Impacts of Plastic Straws to the environment

Impacts of Plastic Straws to the environment

Introduction

Plastic straws are rampantly becoming a dining taboo to most folks around the world with hardly a drink taken without its use. Every straw produced  began as  a product of a piece of coal, natural gas or oil. Animal horn, rubber were ancient naturally-derived polymers unlike todays plastic that we use in packaging, didn’t come  up until 1907 when the first synthetic plastic made from fossil fuels was invented. This has been a big threat to the environment since plastic made from this are not biodegradable. It  may sit in a landfill, ocean or litter the streets for thousands of years without  decomposing. The more reason plastic straws should be banned all over American cities.

Impacts of Plastic Straws to the environment

Plastic Straws are harmful to the environment in that it poses a negative impact to aquatic life. Oceans and marine life face a bigger portion to this effect because plastics take a longer period of time to break into particles and once it’s in the ocean it stays there forever. They are so small, lightweight and often do not get through the mechanical recycling sorter. An analysis of trash collected in a period of five years shows that there are approximately 7.5 million plastics straws in American shorelines. Tons of plastic flow into the ocean every day and straws make up 0.025 percent of these. This sums up to about 437 million to 8.3 billion plastics straws on the whole world’s coastlines. According to a study in  the university of Carlifornia and Santa cruz in 2017, 91 percent of plastic used is not recycled and this ends up polluting the ocean. For this reason, corporations began to make efforts to combat plastic pollution; suggesting the ban of plastic straws. Plastic straw is something you can easily do without. Vendors in Seattle were the first to comply to this change as it was the first city to ban the use of plastic straws and stir sticks.  Straws are a big threat to the environment since they are small in size and people assume or rather do not realize that straws are plastics and fail to recycle them.

Plastic Straws are a great environmental problem also when it comes to landfills. We see plastics littered all over our streets, stuck in trees and floating on our rivers dams and oceans . animals eat plastics while grazing and this causes poisoning from chemicals that these plastics are made of. As an animal consumes these plastics, it gets stuck in its digestive tract causing the animal to have malnutrition or even death. Straws disposed by tourists venturing into the wild cause a bigger environmental hazard to wildlife in the wild and this is another bigger threat to the ecosystem. Plastic straws  not only causes harm to animals, soil too if affected by these littered plastics. Once plastic straws starts to breakdown in the soil, it starts leaching toxic chemicals . Additives such as chemicals are always added to plastics during manufacturing and are therefore likely to present micro-plastics in the soil. For instance the ‘polybrominated diphenyl ethers PBDEs’ is a substance that is consisted in the manufacture of plastics. Research has shown that micro plastics in soil sediments and water could have a long term negative impact towards the ecosystem since landfills are more polluted than oceans. Harmful chemicals from these plastics seeps into the soil then into groundwater or surrounding water sources and these can cause negative health effects to animals and people that consume these waters. Soil is most affected reason being it’s a non-renewable resource, vulnerable to more damage to its quality. Chemicals from the soil contaminate crops and groundwater used for drinking. Therefore plastic straw pollution affects the food we eat, the air we breath, and generally our ecosystem.

Conclusion

The world struggling to recover from plastic pollution is never an easy task. With the continued neglect of effects of plastics, we are yet to lose the valuable aquatic life. Plastics pose a great danger to these animals. Corporations and national governments are taking into consideration the ban on plastic straws encouraging companies to manufacture metal and glass straws to replace plastic straws. Environmental groups encourage plastic bans saying its important since its their ultimate goal: ending the circulation of single-use plastics. Its helping take a stand on plastic pollution and most significantly what needs to be done. Consumers will be able to buy these reusable straws for personal use showing environmentally consciousness.

References

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