You can find many types of plastic in the environment. Wherever you are, just have a look around you and you will surely find a cigarette butt, a used water bottle or even a plastic bag. Not that surprising when you discover that over 200.000 tonnes of plastic waste enter the Mediterranean Sea every year (IUCN, 2020)!
Eugène Poubelle, a fellow Frenchman who invented the trash can in the 19th century, must be sad that his concept went to waste. Plastic in the environment can be found almost everywhere and in many different forms:
MACRO PLASTIC: plastic items measuring more than 5 mm: cigarette butt, plastic bottle, fishing nets, sanitary and cosmetic products, etc.
MICRO PLASTIC: plastic items measuring less than 5 mm
NANO PLASTIC: plastics smaller than 0.1mm
One could therefore say that size matters because 14.4 million tonnes of micro plastics have been found at the bottom of our oceans (Barrett et al.,2020). Most of them are disposed in their original shape (microbeads, textile,…) but they can also be created by the erosion of macro plastics. Even though we cannot see it, let’s keep in mind that this is not how it should be. Mr Poubelle would not be proud of you… Plastic in our environment affects the wildlife and scientist are slowly discovering that it may indirectly affect us too.
How? Let’s focus on our oceans and on the food chain. The plastic you gladly let slip through your fingers pretending you did not do it on purpose will either stay in the ground or be washed away to the ocean by water, snow, rain, through our rivers. According to the Earthwatch Institute 40% of the identified plastic litter found in European freshwater is directly related to consumer-related products such as bottles, food wrappers and cigarette butts (Earthwatch Institute, 2019). In other words, because of people who are not being careful.
This affects our wildlife to a point where unfortunately we can say that all species of sea turtles, 60% of whale species, 36% of seal species and 40% of seabirds species have been documented as ingesting plastic (Kuhn et al., 2015). How come? Sea turtles for example cannot make a difference between a transparent plastic bag and a jellyfish. And it is not their fault.
How does it affect you? As well as ingesting micro plastics found in sea food, it is shown that a high exposure to this size of plastic can affect your health. It may cause stress and inflammation, block your respiratory or gastrointestinal tracts and reduce your respiration and energy (European Environment Agency, 2021). Doesn’t sound nice right?
Plastic waste is therefore an issue that affects everything around us. It affects the air quality, our waters, our wildlife and our health. Nobody enjoys laying on a beach surrounded by plastic and there can be no good news about micro and nano plastics in our food chain. What is the solution? As we said in our previous posts, today we are unable to not use plastic but we do have the possibility to choose how we manage our plastic waste. Take that first step and make our dear Mr Poubelle proud, be more careful with your plastic waste!
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