i want an essay on plastic free environment
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Answer:
Plastic is everywhere nowadays. People are using it endlessly just for their comfort. However, no one realizes how it is harming our planet. We need to become aware of the consequences so that we can stop plastic pollution. Kids should be taught from their childhood to avoid using plastic. Similarly, adults must check each other on the same. In addition, the government must take stringent measures to stop plastic pollution before it gets too late.
Uprise of Plastic Pollution
Plastic has become one of the most used substances. It is seen everywhere these days, from supermarkets to common households. Why is that? Why is the use of plastic on the rise instead of diminishing? The main reason is that plastic is very cheap. It costs lesser than other alternatives like paper and cloth. This is why it is so common.
In the last decade, plastic has affected the health and life of human beings very badly. Some incidents have attracted the attention of the whole world and put a question mark about the use of plastic in daily life.
Plastic, the wonder material that we use for everything and which pollutes our environment, is perhaps the most harmful of trash dumped by mariners and sea-goers in sea because it does not readily break down in nature. In-fact, the plastic that goes over the side today may still be around in hundreds of years to foul up the fishing gear, boat propellers, and beaches of future generations.
Careless disposal of plastic can have dire consequences. A plastic bag looks like a tasty jellyfish to an indiscriminate feeder like the sea turtle, but plastic is indigestible. It can choke, block the intestines of, or cause infection in those animals that consume it.
A plastic bag can also clog an outboard engine’s cooling system. Lost or discarded monofilament fishing line can foul propellers, destroying oil seals and lower units of engines, or it can become an entangling web for fish, seabirds, and marine mammals.
According to the Centre for Marine Conservation, over 25,000 pieces of fishing line were collected from U.S. beaches during the 1996 annual beach clean-up and at least 40% of all animal entanglements reported during the clean-ups involved fishing line.
Every day, more and more plastic is accumulating in our oceans. Recreational boaters are not the only group that improperly disposes off plastic refuse at sea. Plastics also enter the marine environment from sewage outfalls, merchant shipping, commercial fishing operations, and beachgoers.
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In the middle stage, it is very flexible and can be given any shape depending on temperature and pressure. In practices, urea, formaldehyde, poly ethylene, polystyrene, polycithylcholide, phenoloic compounds and other substances are used in the preparation of plastics pollution.
Now-a-days the most popular plastic pollution is caused is polyvinyl chloride (P.V.C.). When any food material or blood is stored in the said plastic containers then gradually the soluble chemical gets dissolved in them causing death due to cancer and other skin diseases.
Polyvinyl chloride has also been found to destroy the fertility of the animals and their respiratory systems. When mixed with water, it causes paralysis and also damages bones and causes irritation to the skin.
Recently U.S.A. has banned the use of P.V.C. plastic in space apparatus and in food containers (as chemicals get dissolved in the food). India should immediately ban the use of P.V.C. in water pipes, food and medicine containers to save the lives of millions who are already suffering from different types of ailments.
Essay # 2. Causes of Plastic Pollution:
Plastics are used because these are easy and cheap to make and they can last a long time. Unfortunately these very useful qualities make plastic a huge pollution problem. Because the plastic is cheap it gets discarded easily and its persistence in the environment can do great harm. Urbanization has added to the plastic pollution in concentrated form in cities.
plastic thrown on land can enter the drainage lines and choke them resulting into floods in local areas in cities as was experienced in Mumbai, India in 1998. It was claimed in one of the programmes on TV channel that eating plastic bags results in death of 100 cattle per day in U.P. in India.
In stomach of one dead cow, as much as 35 kg of plastic was found. Because plastic does not decompose, and requires high energy ultra-violet light to break down, the amount of plastic waste in our oceans is streadily increasing.
More than 90% of the articles found on the sea beaches contained plastic. The plastic rubbish found on beaches near urban areas tends to originate from use on land, such as packaging material used to wrap around other goods.
On remote rural beaches the rubbish tends to have come from ships, such as fishing equipment used in the fishing industry. This plastic can affect marine wildlife in two important ways: by entangling creatures, and by being eaten.
Turtles are particularly badly affected by plastic pollution, and all seven of the world’s turtle species are already either endangered or threatened for a number of reasons. Turtles get entagled in fishing nets, and many sea turtles have been found dead with plastic bags in their stomachs. Turtles mistake floating transparent plastic bags for jellyfish and eat them.
In one dead turtle found off Hawaii in the Pacific more than 1000 pieces of plastic were found in its stomach. A recent US report concluded that more than 100000 marine mammals die every year in the world’s oceans by eating or getting entangled in plastic rubbish, and the position is worsening world-wide, 75 marine bird species are known to eat plastic articles. This includes 36 species found off South Africa.