When I searched “plastic pollution” directly on Google, the first 4 websites are all advertisements, then comes the definitions and explanation. This reflects that the waste has already been an industry.
Another really meaningful websites I have found is https://www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org/. It is really a well-designed website with videos and pictures of how serious pollution caused by single-use plastic is. It is also rational since it appeals for no using of single-use plastic, not all the plastic which is almost impossible.
According to both the reading The Concepts of Sustainability and the lecture from Mr.Brubaker, there is a huge profit margin in the waste industry, and this really astonished me. What is interesting is that in traditional Chinese opinion, doing things related to trash, waste is really a shame. Some parents even educate their children with “if you don’t study hard now, the only thing you can do when you grow up is to pick trash”. But it seems that doing business with trash is a really beneficial thing now. Though this industry can bring a high profit, it needs really detailed sorting, especially on plastic. The traces of recycled materials Mr.Brubaker has shown mainly focus on woods, metals, and cloths. And the especially attracting advertisement movie is using net — a certain kind of plastic. If we consider more about sustainability, according to the 3E: environment, equity, economy, we cannot just escape those different kinds, the enormous amount of mixed plastic or even some harmful plastics. I have tried several times to distinguish what kind of plastic my bottle is but I failed. In Accumulation: The Material Politics of Plastic, the author argued that “The bottle is a medium by which the multiple enactments of disposability become co-present and connect. That shows how the ever-growing flow of plastic moves in chaotic and multiple directions. This was a bottle made to be wasted, and its anticipated future is inscribed in its multiple presents”. To reduce or even eliminate plastic pollution and turn it into a true economy, we still have a long way to go.
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