Addicted to Plastic 23-09-2014

Addicted to Plastic

September 23, 2014

• In the film "Addicted to Plastic", two men talk about their experiences and what they have learned about plastic by tracking it down in our lives. Plastic is a great material, it can be changed to fit our needs, it can light, heavy, strong, colorful, clear, thick, or thin, depending on what we use it for... And we use it for almost everything. Two of the things people love about plastic is that it's disposable and relatively cheap. Even though plastic is such a versatile, adaptable, convenient, and seemingly foolproof material to use. But, as we all know, few things are so perfect that they don't have a catch... And what's the catch with plastic? It doesn't go away. A hundred years from now, the plastic you are using could still be around. This doesn't play out well for the environment, because it is toxic to many organisms and simply isn't a part of the environment that they evolved in. 
• All the plastic that has ever been made still exists, except for the plastic that has been incinerated.
• 80% of the debris found in the ocean, originated from land.
• There is no organism (that we know of) that is capable of degrading plastic. 

• Before watching the movie, I actually knew quite a bit about plastic and its negative affects on the environment because I had seen some TED Talks about related issues. For example, I knew that our oceans are full of plastic, and that the plastic is not going anywhere anytime soon. I also was aware of the extremely negative affects on organisms and our environment that it has. I knew that plastics can't be degraded, but also that there is a huge industry in alternative materials that we can use in the future.

The TED Talk I watched: 

(If you go to TED.com you can find many more videos related to this subject, I just didn't have to include them all) 

• Though I didn't find this documentary quite as engaging as "The Story of Stuff" that we previously watched, it still provoked lots of questions. For example: How can we clean plastic out of the ocean without disrupting the environment? Is it actually realistic to try to clean plastic out of the ocean and still expect to make a difference? I also began to wonder about the availability of plastic. If plastic is usually made from petroleum, and we use it at such a fast rate, how soon will we run out of petroleum? And though it isn't an ideal solution to our world's plastic situation, I found a little hope in the fact that eventually we would not be able to continue making plastics from petroleum products, and we would be forced to make bio-plastics. We always have the option of recycling the plastic we have, but if we do that, we still aren't disposing of the plastic into our environment. I also began to wonder what would happen once we ran out of petroleum. We always have alternatives, but maybe once the problem with natural resources becomes more real, maybe people will make bigger steps to using them more sustainably. Perhaps we would also start using more of the bio-degradable plastics that are made from plant products.

• Because I chose not to finish watching the film, I think that I might be able to find the answers to many of my questions later in the documentary itself. I could also research on the website "American Chemistry Council", because it includes a section devoted to plastics and sustainability, though it doesn't go into much detail. Another website I found that I think seems more useful is:
• http://www.sustainableplastics.org 
• I also found another website which states the complete opposite of what the documentary was about. However, I'm only sharing this to show more perspectives on plastic use, and I think their argument isn't actually valid based on the information they showed and lack of evidence for certain statements:
• http://www.curtec.com/en/sustainability-plastics 

The documentary: 

Images:

http://images.moviepostershop.com/addicted-to-plastic-movie-poster-2008-1020544792.jpg 

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0vu-n5VIR5h4fvNTBLQQh6hJdj98igr2b_X2ylYWeedBhE5UXl8FNc0cwpHSqEUbiFH75NbADJFpZFlAcNNVEArSXzt077QMfaVCystLBnybkA9N3aGukbJMiAnvNZeBqrYcnqLetdOw/s1600/How+long+until+its+gone.jpg

http://oceanicexplorer.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/ocean-plastic.png 

http://blog.wegowise.com/static/images/content/v1/recycling%20plastic%20statistics-resized-600.jpg

Videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZnw-d_Axy8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fddYApFEWfY