Plastic Killing Earth

Harm of Plastic  

By Kelvin Liu

The environment needs our help! People are using way too much plastic and it is causing a lot of problems such as global warming and killing animals.  The problem of plastic is a huge conflict for Earth.  So, we need to try using less plastic, reminding others to use less plastic, and even picking up trash and throwing it in the recycling bin. Below, I’m going to talk about some of the harm plastic does to the Earth.

Plastic is one of the reasons that causes global warming. Plastic is a product made from petroleum. When plastic is everywhere on the road or the beach, it is exposed to sunlight. The sun heats the plastic and causes strong greenhouse gases. And if the plastic is destroyed, it releases all sorts of different chemicals, such as methane and carbon dioxide, and that is how plastic causes global warming. Global warming may cause the sea level to rise because of the melting ice.  And soon enough, the water sinks the whole city.  

Plastic is a very cheap product; it can be used in a lot of ways. But did you know that most plastic can last forever? Plastic takes a whole lot of time to decompose or destroy. Instead of worms or bacteria breaking the plastic down, plastic needs UV light to break down. UV light is very dangerous and kind of expensive. UV light may cause skin cancer and diseases. In addition, plastic is a very strong material. Scientists did such an experiment, letting a plastic duck toy survive a very harsh environment. Such as floating on the ocean, under blistering, super-hot sunlight, or even frozen in the arctic for years, and the duck can still stay in its shape. Plastic lasts forever, and people are still using a lot of plastic. Imagine the Earth turning into a plastic world, how tragic is that?  

Plastic causes a lot of animals to die. Animals may confuse plastic as their food, and not digest and die. Also tangle into the plastic and choke to death. Animals may just go extinct in a few years. According to the Ocean Crusaders (A foundation that helps remove debris from the ocean), over 100 million marine animals die from plastic waste alone. Imagine yourself choking into plastic, how might you be feeling?  

Every year, people use an average of 380 million tons of plastic. One single plastic bag takes about 1000 years to decompose, and there are millions of plastics on Earth. How much time does it take to decompose all the plastic? Earth may just turn into a plastic world in no time. Do you want that to happen? So, we need to change something, recycle and reuse, even remind other people to use less plastic. Put a change, every effort you put into reducing plastic is a huge change. Gandhi once said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”