A durable material meant to last forever, it is destroying our planet and it's oceans.

 

"Americans alone discard more than 30 million tons of plastic a year; only 8 percent of it gets recycled. The rest ends up in landfills or becomes 'litter', and a small portion is incinerated."

 

Plastic Pollution Coalition

Commonly referred to in its brand name, Styrofoam, is a plastic, and plastics are a petrochemical, made from petroleum. Petroleum is not sustainable, and it is a known toxic substance.  The chemicals in the foam can leach into food (especially when it is hot), and can cause serious health problems including cancer, neurological issues, headaches, fatigue, and more. 

 

To go step further upstream, foam has been proven harmful to those that manufacture the stuff.  Foam is light and easily crumbles into smaller and smaller pieces called mirco-styryne.

"When a balloon is let go, it will blow away, only to burst or deflate & return to pollute the Earth.  They can travel thousands of miles, polluting the most remote & pristine places. Once they do, they become a danger to any animal that comes in contact with it.

 

Birds, whales, sea turtles,  and other wild  and domestic animals have been killed by balloons. When an animal swallows a balloon, it can block its intestinal tract, leading to starvation. Sea turtles and other marine creatures are known to confuse balloons as jellies. Ribbons and string that are sometimes attached to balloons can cause entanglement and death.

 

Falsely-marketed as “biodegradable”, latex balloons contain chemicals & can take years to break down."

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Balloons Blow, Don't Let Them Go

Originating from larger plastics broken down overtime by the elements: salt in the water, currents, and the sun.  These tiny pieces of plastic are ingested by wild and marine life, killing them, and ultimately making their way back to us via the food chain. 

 

Micro plastics can be found littering every beach in the world, even in areas where no humans live.  Close to impossible to collect due to their size.

"Cigarette filters are made of non-biodegradable cellulose acetate from cutting, forming, and polishing sheets of plastic. Trillions of these add-ons to cigarettes (4.5 trillion) are discarded annually. The environmental toxicity of cigarette butts on fish has been demonstrated. The butts take up to 15 years to disintegrate. Similar to the fiberglass insulation used in attics, the filters keep fingers cool while smokers efficiently deliver nicotine to their brain and heart within three seconds."

 

Plastic Pollution Coalition

Plastic bags are NOT biodegradable as it takes 500 or more years for it to degrade in a landfill.  However, they never fully degrade, but breakdown into small pieces of plastic that absorb toxins, further damaging the environment and it's wild and marine life. 

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Americans use 100 billion plastic bags a year, which require 12 million barrels of oil to manufacture. 

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"From getting stuck in nets to eating plastic that they think is food, creatures worldwide are dying from material we made."

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National Geographic, "Planet or Plastic"

"When an animal becomes entangled in fishing line or netting, a painful struggle ensues. The victims of this entanglement typically suffer feather damage and lacerations from the constricting line as they fight to escape. Entangled animals are often entrapped and are unable to move, find food, or escape from predators.

 

For bird parents, this affects the survival of their reliant chicks as well. This deadly entrapment often ultimately leads to exhaustion, starvation, and dehydration if the animal is unable to free itself."

 

Virginia Wildlife Center

The current US market of recycling has dropped in recent years.  In 2018, China, the world’s largest importer of plastics, stopped accepting most recyclables.  Rebecca Beitsch of the Washington Post, wrote this past January, "In making the changes, China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment cited environmental damage caused by dirty wastes or even hazardous wastes mixed in with solid waste that can be recycled into raw materials.”

 

The amount of time it takes to pay workers to sort through contaminated recyclables it too costly, and ultimately can degrade the original material.  The process is a lot more complex than many believe, and many facilities do not accept certain types of foam and other recyclables.  Workers spend hours trying to remove plastic bags from recyclables, and those bags clog up the machines thus resulting in having to shut down the line.