We have all been there. You are out enjoying your life but then you get hungry or thirsty. You see a coffee shop and you think to yourself, perfect! You walk in and see lots of plastic cups, straws, maybe even styrofoam cups, individually wrapped sandwiches and snack foods. The menu items all look so good.
So what’s the problem?
Well, while we are buying all those small snacks we often do not think about the impact of our purchases.
Most of us do not know how much our food choices impacts the environment, however that will be another blog post, for this we will focus on packaging.
For the purpose of this post, let’s say that we bought a medium iced coffee, a pre-made smoothie, a bag of trail mix, and a muffin.
So let’s break down all of the plastic we bought with our food.
First, the Iced Coffee
Plastic cup
Plastic lid
Plastic straw
Plastic packaging that the cups & straws are shipped in
Next, the Smoothie
Plastic bottle
Plastic cap, with the little ring that seals the cap
Plastic label
Plastic packaging that the bottles are shipped in
The trail mix
Plastic bag
Muffin
Plastic cling wrap
Paper napkins
That might seem like a lot of plastic to you, or maybe it doesn’t. If that doesn’t seem like a lot, I hope this post changes your mind.
All of the plastic that we just purchased, is a single use plastic. It is plastic that we will only use once and then toss as soon as we are finished with it. Once we toss it where does it go? Well, if it can be recycled it will (hopefully) go to a recycling facility. However, recycling is a lot more complicated than consumers are aware of. Most items that are recycled end up being thrown away at the recycling facility. If it can not be recycled, it will (hopefully) go to a landfill to be processed. If it does not end up in the landfill, which happens often, even if you throw it away responsibility, it will end up as litter somewhere. That litter then gets washed into rivers which then ends up in our oceans. Enter: the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP for short) is the biggest offshore collection of trash that is located halfway between California and Hawaii. It is not the only floating trash collection, but it is the largest of the five other offshore trash collections. The GPGP is about twice the size of Texas or about three times the size of france. If you comment on this blog post with the state or area you live in, we can calculate how many of them can fit in the GPGP for you.
Scientists estimate that about 1.15 to 2.41 million tons of plastic are entering our oceans through rivers each year. More than half of the plastic is less dense than the ocean water which means it will float on or near the surface. The plastics that can float are often more resilient to degradation which means it can survive the rough conditions of the ocean for a long, long time. The plastics all end up in the GPGP from the currents and gyres of the ocean.
So there’s plastic in the ocean...how does that affect me?
The plastic that ends up in the ocean get broken down into smaller pieces called microplastics. Marine life, innocent organisms that have no idea what plastic is, are attracted to the small, often times brightly colored, plastics and will eat them. The plastic often gets trapped in their digestive systems causing them to die. If the plastic does not cause a blockage, the chemicals leach into their bloodstream and get passed onto the next generations causing the chemicals to accumulate which makes the offspring less likely to survive. These chemicals and plastics are even ending up in the seafood that we love to eat, which is a threat to humans.
If the organism does not eat the plastic, they may end up trapped in it. Getting trapped in plastic prevents proper growth and stunts development. This will cause the animal to have mobility problems which makes them at higher risk for predation. It can also prevent the animal from reaching the surface to breathe, causing them to suffocate.
It’s not just the sea creatures that are being affected either. Sea birds that skim the surface of the water for fish are now swallowing large amounts of plastics. Scientists are finding birds, sea turtles, whales, and more washed up on shore with huge amounts of plastic in their tummies.
The ocean is the lungs of our planet. Without a healthy ocean we will not have sufficient oxygen to survive.
That small snack that you decided to buy adds up and has a bigger impact than you think. There are about 250 pieces of plastic in the GPGP for every human on the planet. Plastic doesn't go away, it will stay on our planet and in our oceans for hundreds or even thousands of years.
So what can you do to help?
Bring your own reusable coffee mug or water bottle
Bring your own reusable shopping bags and produce bags when shopping for groceries
Support companies that use paper packaging or less packaging in general
Skip the straw at restaurants
Bring your own reusable cutlery, or ask for no cutlery in your take out
Don’t use paper or plastic single use plates, bowls, cutlery, etc
Be conscious of the things you buy, what they are made of, how they are made, and where they come from. Do you really need that trinket you’ll never use?
Adapt a little to no waste lifestyle
Donate to teams that are trying to clean up the GPGP
A lot of the stats from this article was taken from an amazing online resource about the GPGP, called the Ocean Cleanup. It has a ton of more science and information, if you want to learn more. We encourage you to check it out!
Another amazing company that you can check out is Save-Ocean.com. We are actually teaming up, double the ocean saving power, to give all Wild and Growing followers a 30% discount on their site. For every product sold, 1,000 marine lives are saved. They donate their profits to ocean research and all of their products are aimed for a zero-low waste lifestyle. We're talking reusable and collapsable straws, bags, travel cutlery, and jewellery for awareness.
We hope you liked this informational article about how our purchases have a higher impact than you think.
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Keep Exploring
-Hannah
Wild and Growing
