Is plastic pollution humanity's nemesis? - by Atharva Lokhande

Just as an alcohol-producing yeast eventually creates its surroundings too toxic for its survival, humanity is poisoning its environment with effectively non-degradable trash.

Plastic is everywhere, and almost everything around us is partially made from plastic. Around 40% of the plastic is used for packaging—just about every aspect of our lives. And because plastic is everywhere, plastic pollution is likewise everywhere. It's estimated that by 2050, the amount of plastic in the sea will weigh more than all the fishes combined.

Most of it enters through Rivers which flow from metropolitan cities and end up their trash into the ocean, prominently from the densely populated countries like China, India, Brazil, US, etc. This trash flows with the ocean current and finally ends up being in one of the five garbage patches. But sadly, the story doesn't end here. Due to the Sun's UV rays, it crumbles into smaller and smaller pieces called microplastic eaten by marine animals directly and indirectly.

Plastic floating in the ocean is an excellent breeding ground for some bacterias. In a study; these bacterias were found to be antibiotic resistant to some commonly used antibiotics. Fishes and turtles misinterpret these plastics and eat it (because it smells like food) due to these bacteria, and it travels up the food chain, causing more resistant diseases in those who eat them.

So why shouldn't we ban using plastic... Well, it's very complicated.

Studies showed that using plastic has lesser impacts on the environment than its alternatives. For example, a reusable cloth bag has 7000 times carbon emissions (carbon footprint) than a single plastic bag.

If we entirely rely on wood and cardboard for all packaging then probably we have to cut down more than half of remaining trees. Also, we don't have proper alternatives in some places like waterproofing and food safety.

Surely plastic pollution is a problem, but our world would be disordered if we stop using plastic. There are many startups around the world, finding some better way to get rid of the plastic pollution that we already made. One of them is the Ocean Cleanup, we shall discuss it in another video.

Courtesy: Krutzgesagt- in the nutshell