Plastic is everywhere. It is such a common part of our everyday lives that we often don’t even think about it: where it’s produced, what its function is or what happens after we toss it away. The documentary “Bag it” and the readings of Vice and National Geographic all outline the ugly truth in our plastic waste management.
As stated in the readings, China, along with other developing Asian countries, were able to accept exports of plastic and waste from developed countries. However, this has recently changed — leading to problems of where to manage these tons and tons of plastic waste. This situation in which the convenience in simply shipping away their plastic problems is no longer an option, is an inevitable one. As described in the Nat Geo article, facing this problem head-on, now that governments have no choice, could be an ““opportunity” for other nations to create better recycling systems at home.”
Having said that, the readings and video is a stark reminder of our own part of the plastic problem. It’s extremely easy to point fingers at others and avoid blame but the root cause of our plastic problem boils down to us as consumers. Whether it is grocery shopping or ordering takeout food on Eleme, there has been countless times where I simply toss the plastic packaging into the trash without a single thought of what would happen to it. Even when we attempt at reducing plastic waste, many businesses don’t offer plastic alternatives, besides consumers bringing in our own reusables. This is the reason why plastic continues to linger on until today despite the knowledge of us knowing how harmful it is — convenience. We as consumers have to constantly remind ourselves that the belief of single-use plastic bags is a total myth as these plastics actually live on and find themselves where they aren’t supposed to be.
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