More Oceanic Pollution

Guess how many metric tons of plastic waste are produced every year. 52. Which is so much and pretty much all that ends up in the ocean. The state of the world is stressing me out so much right now I literally want to be euthanized. I’ve written about the self-managing problem with plastic waste before. TLDR a huge portion of the world does not have adequate waste management so the population has to dump or burn it which causes adverse health effects for people and the environment. 

The biggest contributor to pollution in the global north however is littering. Wake up, sheeple! This is so not chill! This is a huge problem and while littering and pollution do fall on the Western world, a lack of aid to Southeast Asia is also a fault of the Western world. 

This whole issue makes me think of the tragedy of the commons. Individuals will overuse a shared resource, depleting it. They need to consider the long-term consequences of overuse of that shared resource. Tragic, indeed. The same can be applied to littering and mishandling plastic waste. You might think you’re the only one but you’re most certainly not. Tragedy. 

I consulted the most trustworthy internet sources for an answer to why we stopped using glass packaging in favor of plastic. Glass is way easier to recycle and less harmful to the environment when it comes to waste and littering. Well, the answer to that question lies in the supply chain. 1) It’s much cheaper to ship plastic than to ship glass. 2) it’s cheaper to make a new plastic bottle than to create a bottle with recycled glass. One Reddit user adds to the conversation by saying “Also recycling a glass bottle has a worse footprint than creating a new plastic bottle. Not to mention creating new glass. It requires an enormous amount of energy to melt.” Now you may be asking, “Amelia do you really trust this rando on reddit?” Yes. Another person adds, “If you mean in packaging it is because glass is heavier, more fragile, and more expensive to manufacture and shape, creates hazards in trash, increases shipping weight and cost, and is less flexible to shape.” Much appreciated, u/bullevard. I love you. 

Glass has a ton of downsides but I believe it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. There’s this middle ground I like to call “some” and it’s a great place to aim. 

Unfortch, there’s no easy solution. But someone way smarter than me will figure it out hopefully. 

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