Plastic Recycling Problem
The Invention of Plastic
In 1907, a scientist named Leo Baekeland announced that his own plastic had broken down the earth's original classification of animals, plants and minerals. Started the fourth kingdom: plastic. Plastic will become a material with endless uses. In the decades that followed, plastic was innovated into phones, radios, coffee makers and even the key to the first atomic bomb. In 1959, Swedish engineer Sten Gustaf Thulin devised a process for making bags out of plastic. He even thought plastic bags could save humanity. But in 2019, Thulin's son told the BBC that his father had no idea that humans would use plastic bags and then throw them away [1].
Plastic Pollution and Microplastics
In today's world, humans and plastic have become inseparable. But because humans didn't handle plastic properly in the first place. Just send the plastic out to sea or simply bury it. The earth is now polluted with plastic waste. Earth degrades plastic waste into microplastics of 0.5 mm to 0.05 mm. Big fish eat small fish, small fish eat shrimp, and shrimp eat plankton. These microplastics are gradually incorporated into the bloodstream of sea creatures. The higher the biological grade, the more microplastics it contains. Microplastics poison countless creatures. But humans also eat sea life. As a result, most humans also have deadly microplastics in their bodies. Here's the scary part. Microplastics can reduce the fertility of living things. Converting energy that would otherwise go to muscle into fat, etc. These hazards are fatal to biological continuity and evolution [2].
February 2019. Scientists at Britain's Royal Society set up a monitoring site in the Mariana Trench, the deepest in the world, to measure the amount of microplastics in the water. Plankton caught at 10,890m, the most inaccessible place for humans, had an average of 3.3 microplastics in their bodies. The scientists went on to examine five other ocean trenches around the world. All of them turned out to contain microplastics. Scientists speculate that the entire earth's oceans have been polluted.
[1] John H. Dunnigan Assistant Administrator for Ocean Service and Coastal Zone Management [Accessed: 14th November 2021].
[2] Carlos M. Gutierrez United States Secretary of Commerce [Accessed: 14th November 2021].