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.