Comment: Flow of plastics into lives, environment must end
This year, as the state legislature convenes amid compounding crises — the covid-19 pandemic and an increasingly volatile climate — it’s more important than ever to build healthy, resilient communities.
Over the past several decades, the fossil fuel industry has steadily shifted oil and gas production toward single-use plastics and expanded polystyrene foam. And this trend is intensifying; plastic production is projected to quadruple by 2050.
Single-use plastics are designed to last forever but are often used for only a moment before being tossed into a bin. Despite consumers’ best efforts, most single-use plastic is not recycled and ends up in a landfill or our waterways. Climate-wrecking emissions are tied to every step of the plastic life cycle: from oil and gas extraction to plastic production to disposal and degradation.
Plastic trash that makes its way into our oceans often entangles or is mistaken for food by marine animals. Sea turtles commonly mistake plastic bags for jellyfish, one of their main food sources, and seabirds are increasingly found dead with bellies full of plastic trash. Larger mammals such as seals and whales can become entangled and slowly choke or drown because of the plastic debris floating in our oceans. In 2012, a Guadalupe fur seal was found dead off the Washington coast with an 8-inch piece of plastic lodged inside its stomach — just one example of the devastating impacts of plastic in the marine environment worldwide.
https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/comment-flow-of-plastics-into-lives-environment-must-end/
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