Single-Use Plastics 101

Single-use plastics are a glaring example of the problems with throwaway culture. Instead of investing in quality goods that will last, we often prioritize convenience over durability and consideration of long-term impacts. Companies bank on this desire for convenience, selling products wrapped in flashy packaging, which could easily be avoided, or designing cheap goods that only fuel more consumerism.

Our reliance on these plastics means we are accumulating waste at a staggering rate. According to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), the world produced more than 460 million metric tonsof plastic in 2019-already double the amount produced in 2000.

Plastic litter

The most commontypes of plastic waste found in the environment are cigarette butts, followed by food wrappers, bottles and bottle caps, shopping bags, straws, and stirrers. And we're only just beginning to see the widespread presence of small microplastics, which include things like threads that shed from synthetic clothing and the beads and glitter added to personal products.

Reducing plastic useis the most effective means of avoiding this waste. After that, recycle (or compost) what you can, being sure to follow the rules of your municipality, since systems vary widely by location.

Limited recycling

Recycling more plastic, more frequently, reduces its footprint. Polyethylene terephthalate, one of the most commonly recycled plastics and the material that makes up most water and soda bottles, can be turned into everything from polyester fabric to automotive parts.

But the OECD found that a whopping 91 percent of plastic isn't recycled at all. Some of it (about 19 percent) is incinerated but the vast majority ends up in landfills or in the environment. Single-use plastics in particular-especially small items like straws, bags, and cutlery-aren't easy to recycle because they fall into the crevices of recycling machinery. Many recycling centers won't even accept them.

Microplastic pollution

Left alone, plastics don't really break down; they just break up. Wear and tear and washing, as well as sun and heat, can slowly turn plastics into smaller and smaller pieces until they eventually become what are known as microplastics. These microscopic plastic fragments, no more than 5 millimeters long, are hard to detect-and are just about everywhere. (There are even plastic particles that measure less than a micrometer, known as nanoplastics.) Some microplastics are even small by design, like the microbeads used in facial scrubs or the microfibers in polyester clothing.

These microplastics quite easily end up in the water, on farmland, getting eaten by wildlife, and inside our bodies. They've even made their way up to the secluded Pyrenees mountain range and down to the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

For wildlife, microplastics can be particularly dangerous; when eaten, they can easily accumulate inside an animal's body and cause serious health issues, like punctured organs or fatal intestinal blockages.

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