By now, most of us might be familiar with a growing trend of reducing plastic and living green, but why exactly do we have to sacrifice a material that is so convenient and easy to use. Is it just another trend that makes us feel better about ourselves or is there more to it? The best way to solve a problem is to educate ourselves about it, learn exactly how it becomes a problem and then solve the root cause. And what better way to learn the effects of a substance in the environment than to trace its lifecycle.
Let's take, for example, a plastic bottle, the most common substance found in our everyday lives. The average bottle starts out in the bottling company from which it is made. For our example, the plastic bottle is made from Polyethylene terephthalate also known as PET or polyester. Other materials made from PET include plastic film and microwavable packaging. Polypropylene and Polystyrene are also polymers found in common substances like bottle caps, drinking straws, disposable cups, plates, and cutlery. (National Geographic)
The bottle is then filled with whatever beverage it is to contain. After a series of packaging and redistribution, it finally lands in the shops of our ever hustling retailers. From here, these bottles are redistributed in their millions to several homes, offices, and schools where they are consumed. In fact, According to National Geographic, about a million plastic bottles are sold every minute globally, with Nigeria getting a considerable percentage of that. To get a feel of what we are talking about, there are 20 million Lagosians who consume an average of at least 10 million plastic bottles every day. That's a lot of bottles. In fact, that many containers, each the size of an average 50cl bottle would occupy the same amount of space as 173 shipping containers. I'm talking about the trailer kind. Yes, those ones that always cause traffic and are always falling down. 57700 bottles in one container. Okay, so we produce plenty of bottles every day. Why am I throwing numbers in our faces? Let's continue our tracking.
After consumption of whatever beverage, the next stage in every bottle's life is the longest and most dangerous. It's this stage that causes all the noise. The disposal of this material. Even though single-use plastics such as our coke and sprite bottles are used up in just minutes, they remain in our environment years after even we have lived. That's right. because the average plastic takes hundreds of years to decompose depending on how strong or weak it is. For our coca-cola friends, 450 years should do the trick. The problem is one we don,t have enough space for all these plastic on earth even for them to stay while they are decomposing (if they do, that is). Another is, the decomposing that we are even talking about is not even beneficial to the environment or the animals in it, including us. If you look around, it is quite obvious that we have a long way to go to even get people to put the bottle in the bin, not to even talk about recycling and all that complicated stuff. Most times, these containers end up in the drain or in the landfill (where they can conveniently get washed down into the drains by rain). If they escape this, they are probably being burnt in public spaces where they release not only carbon dioxide but other toxic gases such as nitrogen oxide and sulphur oxides (and all those fun chemical compounds we learned in school that cause acid rains and stuff, no biggie). These later accumulate in the air and cause acid rains and then crops die and water gets poisoned and people start complaining of all sorts of skin diseases. These two pathways are the most common next stages in the life of any plastic material and they really have a lot to reveal if we pay attention to them. Next time, we'll look more closely at route one: The Ocean Express. How does plastic get to the ocean, what do they do when they get there and why should we really bother that they are there?
Until then, stay green and stay free, Evergreens.
Kamikun.