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The Plastic that's Invading Our Waters 
(Credible Source #1)

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The Plastic that's Invading Our Waters 
(Credible Source #1)

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This article gives information on how the bad things in the plastic get into the ocean and cause all the problems. "Microfibers are part of the larger problem of micro plastic pollution, which has gained attention in recent years as tiny pieces of plastic - usually defined as smaller than five millimeters, or about the size of a single piece of short-grain rice - accumulate in surface waters around the globe." This is bad because it can end up in fish that we eat then before we know it we are eating plastic.

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The researchers were collecting water samples every three miles along the river to document the types and concentrations of microfibers. They were hoping as well to figure out how the fibers might be entering and moving along the river - looking to see whether there were concentrations, for example, near population clusters or near wastewater treatment plants.

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China Won't Solve the World's Plastics Problem Anymore (Credible Source #2)

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China Won't Solve the World's Plastics Problem Anymore (Credible Source #2)

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China is planning on blocking out the countries that aren't surrounding them by not letting them give them plastic to take care of. China realized that they were doing all the work for such a small return. So this is a wake up call to do something about all this plastic because it isn't going to end well.

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For a long time, China has been a dumping ground for the world's problematic plastics. In the 1990s, Chinese markets saw that discarded plastic could be profitably recreated into exportable bits and bobs-and it was less expensive for international cities to send their waste to China than to deal with it themselves. China got cheap plastic and the exporting countries go rid of their trash.

But in November 2017, China said enough. The country closed its doors to contaminated plastic, leaving the exports to be absorbed by neighboring countries like Vietnam, South Korea, and Thailand. And without the infrastructure to absorb all the waste that China is rejecting, the plastics are piling up. Between now and 2030, 111 million metric tons of trash-straws, bags, water bottles-will have nowhere to go, according to a paper published in Science Advances on Wednesday. That's as if every human on Earth contributed a quarter of their body mass in mostly single-use plastic polymers to a massive, abandoned pile of garbage.

While it is China's new policy that will lead to this precipitous increase, the buildup isn't exactly its fault. "China has been importing plastic waste for the last 28 years," says Amy Brooks, a materials science graduate student at the University of Georgia and the lead author on the study. "And so after awhile, they realized that the world was depending on them to manage their waste." China processed trash from 43 countries in addition to its own in 2016, and high-income countries are responsible for nearly 90 percent of plastic exports since 1988. The European Union was the top exporter, followed by North America and Japan.

But there is a way out. China isn't turning away everyone's plastic-and in the loopholes, its former plastic partners may find a way to continue to recycle their waste overseas.

Plastics are more difficult to recycle the more contamination they include. That pulp that you forgot to wash out of your orange juice bottle can gunk up machines and devalue the recycled product. Most plants still use hand-sorting, so workers can be exposed to diseases and sharp objects. So in 2013, China erected the "Green Fence," a policy that set a hard restriction on the amount of contamination that plastics can contain. Last November its ban expanded to include all nonindustrial plastic waste-aka the stuff in the blue bins.

There's an exception, though. If bales of recycled plastic meet very strict requirements-currently less than 0.5 percent contamination-China will still allow them to enter the country. And San Francisco is exploiting that rule.

San Francisco and other cities in the US don't have the infrastructure to reach their zero waste ambitions without exporting recyclables to other countries. So Recology, the waste recovery company that deals with San Francisco's trash, hired more sorters and slowed down the recycling process in order to lower the contamination levels from a max of 5 percent to a max of 1 percent in the last few months of 2017. Now, the limit is even lower, at .5 percent. Below that threshold, they can continue sending those bales to China. "Recology has done a good job with sorting quality material at a large volume," says Jack Macy, senior commercial zero waste coordinator for San Francisco. "The cleaner they can get the material, the more they can get for it. The better people separate out, the easier it is to create recyclable bales for marketing."

Not all cities have the infrastructure and resources that San Francisco does, which means that China will continue turning trash away at the border. That leaves lots of stranded plastic, which ends up piling up in its countries of origin. It might be incinerated. It could be buried in a landfill. If the countries surrounding China can't deal with the excess, the plastics might leak into the environment. That means more endocrine disruptors in the water and more pollutants in the ocean.

Brooks says that she hopes the terrible options for the present plastic glut will help leaders plan better for future waste, or even eliminate it altogether. Her study found that about 90 percent of the traded plastics are single-use polymers, and she hopes that this data will encourage governments to put regulations in place to cut down on disposable plastics. "My dream would be that this is a big enough wake up call to drive international agreements," she says. The ban has already caused the EU to consider a tax on throwaway plastics. Maybe more cities will step up to decontaminate their waste, like San Francisco. Or-imagine this-cut back on plastics altogether.

More Great WIRED Stories

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China Won't Solve the World's Plastics Problem Any More

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For a long time, China has been a dumping ground for the world's problematic plastics. In the 1990s, Chinese markets saw that discarded plastic could be profitably recreated into exportable bits and bobs-and it was less expensive for international cities to send their waste to China than to deal with it themselves.

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 Why Should We Not Ban Plastic Bags
(Opposing viewpoint)

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 Why Should We Not Ban Plastic Bags
(Opposing viewpoint)

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This article has some good points on why we shouldn't ban plastic bags. It states "... paper bags take up nine times more room than plastic and break down at about the same rate. Switching to biodegradable plastic bags might be something to consider, but a ban on plastic bags won't do much for the landfills. If anything, assuming an increase in paper bag usage, it could make the problem worse." This is true but we can reuse the cotton bag more than both plastic and paper bags. We won't have to through out the cotton bag as fast because a plastic can rip more easily. Paper bag can be reuse in all the same ways a plastic bag could and they can even be used as a book cover for big textbooks in schools.

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Let us help you live a life you love. Find tools to help you have fun and make the most out of each and every day.

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This article is based on a whole bunch of different types pollution. I am focusing on getting rid of plastics. This article has examples on where the pollution can be located. It also talks about what our society is doing about environmental problems. All of these problems affect us and our environment around us such as animals, the ocean, and earth.

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On February 28, 2017, President Trump signed an executive order that gave states greatly increased control over clean water laws regarding rivers and streams. Critics pointed out that rivers and streams do not stop at state borders, creating the potential for one state's lenient water protection policies to damage the health and safety of those living downstream in other states.

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Scientifically proven when big fish eat the smaller fish and the smaller fish eat the little tiny plastic pieces that means we are the ones eating the plastic because we eat the bigger fish. The Bigger fish have the plastic in them because they ate the small fish which were the ones that ate the plastic in the first place.

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The garbage isn't healthy for the ocean. It also makes the world  look like complete trash and nobody or animal wants water that is polluted with trash.

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Land pollution can cause problems with farmers growing crops.They can't have soil with these toxic gases and trash because it will make the crops go bad. If we don't have vegetables what will keep us healthy?

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We are wasting money by throwing things and foods that are left over when there are people out there. We could at least save food for the next day or use reusable cloth bags instead of plastic.

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The plastic has been affect poor innocent sea animals. There are so many that get killed or injured from plastic.  If you don't care about these cute sea creatures then something is not right.

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This article focuses on how they are going on take care of plastic bags in the future. It also discusses the issues other countries are having with plastic waste.

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The United States Needs to Phase Out All Single-Use Plastic

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Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection, Gale, 2019. Opposing Viewpoints in Context, http%3A%2F%2Flink.galegroup.com%2Fapps%2Fdoc%2FKDGNCM058973610%2FOVIC%3Fu%3Dpl2683%26sid%3DOVIC%26xid%3Db5de9497. Accessed 27 Feb. 2019. Originally published as "Grocery bags and takeout containers aren't enough. It's time to phase out all single-use plastic," Los Angeles Times, 20 Feb. 2018.

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This gives us ideas on how we can fix what we are doing to our environment. They give us the idea of reusing things that cause the ocean to fill up with a bunch of plastic which makes the water polluted.

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This expands on what we do to our environment by throwing away our trash. It gives you example of different ways it can cause such damage to innocent people and animals.

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How We Can Keep Plastics Out of Our Ocean | National Geographic