. To spread the right influence, it needs to start from someone, but not just your average Joe – someone of note, someone with an influential impact on society. This way, people will look up to them and follow their beliefs and ideas. There are many influential people in this world, one of them being Elon Musk – the Owner of SpaceX and Tesla. Surely if he were to announce his intentions to help reduce plastic waste, millions, or perhaps billions of people will flock to that idea.
So, what can YOU do, yes, you read this article. Here are 4 things you can do today:
- Rid yourself of using disposable plastics, such as grocery bags and plastic straws as 90% of plastic trash is made from items such as these. Instead, use reusable items such as recycled bags and metal straws.
- Do not buy plastic water. 20 billion plastic bottles are discarded annually
- Cook at home. This will reduce the amount of bags, containers or any other items used for your service in a restaurant. Plus, it’s healthier too!
- Make sure to look for second hand items. This is pretty straight forward.