Earth Day! Unveiling Our Plastic Problem

In 2024, the most recent alarming news about pollution is the danger and prevalence of microplastics. Now ubiquitous around the globe, microplastics are small plastic particles less than 5 millimeters long. When released into the ocean, they often find their way into the fish and eventually the food we eat. Even smaller nanoplastics have been found throughout the human body. Scientists are concerned that these can affect our bodies through heart disease, cancer, and even Alzheimer’s disease. For a long time, people have been concerned about plastic pollution, especially in our oceans. Now with more research into the effects of microplastics on our bodies and planet, the issue has become more urgent.

In California, we have tried to reduce single-use plastics such as straws, utensils, and famously, grocery bags. Although many believe that reusable alternatives are the solution to these issues, recent research into the amount of energy, water, and waste produced by these alternatives emphasizes the complexity of this issue. For example, the new 10-cent grocery bags made of thicker plastic require more 10-20 times more resources to produce compared to the old, translucent plastic bags. One study reported that a cloth bag needs to be reused 7,100 times (!) to offset the environmental impact of the original single, flimsy plastic bag. The overuse of cloth bags for the sake of sustainability also creates problems related to cleanliness and the spread of disease that are not seen with single-use bags. In the end, we must strive to reuse these bags or donate them to others before we think about discarding or recycling them.
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Recycling plastics themselves have also become a large problem. Most of the plastic items collected in our blue recycling bins are not actually recycled. Very few plastic items can be recycled, as most of them end up in a landfill or an incinerator. In the past, plastic waste was shipped away to other countries for recycling, dumping the pollution burden to poorer countries where there is less protection from environmental hazards. As these countries began refusing plastic waste arriving from our country (also known as “waste colonialism”), the cost of recycling plastics became much higher. 

                                                                     Kuta Beach in Bali, Indonesia.                                    Courtesy of CNN​

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On a trip to Bali, I was taken aback by the large amount of plastic garbage on the beaches and around town. Since the island was very hot and I drank lots of bottled water, I felt bad for contributing to   the pollution problem, but drinking regular tap water on the island was not an option. A lot of people had similar feelings of their contribution to the problem, and the government and several companies have formed to remove the plastic pollution plaguing the island. 4Ocean spearheads efforts to cleanup beaches all around Bali and the world, funded by sales of bracelets made from recycled plastic they have collected. The Ocean Cleanup company is more ambitious, tackling the Great Pacific Garbage Patch which contains millions of tons of floating plastics trapped circling in the ocean. With a large net and clean up system, they hope to quickly and humanely clear plastics from a patch of ocean over 1.6 million square kilometers, twice the size of Texas. They have also targeted the 1% of rivers that contribute to 80% of ocean pollution with smaller nets called interceptors. 

Reducing Plastic Pollution is not as simple as it looks; while recycling and plastic-free alternatives may seem viable, each solution holds its own problems that make the situation much more complicated and controversial than ever imagined. Recently, I switched to using glass bottles as an more sustainable alternative to single-use plastic; however, the fragility of glass bottles make it difficult to transport compared to plastic water bottles. Hopefully, in the near future, authentic efforts will be made to correct the faults in our current fight against plastic pollution both locally and globally.