Reduce, Recycle, Reuse

These days, plastic waste can be seen all around the world. Such devastating phenomena are happening due to people’s bad habits, ways to discard plastic, and not having the best plans to protect the environment. So, what are the causes of having too much plastic waste in our environment, and what can we do to solve this huge and terrible problem?

Did you know that the world now produces more than 380.000.000 tons of plastic waste every year? That is almost as heavy as 380 million whales. Wow, that is a lot of plastic! Many people use plastic every day throughout their lives. Plastic water bottles, pens, plates,… etc. However, that is not the source of the accumulating plastic waste problem around the world. One of the main contributing reasons why there is a lot of plastic waste everywhere is: Take outs from restaurants, no recycling, and using plastic utensils despite having regular utensils at home.

The fact that humans grew accustomed to the use of plastic in everything that could be replaced with much more environment-friendly material, makes it very difficult to shift and change our habits and not think of any outcome. For example, plastic pencil cases and book covers can be made with a material other and more sustainable than plastic.

In our modern days, people’s bad habits have caused many catastrophes in nature. A tragic example would be this big island in the pacific ocean that is made out of plastic waste. It is 1.6 million square km large and is basically dumb for so much plastic waste. Many people might think that it is not an issue that could affect us, however, since we share this earth, of course, it affects us. Many sea creatures suffer and lose their lives because of it. Whether by consumption or by it disturbing their natural habitat and disfiguring their bodies. Which causes a lot of harm to people as well since our oceans are a source of life to us.

Every country has its own way of handling plastic waste. In South Korea for example, we try to use recycling ways to protect our environment. The good thing about recycling is that recycled plastic can be used once or twice after the process. However, that does not make it sustainable necessarily. But it does reduce the production of plastic. If more people could recycle and come up with more ways to spread awareness and sustainable solutions, not discarding trash without being mindful, the world would be more merciful for us and other creatures.