Why is a disposable cup dangerous?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

About 300 million tons of plastic is produced annually in the world - this is more than 900 skyscrapers of the Empire State Building by weight. This material is good for many, but its use is harmful to the environment, since most of it is not biodegradable. Scientists have calculated that more than 8 million tons of such garbage are annually in the oceans. At the same time, up to 80% of plastic enters the sea from land, and only 20% from ships.

Islands in the ocean

Floating bottles, wrappers, bags litter the oceans, forming whole "islands" in them. The growing level of pollution from plastic waste is recognized as one of the most troubling environmental problems on the planet. Microplastics are especially dangerous. It is formed due to the fact that over time, polymer waste is crushed into microgranules. Today, according to experts, about 51 trillion tons of microplastics have already accumulated in our oceans.

Such debris causes enormous harm to several hundred species of marine animals. The fact is that fish, whales, seals and other marine life often swallow it, mistaking it for food. Surprisingly, fish fry are even more likely to eat microplastics instead of plankton in a recent study by Swedish scientists published in Science, a recent study by Swedish scientists has shown, in much the same way that teenagers prefer fast food to healthy and balanced foods. Experts point out that by 2050, 99% of seabirds will have plastic in their stomachs. And in the end - along the food chain - it ends up on our dining tables.

Is it possible to defeat plastic

It is estimated that the average person uses one plastic bag for 12 minutes, while it takes 400 to 1,000 years to decompose. In 2010, every European used about 200 of these bags to carry food. Most of them - 90% - were not sent for recycling. Given the practicality of plastic containers, it is difficult to find an alternative, especially in the food industry. Therefore, according to forecasts, the volumes of its consumption in the future will only grow. So, by 2020, about 8 billion plastic bags will turn into trash in the EU. Today we already produce 20 times more plastic than in the 1960s. And by 2050, its production will grow 3-4 times, with most of it eventually settling in the oceans for many centuries. Already today, the damage from plastic to marine ecosystems is estimated at $ 8 billion.

The solution to the problem of plastic waste has long been a concern of specialists. Incineration and burial is damaging the environment due to toxicity, which is why scientists around the world are trying to find other ways to destroy them. For example, Japanese experts have discovered a bacterium capable of eating polyethylene terephthalate - PET, widely used in the world for the manufacture of various containers, using it as an energy source. Similar research is being carried out by Israeli biotechnologists. However, it is still far from wide practical implementation of such disposal methods.

Another way to tackle the problem is to find new uses for plastic bottles, such as reusing them or making other items, from clothing to roads. But it is also important to fight for the reduction of their production and consumption.

#CleanSeas

The UN Environment Program in February this year launched a global campaign against marine litter "Clean Seas" (hashtag #Clean Seas). She urges governments to begin policies to reduce plastic, minimize the use of plastic packaging, and change consumer attitudes towards disposables before the effects on the seas are irreversible.

Ten countries joined the campaign - Belgium, Costa Rica, France, Grenada, Indonesia, Norway, Panama, Saint Lucia, Sierra Leone and Uruguay.

Environmentalists sound the alarm

The problem of plastic waste in the sea is also relevant for Russia. For example, about 130 tons of polyethylene particles of personal hygiene products enter the drainage basin of the Baltic Sea annually with domestic wastewater. "Up to 40 tonnes of microplastics particles smaller than 5 mm in diameter are dumped into the Baltic Sea catchment area each year through the use of products such as body washes, shower gels and scrubs," the Helsinki Baltic Sea Commission said in a report. “It is important to realize that marine litter is more and more diversified, we need to study how long it takes to decompose. We need to more clearly set goals to reduce the amount of this garbage,” says Evgeny Lobanov, an expert at the Center for Environmental Solutions, representative of the Clean Baltic coalition. The association proposes to ban single-use plastic bags throughout the Baltic region, as this is a very significant source of pollution.

Recently, Russia has started talking seriously about reducing the production and consumption of plastic containers. The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment will encourage retailers to switch to paper bags instead of polyethylene bags, the head of the department, Sergei Donskoy, said in June. "The question is not about a total ban, but it is quite possible to stimulate the same shopping centers to switch to paper bags. And, by the way, we will do this through utilization payments. We also have a regulatory framework for this," he said.

The minister also called the idea of reducing the production of plastics and switching to self-degradable plastics a "noble cause".

The Ministry of Natural Resources is also preparing proposals to ban the use of disposable tableware and plastic bags in specially protected natural areas, which include Sochi and Baikal.

The island farthest from civilization was littered with plastic

Environmentalists from the UK and Australia have discovered that one of the most remote islands from civilization - Henderson - is littered with plastic. In some places, its concentration is the highest in the world

Pollution of the environment with wastes of civilization is a global problem today. A particular danger is plastic waste, which is thrown away in millions of tons annually and accumulates on land and in water bodies. Due to its properties - long-term degradation and harmful substances released during the decomposition of plastic (such as bisphenol A) - plastic waste poses a great threat to human and animal health. According to rough estimates of scientists, in total in the world's oceans there may be about 5 trillion pieces of plastic waste with a total weight of 270,000 tons. According to experts from the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), if humanity does not give up disposable bottles, bags and cups, as well as cosmetics with plastic microparticles, then by 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the world's oceans.

On their new expedition, environmentalists from Britain and Australia visited the remote Pacific island of Henderson. It is uninhabited and is located at a distance of 5,000 km from the nearest settlement. People (mainly scientists) visit it once every 5-10 years. A survey of the beaches on this island has shown that they are contaminated with very high density plastic debris. On average, ecologists found 200-300 plastic particles per 1 m in the sand on the beaches of the island², the record figure was 671 plastic elements per 1 m².

In total, according to the calculations of scientists, due to the location of the island in the center of the circulation of ocean currents, at least 37.7 million pieces of plastic with a total weight of about 17.6 tons have been accumulated on it. Moreover, as the researchers themselves say, they managed to find only the visible part of the "iceberg" of plastic accumulations on the island: they did not examine sandy beaches deeper than 10 cm and hard-to-reach areas of the island. And, as ecologists observed, every day in only one area of the island, on the 10th section of North Beach, ocean currents brought up to 268 new plastic particles.

“What happened on Henderson Island shows that there is no way to avoid plastic pollution even in the most remote parts of our oceans. Plastic debris is also dangerous for many marine species, as they become entangled in it or swallow it. Garbage also creates a physical barrier to the access of animals, such as sea turtles, to beaches, and also reduces the diversity of coastal invertebrates,”ecologists write in their work.

The research is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

Earlier, environmentalists found out that the Arctic has turned into a dump of plastic waste from the Atlantic.

Saltwater fish get used to eating plastic

Fish in the oceans have adapted from an early age to eat plastic waste, much like children get used to eating unhealthy junk food.

Swedish researchers have found that the availability of high concentrations of polystyrene particles in seawater makes them addictive to seabass fry.

Their article about this was published in the journal Science.

As a result, this slows down their growth and makes them more vulnerable to predators, scientists believe.

Researchers are calling for a ban on the use of plastic microbeads in cosmetic products.

In recent years, there have been more and more alarming signs of an increase in the concentration of plastic waste in the oceans.

According to a study published last year, up to 8 million tons of plastic enter the oceans every year.

Under the influence of ultraviolet radiation, chemical processes and mechanical destruction under the impact of waves, this plastic debris quickly disintegrates into small particles.

Particles smaller than 5 mm are called microplastics. The term also includes microbeads used in cosmetic products such as scrubs, exfoliating products, or cleansing gels.

Biologists have long warned that these microparticles can accumulate in the digestive system of marine animals and release toxic substances.

Swedish researchers conducted a series of experiments in which they analyzed the growth of seabass fry by feeding them plastic microparticles at various concentrations.

In the absence of such particles, about 96% of the eggs were successfully transformed into fry. In water reservoirs with a high concentration of microplastics, this indicator decreased to 81%.

Those fry that hatched in such trashy water turned out to be smaller, moved more slowly and had a poorer ability to navigate their habitat, says team leader Dr. Una Lonnstedt of the University of Uppsala.

When encountering predators, about 50% of fry grown in clean water survived for 24 hours. On the other hand, fry raised in tanks with the highest concentration of microparticles died during the same period.

But the most unexpected for scientists was the data on dietary preferences, which changed in the new conditions of fish habitat.

"All the fry were able to feed on zooplankton, but they preferred to eat plastic particles. It is likely that plastic has a chemical or physical attractiveness that stimulates the feeding reflex in fish," says Dr. Lonnstedt.

"Roughly speaking, plastic makes them think that this is some kind of highly nutritious food. This is very similar to the behavior of adolescents who love to stuff their stomachs with all sorts of nonsense," - adds the scientist.

The authors of the study associate the decrease in the number of fish species such as seabass and pike in the Baltic Sea over the past 20 years with an increase in the mortality of juveniles of these species. They argue that if plastic microparticles do affect the growth and behavior of fish juveniles in different species, then this will have a profound effect on marine ecosystems.

In the United States, the use of plastic microbeads in cosmetic products is already prohibited, and in Europe there is a growing fight for a similar ban.

“This isn't about pharmaceutical products, it's just about cosmetics - mascara and some lipsticks,” says Dr. Lonnstedt.

In Britain, there are also voices at the government level who propose to introduce a unilateral ban on microbeads earlier than this will be done in the European Union.