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Addicted to Plastic (2008) by Ian Connacher

The main issue that is brought up by the movie is that almost everything is made from plastic. Plastic is a product that quite literally lasts forever and is improperly discarded. The same qualities that make plastic so useful are the same reasons that it is so dangerous. Instead of dealing with the problems caused by plastic, we send them to other countries so that they deal with the problems.


 * · __Ecological__ – One half of all the plastic actually floats, so whatever plastic pollution that you see on the water, you need to double that figure because the other half is underwater. The ocean could be called “plastic soup” due to the fact that it contains huge amounts of plastic in various sizes. There are 10 times more plastic in some parts of the ocean than there is available food that fish and other animals require to eat. Aquatic life mistakenly eat small plastic pellets believing that they are animal eggs. Due to bio-accumulation, the higher you go up the food chain the more damage occurs to the animals that eat the plastic.
 * · 80% of all the plastic found on the water originally came from land. 78kg of waste washes onto a beach in Hawaii every day. 90% of birds that were dissected by a scientist were found to have eaten huge amount of plastic pellets which harmed the birds and eventually lead to their deaths. In addition, plastic pellets are sponge like in that they attract various chemicals in the water, absorb and concentrate the chemicals which increases the damage caused by the chemical ridden pellets.
 * · Only 40% of all plastic is recycled. There are many things that make recycling plastic difficult. The first being that plastic is very bulky item which can’t be compacted. Another issue is that there are various types of plastics within a single product. As a result, recycling plants do not know which plastics any given product contains and are unable to process it. This leads to another issue which affects the purchaser of the recycled plastic. For example, if another company wants to buy 100% of recycled plastic A from the recycling plant, the plant will not be able to guarantee their product is 100% recycled plastic A because there is no way of telling. As a result, the company will not want to buy product A from the recycling plant.
 * · As previously mentioned, plastic products are not uniform. Unlike glass that only has green, brown and clear glass on the market, plastic has countless types out on the market. Unlike glass that is intended for multiple uses, plastic is being produced and used for a one time, one way use
 * · There is also the fact that plastic is being improperly disposed of. Instead of reusing many plastic products, we generally throw them out or just burn them. The burning of plastics releases countless harmful chemicals. These various chemicals that are released could cause several health related problems. One of which is that it could alter human development such as preventing the brain from forming properly. It could also result in the development of cancer and create abnormalities in sperm.
 * · __Legal__ – There are five African countries that have limited or completely banned the use of plastic bags within their borders. If I am correct, there is a town in California that has also banned the use of plastic bags. The European Union has taken a proactive approach in that they have banned the use of several dangerous chemical that are found in bags. Japan has done a similar thing in that they replaced the use of a dangerous chemical found in bags with a much “safer” chemical.
 * · As previously mentioned, plastic products are not uniform. Unlike glass that only has green, brown and clear glass on the market, plastic has countless types out on the market. Unlike glass that is intended for multiple uses, plastic is being produced and used for a one time, one way use
 * · There is also the fact that plastic is being improperly disposed of. Instead of reusing many plastic products, we generally throw them out or just burn them. The burning of plastics releases countless harmful chemicals. These various chemicals that are released could cause several health related problems. One of which is that it could alter human development such as preventing the brain from forming properly. It could also result in the development of cancer and create abnormalities in sperm.
 * · __Legal__ – There are five African countries that have limited or completely banned the use of plastic bags within their borders. If I am correct, there is a town in California that has also banned the use of plastic bags. The European Union has taken a proactive approach in that they have banned the use of several dangerous chemical that are found in bags. Japan has done a similar thing in that they replaced the use of a dangerous chemical found in bags with a much “safer” chemical.
 * · __Legal__ – There are five African countries that have limited or completely banned the use of plastic bags within their borders. If I am correct, there is a town in California that has also banned the use of plastic bags. The European Union has taken a proactive approach in that they have banned the use of several dangerous chemical that are found in bags. Japan has done a similar thing in that they replaced the use of a dangerous chemical found in bags with a much “safer” chemical.
 * · __Legal__ – There are five African countries that have limited or completely banned the use of plastic bags within their borders. If I am correct, there is a town in California that has also banned the use of plastic bags. The European Union has taken a proactive approach in that they have banned the use of several dangerous chemical that are found in bags. Japan has done a similar thing in that they replaced the use of a dangerous chemical found in bags with a much “safer” chemical.

Thankfully there are quite a few alternatives that can be used to reduce the impact that plastic has on the environment. One alternative is to turn the plastic back into its base oils. This oil can be then feed to some cells that will convert the oil into a new plastic that has no negative effects. Making bioplastics is another alternative which uses plants to make the plastics.

Another idea is to use the waste streams that are generated in the production of other products. For example, one could use the chicken features that are discarded by the poultry industry has a resource that can be formed into plastic. Another alternative is to use starch which was developed by a new field of research known as green chemistry.

Some other suggestions are to use plastics similar to glass because glass is uniform in regards that it only has 3 forms. Uniformity of plastic should benefit everyone who comes into contact with plastic. Plastic can also be designed to be biodegradable when it comes into contact with a certain substance. For example, if you add water to a plastic, that plastic would start to biodegrade after a few hours.

I was really compelled by the fact that even in Africa, were there are countless issues occurring, some of the countries were able to limit or ban the use of plastic bags. I would of thought that it would be easier to do that in the US but at least in Africa I would assume there are less corporate interests at work or there is more political motivation to limit or ban plastic bags than in the US.