#dont get me started on clothing made from recycled polyester

[doinsomethingdaily]

I feel like many people care about this but there is a lot of mis-information or one sided- information going around.

(Sources; I study environmental sciences. I have followed an course on marine litter and am currently doing my end research paper on microplastic pollution in surface water. I have used some papers for this, if you want them I can put them in the comments I think)

What I really want to put out there is that the problem is divers and that personal action and industry reform both are needed.

1. Plastic pollution is obviously a large problem. Think of the Atlantic garbage patch. But also in our own environment. More recently microplastics have been of growing concern. (there is even nanoplastics, but I am not going there)

2. When talking about plastic pollution there are many terms that are used to indicate different things.

- plastic pollution: all plastics currently in the environment that do not belong there

- marine plastic: plastic in seas and oceans

- microplastics: often classified as plastic particles under 5 mm, they are found in water, air, earth, Antarctic ice, human food and our bodies

- primary microplastics: plastic particles that enter the environment as particles under 5mm

- secondary microplastics: particles that come from larger plastics that are degraded.

With this wide variety of plastics to talk about sometimes the waters get muddies. I hear a lot of 'x is the main source of microplastics'. The simple truth is: we do not know what the main source is of most of these. But we do know what the biggest contributers are.

Plastic pollution: mostly land based sources of single use plastics. Recycling is still almost never viable or implemented. Research indicates that up to 80% of produced plastics each year ends up in the environment. That seems like a lot. ( This number probably counts landfills, which are also in the environment. stuf that goes to landfill does not magically disappear. )

Marine plastic: most marine plastic seems also to be from landbased sources. However, most of the plastic sinks. Yet, The great Pacific garbage patch is made up of almost 50% fishing gear (appearantly more buoyant?) Both of these are major problems.

Microplastics:

Primary: these come from tires, paint, washing clothes, cosmetics and other personal care products, but also the production pallets that are used to make bigger plastic products are a major source.

Secondary; these come from all the bigger plastic pollution (so land based litter for example) braking down in the environment. Currently the majority of marine microplastics seem to be secondary.

3. It is hard to measure the precise main source or sources of plastics because it is hard to monitor them. They move through the environment. The total amount of plastic amount to tons. Some sink to the sea bottoms or are currently somewhere in the atmosphere. Monitoring protocols for microplastics are still being established. So there is no absolute answer about most things right now.

4. What do we know: obviously humans are the source of plastics. Plastic need hundreds of years to break down. Most current research seems to indicate that microplastics will have negative health effects. You probably have plastic close to you right now.

Yes, we need to reform the industry large scale. Plastics should be used for the things where they are invaluable such as for medical applications and such. But we need to cut back on other uses of plastics. And we need good recycling. This one is going to be harder because of the many kinds of plastics and the limits on how many times it can be reused.

However, as an individual, you can help. I am certainly not saying everyone needs to go "zero waste." But even if you are switching out little things, you do have an impact. Further more, reducing plastics and microplastics might be healthier for you.