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I inform the world about the hazards plastic creates, and developed a project in my school to help start reducing plastic consumption.

2. Was I better today than I was yesterday? (Am I better today than I was in August?)

I am definitely better than I was yesterday. I have gained some much knowledge from all the research I made. I know how to distinguish different pages on the Internet that maybe not is a good resource for me to use. At the beginning of the year I had no idea what information to look for. Now I know how to approach different projects. I know that first I need to plan out something in order to achieve something else. Also I learned how to cite my sources so that people would believe my facts. One of the biggest things I learned is that blogging really helps you connect with people, and helps you transmit that message you want everyone to hear. Blogging has helped me deliver my ideas into places I though I would never could. I have friends from other countries that have taken looks at it and eventually tell their friends to watch it. I also have gotten in the habit of taking a lot of notes when reading papers online. I usually used to just read sources and then summarize them, but taking notes really helps my research. It makes my sources more credible which helps me convince people on why plastic is so bad. Also now I am able to hold a conversation with my teachers about my project and explain to them what the problem is and what my solution is. I now have a more concrete idea of what I want to get accomplished for the end of the year. Also I have learned to make a realistic project. At the beginning I thought all these things could get achieved, but now I am able to make realistic goals for my projects.

Bad effects of plastic on your health

Many humans do not know that plastic can have many negative effects on human health. For example there is a chemical called BPA which stands for Bis-phenol A. Bis-phenol A is a chemical that is needed in order to make plastic. This chemical is mainly found in plastic bottles, and plastic containers. The only problem with this chemical is that when a plastic gets hot then BPA dissolves into the the liquid in the container. People then drink the water or the liquid without knowing what the bad effects of it are. Some bad effects that result from BPA that "tests have shown that the chemical can promote human breast cancer cell growth as well as decrease sperm count in rats, among other effects." This indicates that by using plastic we are not only harming the environment, but we are also harming our health. The harm of plastic bottles is usually not notice because people have no idea that plastic has this kind of negative effect. In fact last week I asked some people if they knew anything about BPA and most of them gave me a blank stare. This is why I decided to create a page in which I am to inform them what Bis-phenol A stands for and why it is harmful.

A big step

As I looked for solutions to help stop plastic consumption, I was able to find something that could work. There is is plastic that is necessary for humans, and that can not be destroyed beacuse we need it. The plastic I am targeting is is mainly plastic bags and bottles. Plastic bags have had a huge impact on our world. If you visit http://www.buzzle.com/articles/environmental-pollution-the-harmful-effects-of-plastic-bags.html. One way we can reduce plastic bag consumption is by trying to pursue our government to place small taxes on bags. I know this would work because when I went to Washington DC, I had to pay for every plastic bag that I got. This made me think twice whether I needed the bag. Also this made bags seem more valuable and I wanted to reuse them. This could be the first step to reuse. Then people will realize that they really do not need to spend money on extra bags. There are countries that have already taken the initiative and are already taxing. For example a tax on plastic shopping bags in the Republic of Ireland has cut their use by more than 90% and raised millions of euros in revenue, the government says. This is the change we need if it worked in Ireland then why not try it in the US. The worse thing we can now right now is to keep giving bags out for free that are just going to be tossed away.

Animals are dying

Plastic is killing animals, and plants mainly in the aquatic life. According to reuseit.com "plastic pieces outweigh surface zooplankton in the Central North Pacific by a factor of 6-1". Zooplankton is one of the smallest living things in the ocean, and there are more pieces of plastic in the ocean. They are consuming the plastic, which is later passed on to whoever eats the plankton and eventually killing the consumer. Reuseit.com also states that of "500,000 albatross chicks born each year on Midway Atoll, about 200,000 die of starvation". Adult albatrosses mistake plastic trash for food and end up feeding it to their chicks. Animals do not know that plastic is harmful for their babies so they give it to their babies as food. Once the babies consume the plastic they eventually die because their stomach cannot take and cannot breakdown that kind of thing down. Plastic is the reason many animals are dying are yet we are not protecting them from the harm created by plastic. Plastic bags and bottles and hard to breakdown and this is creating a huge problem to marine animals. According to ecologycenter.edu about 100,000 animals such as dolphins, turtles whales, penguins are killed every year due to plastic bags. Most of these animals eat the plastic and this eventually leads to the animal’s death. The worst part about this is that once the animal dies it decomposes, but the plastic bag still lays around. Another victim then comes and eats the plastic again, and the same things happen to this creature. It just becomes a cycle in which more and more animals die. This is why I want to stop plastic consumption. I do not want more animals having to pay for the errors the humans are making.

PLastic bags and bottles effects on the ocean

Plastic can be very broad, but when talking about plastic bottles and plastic bags we can be specific enough. Plastic now a day is used to create many things, which we buy. For example when we go to the store many of our food is in plastic bags. Many of the liquids we buy are in plastic bottles, and most of the stuff we take home is taken in plastic bags. Most of time, once we used this product, we end up tossing it into the garbage where is later thrown into landfills. According to reuseit.com "60 billion single-use drink containers were purchased in 2006, and 3 out of 4 were thrown out directly after use." This means that 75 percent or 45 billion containers such as water bottles we thrown directly in to the trash and filling up more of our landfills or contaminating our oceans. Our oceans are one of things is suffering the most from our poor use and disposal of plastic bottles. According to plasticvpaper.com "ten percent of the plastic produced every year worldwide winds up in the ocean. 70% of which finds its way to the ocean floor, where it will likely never biodegrade. Never biodegrade this means that the plastic we are producing will live longer than us and by the way it will also contaminate our oceans. Plastic takes too long to degrade and many times in never degrades because in ends ups in landfills where it only ends up with more trash or in the ocean. Earth is a beautiful place and there is only one available and its up to us to decide what we want to do with it.

Motivated, and Inspired by Charles Moore

Capt. Charles Moore on the seas of plastic | Video on TED.com

When I was looking for ideas of how my project was going to be like. I searched different sources, watched different videos, and read different blogs. I wanted to find things that plastic is really damaging and they were just some many things, yet i needed to be specific. Suddenly I heard of this place called Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and I started wandering what this was. I typed onto YouTube and I got this video created by Charles Moore. In this video I learned about this unfortunate place in the ocean where all this plastic is beginning to accumulate. Its accumulating because plastic is not biodegradable. In this video I also learned about how it is affecting our oceans. Moore shows some heartbreaking pictures of dead birds whose stomach contains plastics. The birds had been confusing this bright colorful plastic trash for food.

In the video Moore also states a great line in which he says, "Only human create trash than the earth cannot decompose." This means that since we are the creators of this mess its up to us to find a solution. Its up to us to decide what are we going to do with all these plastic that is not getting destroyed. If you take a look at Moore's video you can see the amount of plastic bottles that is consumed each year. The numbers are ridiculous, and yet its not stopping.

Moore also has a really good point when he talks about recycling, and he also shows a chart of the amount of plastic that is actually being recycled. The numbers are really low which means that the only real solution to stop "The Great Patch" from getting bigger is stop plastic consumption since it cannot really be recycled. Like Moore said there is no way that people can clean up the already contaminated ocean. Our only option is to reduce the consumption of plastic so that no more trash in tossed into the ocean.

I really loved this video and the images and the way he articulated this problem of plastic in the oceans really impacted me since I had no idea about it. I then began to tell many of my friends and teachers about it. Many were like what the heck are you serious, other were like no way it must be only rumors. I really wished they were rumors, but importunately it's the truth.

I encourage everyone who reads this blog to watch this video, its amazing and I hope that it helps you realize that the ocean needs our help.

An introduction to plastic

This is a photo taken by: Chris Jordan

My name is Bryan Acuna, and I attend the Chinquapin School. Every year my school encourages the seniors to develop a project about something they are passionate about. The project should somehow impact on the world.

My project is going to be about plastic. I will talk about how making plastic is affecting the health of many people, animals, and our environment. I will specifically talk about how plastic bags and plastic bottles are contaminating our environment, and killing wildlife. I will also talk about how the creation of plastic, and the use of plastic, is affecting human health. I want to inform people about the problems trash is creating and also give the people certain solutions. Trying to convince people to reduce plastic consumption is going to hard, but I know at least that I tried my best by informing the world.

I will start to inform people by introducing the problem which plastic is creating. I will blog about the different effects of plastic, and I will explain some of the issues that are still going on. I will post some visuals and also facts of bad effects that plastic is having in our world. I will also try to have a link to the pages to which I am getting the information from or to pages where you can get more information. Also I would love to have some comments with links or with information that can help my research.

My ultimate goal is to have inform lots of people so that they can begin to make a change for themselves. By change I mean changing their habits of using too much plastic or just informing other people about the bad impact of plastic. I was informed about plastic and its bad effects and that is why I decided to make a change. I had no idea of what kind of effects plastic had on the environment, and I know there are lot of people who have no clue as well. I want to inform them and encourage them to inform others.