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C- Updated on August 20, 2019
R- Agrees that plastic is a problem
A- Elizabeth Mathew from washingtonpost.com
A- There were no spelling errors
P- persuade to change your plastic habits

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Abeego's compostable beeswax-coated cotton cloths typically last up for one year. To clean, rinse with cold water and dish soap and let dry. (Kim Jay Photography)

Not long ago, I was in my kitchen wrapping up dinner leftovers when a dear friend who was visiting let out a cry of disapproval: "What are you doing? You can't use that plastic!" My hand stopped in the middle of ripping a big piece of Saran wrap. "What else am I supposed to use to cover the salad?" I asked. My friend proceeded to launch into a passionate, thorough explanation of all the reasons - both scientific and ethical - that I shouldn't be using plastic wrap or any other single-use plastic.

I think of this exchange as my second plastic awakening. Yes, I have seen the pictures of the piles of plastic littering the world's oceans, killing wildlife and polluting our food chain, but I felt like I was doing my part to help: I never use plastic straws, and I always bring canvas shopping bags and mesh produce bags with me to the grocery store. But I had not done anything to put an end to the yards of plastic wrap, piles of Baggies and stacks of disposable cups that my family and I toss away.

After one day of tracking the plastic I discarded, I realized my friend is right; our dependence on single-use plastics is staggering. And the consequences of our throwaway habits are even more staggering: The Ellen MacArthur Foundation's New Plastics Economy report predicted that by 2050 there could be more plastic in the world's oceans than fish by weight.

Contact lenses, corks and Christmas lights can all be recycled. Here's how.

Dianna Cohen, co-founder and chief executive of the nonprofit organization Plastic Pollution Coalition, has dedicated the past 10 years to making the world plastic-free, which is a lofty goal; Americans alone discard more than 30 million tons of plastic a year, Cohen said. For her, it's not a partisan issue, and it's not an issue for the elite; it's an issue that affects all of us. "We are producing instant garbage and instant waste," she said. "We need to shift our thinking to reusable over disposable. It's pretty clear we can do that."

To do that, Cohen says, we need to go back to our old ways. "We need to do things the way our grandparents and great-grandparents did," she said, "like store leftovers in a ceramic bowl and then use a saucer or plate to cover it when you put it in the fridge." Another option for leftovers, Cohen says, is to cover them in reusable beeswax-coated cotton cloths, such as the ones from Abeego. "I wrap cheeses in them, use them to wrap up half an avocado, or lay them over the tops of baking dishes or bowls." They aren't as snug and tight as plastic wrap, but they have a similar effect. To clean the cloths, just rinse them in cold water with an eco-friendly dish soap and allow them to dry. Typically, they last for one year and then can be composted.

Cohen also saves glass jars from pickles, jams and spaghetti sauce to store leftovers, and she hunts for old Pyrex at thrift stores and yard sales. She buys milk and yogurt in glass containers and purchases as much food as she can in bulk, always bringing her own containers or cotton bags to fill.

To cut down on plastic in the bathroom, Cohen forgoes plastic hand soap pump bottles in favor of old-fashioned bar soap. "People say that it's more sanitary to use a plastic pump bottle of soap, but the way I see it, every time you run the bar of soap under water to wash your hands, it gets cleaned." Cohen also recommends trying bar shampoo; she admits it's tough to use if you have long hair, but there's an added benefit to most bar shampoos: They tend to be free of paraben and phthalate.

As for toothpaste, Cohen makes her own. "It's so easy. There are lots of recipes online, but it's basically just baking soda, coconut oil and whatever essential oil you like." Her preference is classic peppermint flavoring.

When it comes to her on-the-go habits, such as her morning coffee and her lunch, Cohen has an entire kit she carries around. "My friends and I like to think of ourselves as urban backpackers." In their kits, they have bamboo utensils, a spork and stainless steel containers (most of Cohen's kit is from To-Go Ware). But if the camping vibe isn't for you, check out the stylish Porter collection from W&P. The ceramic lunch bowl is very similar in size and shape to the typical take-out salad/grain bowl, and it has a super-secure silicone wrap, rigid plastic lid and a snap-tight silicone strap.

For drinks, Cohen used to carry around a glass bottle, but after she broke her third one, she switched to metal - stainless steel, not aluminum, which she says leaves an aftertaste. Her favorite bottle is the Hydro Flask; it keeps cold drinks cold for 24 hours and hot drinks hot for 12 hours, and there is never any condensation or heat transfer to the outside of the bottle. The company also makes a stainless steel wine tumbler and a 12-ounce coffee mug. (Cohen has three stainless steel mugs: from Hydro Flask, S'well and Steelys Drinkware.)

To replace plastic straws, buy a reusable substitute; Cohen uses the Plastic Pollution Coalition's PPC Straw ($3 from Life Without Plastic), but if you're looking for more of a set, Pampered Chef sells a set of two stainless steel straws that come with a nylon travel bag and a cleaning brush for $7.

The sheer number of stainless steel bottles and reusable straws in stores shows consumers are interested in cutting back on plastic, but there are signs of movement on the business side, too, Cohen says. The Intercontinental Hotel Group, which owns brands such as Kimpton, Crowne Plaza and Holiday Inn, has pledged to swap out all plastic bathroom toiletries for bulk-size refillable amenities by 2021. The San Francisco International Airport has banned plastic water bottle sales and is committed to being completely zero-waste by 2021. And Nestlé has committed to make 100 percent of its packaging recyclable or reusable by 2025.

For my part, kicking the plastic habit is hard, but I have taken Cohen's no-plastic pledge, what her organization calls the four R's: refuse, reduce, reuse and recycle.

Mayhew, a "Today" show style expert and former magazine editor, is the author of "Flip! for Decorating."

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How to cut down on single-use plastics at home

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Not long ago, I was in my kitchen wrapping up dinner leftovers when a dear friend who was visiting let out a cry of disapproval: "What are you doing? You can't use that plastic!" My hand stopped in the middle of ripping a big piece of Saran wrap.

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C- Posted January 9, 2020
R- Answers my question
A- NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council)
A- no spelling errors
P- persuade and inform

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What Are Single-Use Plastics?

Put simply, single-use plastics are goods that are made primarily from fossil fuel-based chemicals (petrochemicals) and are meant to be disposed of right after use-often, in mere minutes. Single-use plastics are most commonly used for packaging and serviceware, such as bottles, wrappers, straws, and bags.

Though plastic-a chain of synthetic polymers, essentially-was invented in the mid-19th century, it wasn't until the 1970s that its popularity skyrocketed. Manufacturers began replacing traditionally paper or glass staples with lighter or more durable and affordable plastic alternatives; plastic jugs replaced milk jars, for instance. Since the 1950s, 8.3 billion metric tons of plastics have been produced, and half of that in the past 15 years alone.

There are many uses for plastic that are not only reasonable but important, such as surgical gloves, or straws for people with disabilities. But these cases make up a small fraction of single-use plastic. According to a 2017 study, more than half of non-fiber plastic, which excludes synthetic fabrics like polyester and nylon, comes from plastic packaging alone, much of which is for single-use items.

Why Is Single-Use Plastic Bad?

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. Our reliance on these plastics means we are accumulating waste at a staggering rate. We produce 300 million tons of plastic each year worldwide, half of which is for single-use items. That's nearly equivalent to the weight of the entire human population.

Reducing plastic use is the most effective means of avoiding this waste (and the impacts linked to plastic production and use). Carrying reusable bags and bottles is one great way to avoid single-use plastics in our day-to-day lives; more on preventing plastic waste can be found below.

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 a whopping 91 percent of all plastic isn't recycled at all. Instead it ends up in landfills or in the environment. Single-use plastics in particular-especially small items like straws, bags, and cutlery-are traditionally hard to recycle because they fall into the crevices of recycling machinery and therefore are often not accepted by recycling centers.

Left alone, plastics don't really break down; they just break up. Over time, sun and heat 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. Some microplastics are even small by design, like the microbeads used in facial scrubs or the microfibers in polyester clothing. They end up in the water, 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 health issues, like punctured organs or fatal intestinal blockages.

Single-Use Plastics and Pollution

Although single-use plastic pollution accumulates most visibly on our streets, in fact our water suffers even more. Litter can be the first stage in a waste stream that enters waterways as plastics tossed on the street are washed away by rain or travel via storm drains into rivers and streams. Our waterway plastic pollution is particularly concentrated: Just ten rivers carry 93 percent of the world's total amount of plastic that enters the oceans via rivers each year.

In 2015 researchers from the University of Georgia estimated that between 4.8 million and 12.7 million metric tons of plastic per year make their way into the oceans via people living within 30 miles of a coast. The majority of this pollution-dominated by single-use plastic waste-comes from countries lacking infrastructure to properly manage waste, particularly in Asia. India, for example, generates 25,940 tons of plastic waste every day but collects only 60 percent of it. (It's also important to remember that waste management is just one part of the global materials cycle. For instance, a lot of the plastic produced in Asian countries is for products that serve U.S. demand-and the United States often sends plastic waste back to these countries for recycling.)

Marine animals bear the burden of this influx of garbage into their habitats. Beached whales have been found with stomachs full of plastic trash. And recent studies found plastic in the guts of 90 percent of the seabirds tested and 100 percent of the turtles. Alarmingly, scientists estimate that there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean by weight in 2050. Not only is plastic estimated to kill millions of marine animals and seabirds each year, but it's also contaminating seafood that humans have relied on for millennia, particularly with microplastics in animals' guts.

Our addiction to plastic also has negative impacts on the climate. A recent report showed that plastic production contributes to planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions at every point in its life cycle. The process of drilling for plastic's source materials, oil and gas, leads to methane leaking and flaring and is often combined with clearing forests and wetlands that otherwise would have sequestered carbon. Refineries where crude oil is turned into plastic make up one of the most greenhouse gas-intensive industries in the manufacturing sector. And "cracker plants"-which break, or "crack," ethane molecules, a component of natural gas, into the chemical building blocks of plastic products-are energy intensive and highly polluting. In 2015 a mere 24 of these ethane cracker facilities in the United States had the combined carbon output of 3.8 million passenger vehicles. And the recent fracking boom, resulting in a surplus of oil, is fueling a subsequent rise in cracker plants, too. That's bad news for our carbon reduction goals: if plastic production continues unabated, its greenhouse gas emissions could reach 1.34 gigatons per year by 2030 -equal to adding nearly 300 new coal-fired power plants-even as the need to curb global climate change becomes more urgent.

Plastic pollution-whether in our oceans, piling up on our coastlines, or contributing to our climate crisis-impacts vulnerable communities first. Even if plastic doesn't end up in the ocean, recycled plastic is often exported from high-income countries to developing countries to process. But the sheer amount of plastic waste inundates communities until they are drowning under thousands of tons of plastic trash. This is the case particularly in Southeast Asia, which has begun to import much of the plastic that used to go to China for recycling. Not only does the waste destroy the land itself, but when plastic is incinerated (as is the case for unrecyclable plastic at some illegal facilities) its toxic fumes quickly become a health hazard for residents, leading to everything from skin rashes to cancer. Such is the case with many environmental crises: the worst effects are pushed onto overburdened communities with the fewest resources to fight back.

Should We Ban Single-Use Plastics?

Plastic is putting a strain on waste management systems, our oceans, and vulnerable communities the world over. A wave of single-use plastic bans is sweeping the country and the globe-most often on plastic bags, straws, stirrers, and takeout clamshells. (Some places are going so far as to ban single-use plastics entirely; most notably, India intends to go this route by 2022.) Among the U.S. cities to outlaw plastic straws are Malibu, Berkeley, Seattle, and Miami Beach. Plastic bag bans-ideally accompanied by a fee on paper bags-are also catching on. New York State and Hawaii just passed theirs, set to go into effect in 2020, and California's bag ban, which was passed in 2014, has been shown to have reduced plastic bag usage by 85 percent (with some customers opting to pay a 10 cent fee for thicker plastic bags) and has reduced coastal pollution.

What do the bans accomplish? They prevent millions of tons of plastic from entering the waste stream each year. And when it comes to waste that lasts forever, every ton counts. In New York, 23 billion plastic bags are used by residents each year. Not only does banning single-use plastic reduce pollution, but it also reduces demand for plastic production that's contributing to global climate change. But beyond these impacts, the bans have cultural effects. Companies are forced to innovate, rethinking their designs and sourcing sustainable materials. And they help shift consumer mind-sets, as people begin to recognize that exorbitant and avoidable waste is not sustainable.

Large producers of single-use plastics can make a big environmental impact. As part of the Break Free From Plastic movement, Greenpeace volunteers conducted an audit of plastic pollution along coastlines, sifting through tens of thousands of individual pieces across 42 countries to identify the pollution's sources. They discovered that Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Nestlé products were found most often. Coca-Cola has said that it alone produces three million tons of plastic packaging each year, equivalent to a terrifying 200,000 plastic bottles per minute. Policies like bottle bill laws-which generally require retailers to add a fee on individual bottles, which can then be partially redeemed by customers when they recycle-are a way to increase corporate responsibility for waste while providing a monetary incentive to recycle. In Taiwan, which was once overflowing with so much trash that it spurred public protest and the nickname "Garbage Island," companies now either manage their own waste or subsidize government-run infrastructure. Accompanied by high social accountability and musical garbage trucks, that strategy has proved wildly effective: the island now reports recycling rates above 50 percent.

Some companies are taking initiative on their own. McDonald's swapped its plastic straws for paper at its United Kingdom and Ireland restaurants. Disney is eliminating single-use plastic straws and stirrers at all its theme parks, resorts and properties. And Starbucks, which uses an estimated one billion plastic straws per year, is phasing them out in favor of paper ones. These actions are a response to calls for change and shifting consumer habits.

Avoiding Single-Use Plastics

Individual choices -and the collective shifts they bring about-add up quickly. Making just one simple swap, like purchasing a reusable water bottle, can spare the environment hundreds of plastic bottles each year. Here are a few more tips for ridding your life (and your community) of single-use plastics for good.

Always pack a reusable bag when shopping. (And yes-reusable totes are better for the environment than plastics, recent media claims aside.)

Cook more often, to reduce your use of plastic-heavy takeout containers.

Buy in bulk. Avoid individually packaged goods, like snack packs.

Though buying online sometimes has a lower carbon footprint than shopping in a store (skip the express delivery option, if you can), online shipments are still chock-full of plastic. Your best bet to reduce your footprint and plastic waste? Walk, bike, or take public transit to buy in-person.

Avoid plastic wrap altogether by storing leftovers in reusable containers. Try reusable and compostable beeswax wrap for an easy and decorative option.

Buy a metal or bamboo reusable straw. Pack it alongside reusable cutlery (like wood, bamboo, or metal chopsticks) for sustainable eating on the go.

Talk to the owners of the restaurants you frequent. Ask if they have nonplastic alternatives to plastic straws, stirrers, or bags.

Speak out in support of local plastic bans, whether by calling your local government representative, submitting an op-ed to your city's newspaper, or simply starting conversations with neighbors.

Let companies that make your favorite products know that you care about the packaging. Tweet, call, or send letters to these companies to ask them to switch to more durable, recyclable, compostable, renewable, and/or recycled-content packaging with less fossil fuel-derived plastic.

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Here's everything you need to know about the most ubiquitous (and avoidable) kind of plastic waste: the kind made to be tossed in mere minutes.

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C- nodate
R- agrees that plastic is a problem
A- Oceana
A- no spelling errors
P- wants to persuade to help stop single use plastics

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The Problem

The oceans face a massive and growing threat from something you encounter everyday: plastics. An estimated 33 billion pounds of plastic leaks into the marine environment-this is roughly equivalent to dumping two garbage trucks full of plastic into the oceans every minute.

As plastics continue to flood into our oceans, the list of marine species affected by plastic debris expands. Tens of thousands of individual marine organisms have been observed suffering from entanglement or ingestion of plastics permeating the marine environment-from zooplankton and fish, to sea turtles, marine mammals and seabirds.

Plastics never go away. Instead, they break down into smaller and smaller pieces, which act as magnets for harmful pollutants. When eaten by fish, some of those chemical-laden microplastics can work their way up the food chain and into the fish we eat.

Plastics in our oceans threaten the viability of critical marine ecosystems, but marine plastic pollution is not just a problem for our oceans. The extent to which we, too, are being affected by the plastics that have become so ubiquitous in our environment-in our food, water and air-is a topic of extensive research.

Unfortunately, one of the most popular solutions to plastic pollution falls far short. A meager 9% of all plastic waste generated has been recycled. Recycling alone is not enough to solve the plastics crisis. To have an impact, we must reduce the amount of single-use plastic being produced at the source.
Oceana campaigns to do just that in strategic coastal countries that produce for more than 30% of the world's plastic waste.
Solution

Solving the plastics problem in our oceans will ultimately take concerted action from companies, governments and advocates like you.

Companies

Government

Consumers

Oceana campaigns in eight countries and the European Union to achieve meaningful reductions in ocean plastic pollution by reducing the production and use of throwaway plastics.

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The oceans face a massive and growing threat from something you encounter everyday: plastics. An estimated 33 billion pounds of plastic leaks into the marine environment -this is roughly equivalent to dumping two garbage trucks full of plastic into the oceans every minute.

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C- updated o October 30, 2019
R- Agrees with my claim
A- United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
A- No spelling errors
P- inform

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C- no date
R- Agrees with claim
A- is from CNN cnn.com
A- no spelling errors
P- inform of the Midway Atoll and the problem of plastic

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Midway Atoll, North Pacific Ocean (CNN) -- The distance from humanity yawns out in front of you when you stand on the pale sands of this tiny Pacific island.

Midway Atoll is just about the furthest piece of land from civilization and its constant engine whir, data and jostle.

Standing on the island's remote shoreline brings a calm and humility -- until you look down at your feet.

On the beach lies a motorcycle helmet, a mannequin's head, an umbrella handle, and a flip-flop. They didn't fall from a plane or off a ship, and there aren't any civilians living here who could have left them behind.

They were washed in with the tide, most likely from China or the US, thousands of miles away -- part of an enormous plastic garbage patch, spinning in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, which you probably contribute to. And these are just the bits of it we can see.

Plastic has become a vital part of our lives of convenience. Yet the coffee cup lids, water bottles and bags we use once and throw away do end up somewhere -- in landfills, but also in the ocean.

Nearly every piece of plastic ever made still exists today. More than five trillion pieces of plastic are already in the oceans, and by 2050 there will be more plastic in the sea than fish, by weight, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

Some 8 million tons of plastic trash leak into the ocean annually, and it's getting worse every year. Americans are said to use 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour.

Nothing is an emergency until you feel the burn, or see the red lights. Here plastic's impact is staring you in the face.

Midway is out of sight, but again it is on the front line. Once home to the decisive battle that turned World War Two in favor of the US in the Pacific, it's now locked in a new fight.

The smell of decay

You have to fly to Midway at night. Only then do the millions of birds that swarm the island in high season vacate the runway. We could only get here with permission from the US government and the help of a private jet.

The smell hits you first, and catches in your throat. It's the whiff of decay, of thousands of birds' bodies rotting. Part of this is nature: CNN visited the island in June -- the time of year when the Laysan albatross lay their chicks, who must learn to fly, or die.

But part of it is man-made: When you tear open the fragile ribcages of the birds who did not survive -- as US Fish and Wildlife Service Superintendent Matthew Brown did in front of us -- the sheer volume of plastic waste now in our world becomes apparent.

Inside the slight skeleton of one albatross, we found bottle tops and a cigarette lighter amongst seemingly endless tiny shards of plastic. It's as if plastic actually was the bird's diet.

These brightly colored plastic fragments were picked out of the sea by the bird's parents, who mistook them for food, then fed them to their offspring. The birds can't digest the plastic pieces but they still feel full, which causes malnutrition and death, according to researchers. Volunteers here have an almost full-time job scooping up the corpses.

kilograms of plastic have entered the ocean since you started reading

They have tried to clean Midway up; the huge dump of plastic trash sitting on the runway awaiting collection by boats is evidence of that. But it's almost impossible because so much washes ashore daily -- not to mention the five tons the birds fly onto the island inside in their stomachs each year, according to Brown.

The Eastern Island is now littered with tiny fragments of plastic. The birds die and decay, but the plastic inside them stays forever in the sand -- a layer of man's doing that will never go away. Midway will probably vanish under rising ocean levels before the plastic decays.

"These are the classic 'canary in the coal mine' scenarios," said Brown.

"This is an animal that relies entirely on the ocean for its survival, just like 3 billion people do. If their children, their chicks, are being impacted by plastic this much, it is simply a forbearer of what is coming for us."

From fish to plate

So much of the damage is on the edge of the invisible. If you kneel down on Midway and stick your hand into the hot sand, you can pull up a troubling multicolored array of particles.

These are what activists call the "new sand" -- plastic that has broken down into smaller and smaller pieces, and then become part of the shoreline.

Sources: Ellen MacArthur Foundation, Lisbeth Van Cauwenberghe

These smaller particles are what end up in the food chain. The smallest ones, called nano-plastics, sink deep into the ocean and can end up in plankton. Larger pieces, known as micro-plastics, float in a soup, suspended in water, and are eaten by fish. The fish then get eaten by "apex predators" higher up the food chain -- including humans, or the Hawaiian Monk Seal.

We don't know as much as we want to about what plastic has done to these seals -- they're endangered, so there are restrictions on opening them up for study by scientists. But there are already troubling signs.

Jessica Bohlander, a marine biologist from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, says the seals are acting as a "sentinel for exposure to plastics and other persistent organic pollutants for humans."

"A few individual animals we have seen have very high levels [of micro-plastics], particularly in adult males," she said.

Bohlander says plastic ingestion could be causing reproductive problems for the seals -- and the bigger the animal, the bigger the concentration of plastic.

"It is very troubling," she said. "With every step of the food chain, the concentration that can be measured in the tissues of animals becomes magnified."

11,000 pieces of plastic each year

Seafood is essential to human life, but there is growing evidence that fish may prefer eating plastic to food.

Swedish scientists recently demonstrated that larval Perch raised in waters containing micro-plastics "only ate plastic and ignored their natural food source of free-swimming zooplankton."

This diet of plastic stunted growth rates, reduced hatching rates, and caused abnormal behaviors in the young fish, according to the study.

There's also evidence that plastic is harmful to humans. The US government says styrene -- one of the key ingredients in plastic -- is probably a human carcinogen. It is studying the effects of plastic litter on marine life and plans to launch an inquiry into the effects on human health, including fetal formation.

One study found that man-made marine debris may cause "physical harm" to humans when ingested via seafood. Another estimated that Europeans who eat shellfish could be exposed to 11,000 pieces of micro-plastic each year.

What science hasn't proven yet is whether the plastic in the fish we eat directly damages our health. But it's getting there, and the case for real government concern is growing.

And Midway, just by dint of its own distance and damage, is making that case.

Matthew Brown told me he eats sushi much less than he used to.

"Plastics also attract other contaminants, so if you are eating food that has little bits of blue and red in there, these are attracting ... other contaminants in the ocean. This has a real impact on our primary food source."

The choice the world has made

We took a boat out from the island, towards the coral reef that surrounds it. There, you can feel the awesome power of nature.

Caught in the reef nearby was a sight far more troubling than the bottles we had seen float past us on the water. In one inlet was a soup of tiny white pellets. A huge piece of Styrofoam packaging had been caught, now bobbing and slowly breaking down. In its thick soup was a bottle-top, a feather, and other gunk. You could swim into it easily, let your head emerge up in its midst.

Signs of resilience and defiance in nature abounded, but in one corner, man's carelessness had occupied a visible space and, perhaps for longer, an invisible one. We simply do not know what we have already done.

The hardest part about the journey to Midway is the sense of powerlessness it leaves you with. The damage there began with choices -- and litter -- made decades ago. And the problem is growing, not shrinking, as humanity gets more environmentally aware.

Stopping this flow of trash would require an incredible change in the daily behavior of 7 billion people.

China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Sri Lanka are considered the five worst offenders when it comes to plastic pollution, according to a study published in Science, and you can anticipate as much success telling people there to stop using disposable plastics as you would do in the US. Road test the phrase: "I'm sorry, you can't have that coffee as you haven't brought your own reusable cup."

kilograms of plastic have entered the ocean since you started reading

So what can you do? Very little, unless we all do it. You can start by bringing water bottles to work, or a reusable fork to the café, or insisting on less packaging for products.

For now, the balance of convenience versus the likely risk to human health is in the favor of the coffee cup. If the science isn't there yet, public opinion won't be either.

There is a tiny glimmer of hope amidst this looming disaster, one I often heard while talking to researchers, one that shows people can change.

It's a recent example of something so glaringly, obviously bad for the planet -- and people -- that for centuries was accepted as a normal part of our happy, modern world.

Remember smoking? We don't do that as much anymore.

CNN's Nick Thompson, Kenneth Uzquiano, India Hayes, Sean O'Key and Lauren Said-Moorhouse contributed to this report.

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Plastic island: How our trash is destroying paradise

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Midway Atoll, North Pacific Ocean (CNN) -- The distance from humanity yawns out in front of you when you stand on the pale sands of this tiny Pacific island. Midway Atoll is just about the furthest piece of land from civilization and its constant engine whir, data and jostle.

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C- no date
R- disagrees
A- Strategic-packaging.com
A- no spelling errors
P- inform

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Plastics is a collective name for a material called polymers, actually meaning 'containing many parts', which consists of long chains of molecules. These polymers occur both naturally, in the form of cellulose or petroleum and other fossil fuels, and synthetically. The invention of synthetic polymers would revolutionize the world. They have indeed allowed us to make durable, lightweight and more flexible plastics, therefore expanding its potential use.

World War II would cause the plastic industry to boom, offering a substitute material for other scarce resources. Plastic production in the United States alone skyrocketed by 300% . Not before long, we considered plastic to be a miracle invention that would serve as a replacement for any substance, because it was economical and its purposes appeared limitless.

"The possibilities of plastics gave some observers an almost utopian vision of a future with abundant material wealth [...]."

Quote: Sciencehistory.org

If plastic was, and some will argue it still is, such a prodigious product, why did its reign seems to come to an end? Plastic's success would also herald its demise, because plastic is easily disposable, it is also designed to last forever. In the 1960s, the incoming tide of plastic pollution and litter was first being noticed in the oceans, an era during which people became increasingly aware of environmental issues. As awareness and concern about pollution spread throughout the 1970s and 1980s, plastic debris and its persistence began to trouble observers.

In addition, plastic didn't appear to be as harmless or sanitary as previously thought. Additives and certain chemicals that made plastics so strong, lightweight or flexible potentially posed human health risks. There was no knowledge about how the chemicals might negatively affect our food and water or what results its exposure and continued accumulation in our bodies would generate. On top of all that, plastic became progressively associated with cheap, replaceable and fake products.

Plastic's reputation suffered further after the so-called "Blue Planet effect". Scientists and industry experts would argue that the plastic issue had been known for a long time, but the general public was not aware of how much plastic was in the oceans nor did they realize its impact on marine life.

Premiered in 2001, BBC's documentary series Blue Planet would reveal the troubling reality of plastic pollution in our oceans and push the issue in the public arena for the first time. The ball started rolling after that. Blue Planet II, also a BBC documentary, broadcast in 2018. It was a huge hit and would again be a catalyst in public awareness about the environment and our wildlife.

Underwater wildlife photographer Justin Hofman's 2017 iconic picture of a seahorse clinging to a discarded bright pink plastic cotton swab and the video that made a sea turtle become the anti plastic straw poster child, changed our world's perception on plastics. People around the globe were struck by the heart-breaking images that displayed the detrimental impact on the environment and wildlife of everyday household products that everyone uses.

Scientists have known about the plastics issue for a long time, but it's only very recently that the general public became more aware of the impact of plastics, and how they could change their behaviour and use their purchasing power to drive positive change in the industry.

Quote: Lydia Butler, DS Smith Customer Sustainability and Projects Specialist

Plastic was originally introduced as measure of convenience, the issue of it having to be recycled simply wasn't a real concern before. With an ever growing public awareness of plastic's destructive impact, the plastics industry offered recycling as a solution in the 1980s. Today, a meagre 9% of all plastics that has ever been produced has being recycled, 12% is incinerated and some 79% ends up in landfills or in our oceans . If we do nothing, there could be more plastics than fish in the oceans by 2050, some predict. Why, in a technologically advanced age of self-driving cars and potential space tourism, isn't more plastic being recycled?

"The world is at a turning point. For millennia, production and consumption cycles were circular, consistent with the "waste equals input" flows inherent in nature. "

Quote: Tom Szaky, CEO, Terracycle

If recycling was easy, everybody would do it. Our current produce-use-dispose system demonstrates that it isn't that straightforward. First, plastic comes in many different shapes and sizes, depending on its purpose. This benefit has also been the biggest downfall because it's still too hard for our current technology to distinguish between various types of plastic materials and separate them from each other. Recycling them together, they turn into very low-quality plastic that has little or no viable market.

Second, recycling demands huge additional efforts and big investments. It is more economical to produce new plastics by using virgin materials, as opposed to used or recycled plastics. Governments are writing legislations to encourage companies to use recycled plastics and it's those types of systems that will tip the scale and make it financially feasible to recycle more types of plastics.

Ultimately, and perhaps more decisively, it all comes back to a cultural matter: plastic has become indispensable in our modern, fast-paced lives. Plastics are all around us and we all benefit from them. As we use plastics for more purposes, we're also creating more plastics. Yet, with whopping 8 million tonnes of plastic entering the ocean every year, we need to rethink our current plastics economy. Are we truly ready and willing to forgo our luxurious lifestyles?

Plastics is an everyday story. Every brand, every country is implicated. Just a few images took the world by storm. Greenpeace's #IsThisYours flooded both Instagram and Twitter , trying to shame companies for single-use plastic packaging. The public increasingly appreciates its potential positive contribution, and social media have played a large role in this.
Picture:#isthisyours on instagram
Consumers have grown steadily more distrusting of the information they receive. Social media have allowed them, more than ever, to publicly question certain data, challenge prevailing policies and feel more involved in the debate. As a result, companies are making bold promises. With climate change, it may well be the first time witnessing consumers having that level of power over what companies decide on.

"People don't necessarily care more about the environment than before, but we have all become more aware and it has just become more popular."

Challenging and adjusting current legislation and policies is beneficial for all parties on the long-term.

Some companies could switch completely from plastics to cardboard overnight, if they had to. Due to their product type, however, consumers wouldn't notice the difference if they did switch over to cardboard packaging. As a result, those brands aren't taking any action. It's mostly brands that have a higher visibility that are making changes. Other companies aren't changing because at the moment it would be so much more expensive to change, and there are some items that people aren't going to stop buying, regardless of the plastics being used. So consumers won't act on it and some brands understand that very well. One for the major factors why companies are hesitant to ban or decrease plastic packaging is cost, indeed. Government should offer support to drive the market to recycle more. Several EU member states are considering to introduce the so-called modulated recycling fees for plastic packaging , which should urge brands to invest more in the right technologies and choose the right kind of materials.

"Healthy oceans can support healthy people and healthy profits; if we let them[...]. It means using legislation, innovation and consumer choices to replace plastic related demand and pollution with better alternatives.

Quote: Erik Solheim, Executive Director, UN Environment
Other initiatives are being taken. Europe now bans and restricts certain single-use plastic products since May earlier this year, which together constitute 70% of all marine litter items. And China's 2018 ban on plastic waste imports has pushed the plastic packaging landscape to find more viable solutions for plastic waste.

"Recycling systems can never keep up with plastic production. The only solution to plastic pollution is producing less plastic."

Quote: Kate Lin, Senior Campaigner with Greenpeace East Asia

The plastic packaging industry has changed a lot and it is still evolving significantly. Yet, more transparency is crucial. Recycling is one of the options. Sometimes, however, it is more energy-intensive to recycle certain types of plastic and it's unsure whether it is actually better for the environment to recycle them because of the higher rate of carbon emissions associated with transportation.

The big brands and retailers are starting to understand: the solution for a more sustainable and innovative future would be lots and lots of different initiatives combined, and every little bit counts.

Is cardboard packaging the holy grail? The answers is debated. Introducing innovative packaging strategies to ensure that they can be reusable, recyclable, or compostable and develop new circular models in which reusable packaging replace single-use packaging are few of the options.

The packaging industry consciously needs to choose for smarter packaging in which cardboard can definitely play a huge role in this.

Again, there is not one simple solution that will stop plastic from pollution our oceans. Whether Cardboard is the revolutionary solution or not, you can read more in the next episode.

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Plastics: the rise, the fall and everything in between

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Plastics is a collective name for a material called polymers, actually meaning 'containing many parts', which consists of long chains of molecules. These polymers occur both naturally, in the form of cellulose or petroleum and other fossil fuels, and synthetically. The invention of synthetic polymers would revolutionize the world.

# data[].attributes.body
C- edited 2/25/2020
R- agrees, it shows the harmful effects of plastic
A- Photos.com by Getty Images
A- N/A
P- sell the picture

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C- April 7, 2017
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A- Shedd Aquarium
A- N/A
P- persuade

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C- no date
R- agrees with claim
A- Planet Love Life
A- no spelling errors
P- sell bracelet made from recycled fishing net

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C- no date
R- agrees with my claim
A- from National Geographic
A- no spelling errors
P- persuade to stop the use of plastic

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C- no date
R- agrees with my claim
A- from plasticpollutioncoalition
A-  N/A
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C- June 5, 2018
R- agrees
A- is from BBC World News
A- no spelling errors
P- purpose is to inform

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India's plastic problem - BBC World News, 5th June 2018

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C- March 15, 2016
R- agrees with claim
A- from National Geographic
A- N/A
P- persuade to stop plastic use

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C- July 10, 2018
R- agrees with my claim
A- from BBC
A- no spelling errors
P- purpose is to inform

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How did we get to a world full of plastic? - BBC

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C- August 15, 2019
R- agrees
A- BBC World News
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P- inform

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Why is there plastic in Arctic snow? - BBC News

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C- no date
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A- from CNN
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P- purpose is to inform

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MIDWAY - A Plastic Island - micro plastic is causing marine pollution , micro plastic pollution