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Dabkowski, Wiktor. Plastic water bottles blanket a beach in New Taipei, Taiwan in 2022. 2022. CNN, Rachel Ramiraz, 16 Mar. 2023, media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/230316091950-01-plastic-water-bottle-industry-climate.jpg?c=16x9&q=h_720,w_1280,c_fill/f_webp. Accessed 24 Mar. 2023.

---. Plastic water bottles blanket a beach in New Taipei, Taiwan in 2022. 2022. CNN, Rachel Ramiraz, 16 Mar. 2023, media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/230316091950-01-plastic-water-bottle-industry-climate.jpg?c=16x9&q=h_720,w_1280,c_fill/f_webp. Accessed 24 Mar. 2023.

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Evolution of food packaging through the ages.

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Plastic bottles littered across a beach in Taipei Taiwan. 

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Managing our plastic waste can be a huge challenge but there are some simple solutions. In 2019 a study of 1,200 workers found that the average lunch order had four packaged items, including sandwiches, chips and snacks. You might think that four individually wrapped food items don’t mean much, but let’s look at the bigger picture. Think about the many thousands of sandwich bags and packaging you, or the average person disposes of in a week. Over a week, these people could produce 20 separate items of non-recyclable packaging waste. That average might easily equate to 80 or more missed opportunities to reuse or recycle food packaging in a month. An easyway to mitigate this issue is to use multi use packaging items for your food. I know that a lot of food comes in single wrap plastics but, if you took your sandwich in a reusable, washable, bag that's one less plastic bag going to a landfill. Another solution is to not use cellophane wrapped products, this is because cellophane is not easily recyclable and clogs up the machinery used to break down recyclable materials. Although this issue is big we can all play our part and help lower the amount of plastic everyone uses.

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What are the economic or political impacts?

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What are the economic or political impacts?

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We all know about plastic waste, but what are big companies doing about it, and who needs to do more? McDonalds generates about 3 tons of waste a minute (almost 2 million tons a year) as of 2019. A RESULT of this new information was that in 2019 McDonalds also released a statement saying that they would use renewable, recyclable packaging by 2025. Chipotle Mexican Grill is a long standing company that has stood out in providing vegan friendly fast-food, but what about their sustainability efforts? In 2021, 31% of chipotle locations participated in a composting program with the goal of having 125 locations participating in these programs by 2022. Chipotle also shared a goal to reduce 5% of all waste by 2025 but actually saw an increase in waste in 2021, which suggests that the company may need to work harder to reach its sustainable goals. Some companies are stepping up while others are failing to meet their goals.

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Our plastic waste has to go somewhere, but it’s not going into the recycling. The majority of U.S. plastic waste goes into a landfill, of the 40 millions tons of municipal plastic waste an estimated 85% went into a landfill. Even with plastic waste soaring in the U.S. only an estimated 5-6% of municipal plastic waste was recycled in 2021 compared to almost 9% in 2018. This might be BECAUSE America doesn't have the capacity to recycle all of its waste domestically. A CONSEQUENCE of lacking this waste management infrastructure means that waste is often open-dumped or burned, exacerbating the already considerable plastic waste problem. Our plastic waste doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.

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The Plastic packaging industry not only harms the environment but it can also harm people. A lot of foam packaging items are made of polystyrene. The polystyrene itself is made with a chemical called styrene that can leach out of the foam package and CONSEQUENTLY, into our bodies. This is not the only danger of styrene, we know that chronic exposure can RESULT in headaches, depression, and fatigue. In 1986, the EPA released a report noting that the polystyrene manufacturing process was the fifth largest source of hazardous waste. If the impact on public health was not enough,It may take 500 years to decompose and it fills up an estimated 25-30% of the space in our world’s landfills, if it even ends up there. In addition, our lakes, waterways and oceans are suffering thanks to polystyrene waste. This plastic item not only damages the environment but everyone around it.

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The first synthetic polymer was created by John Wesley Hyatt in 1869, inspired by a New York firm's offer of 10,000 dollars for whoever could provide a substitute for ivory. Hyatt learned that by treating cellulose, derived from cotton fiber with camphor, Hyatt discovered a plastic that could be crafted into a variety of shapes and made to imitate natural substances like tortoiseshell, horn, linen, and ivory. In 1907, Leo Baekeland invented the first synthetic plastic called Bakelite to be used as an insulator during a time when electric america was quickly growing. Styrofoam was invented by the Dow Chemical Company in 1941 after a method first patented by Swedish inventor Carl Munter was rediscovered. The Dow Company then bought the rights to the patent and began to produce what we now know as Styrofoam. After this Styrofoam became a catchall that made up many different things. As plastics developed even further, the food packaging revolution began in 1960, even though Americans became increasingly aware of the environment as the first bits of plastic debris appeared in the ocean. Concern about plastic grew even further as time went on and is a big problem today, In 2012, Americans generated 14 million tons of plastic waste from packaging and containers.