Recycle RVA

  ( Avila, 2008, CC BY 2.0 ) Gumming Together      According to recycling advocacy organizations, consumers in the United States use more than 400 million tubes of toothpaste each year ( Linnenkoper, 2019 ). Each of these tubes is made of plastic that encases a layer of aluminum to protect the paste inside. Unable to be recycled, the product will more than likely end up in a landfill, unable to decompose. After responding to consumer demands for packaging alternatives, as well as pressure and cooperation from organizations working to reduce plastic waste in the environment, Colgate responded with a five-year plan to address the issue of the material in their packaging. Initial prototypes proved difficult to squeeze, which didn’t please the company as the goal was to develop a packaging that would ensure sustainability going forward, and be able to be replicated in other developed products. Tom Heaslip, Colgate’s worldwide director of global packaging, explaine...

  ( Meis CC BY-ND 2.0 ) Sipping, to Understand  After my post last week addressing plastic bags in their role in pollution, I’m sure you saw this week’s post coming from an ocean away. One study published in 2017 estimated as many as 8.3 billion plastic straws pollute the world's beaches ( Geyer, Jambeck, & Law, 2017 ). This staggering estimation doesn’t even cover the estimated amount of plastic drifting in the oceans, or even anywhere else in the environment; just on the shorelines. The most popular single-use alternative to plastic so far has been paper straws, which aren’t necessarily better, unfortunately. Though they are still pretty inexpensive, paper straws can cost 1 to 1.5 pennies more than their plastic counterparts according to media sources. They also require wood in order to be made, which has a cost in sustainability with deforestation. Reusable metal or bamboo straws are an ideal alternative because of their recyclable and sustainable materials, re...

  ( Radic CC BY 2.0 ) When the Planet Wins, We Win      According to the Environmental Protection Agency, we use over 380 billion plastic bags each year, which requires 12 million barrels of oil to create ( Anderson, 2016 ). Each of those bags, my fellow advocate, is considered a nonrenewable resource upon production, and will more than likely end up discarded in the environment either as litter or as microplastics in the soil or ocean. Action against the use of these bags has been taken in the last decade in the form of plastic bag bans in states like California, and in some stores charging for each individual bag. Many have resorted to bringing reusable bags with them to the store to symbolize their consideration for the planet’s well being. 2020, however, saw a resurgence of the use of single-use plastics as the coronavirus pandemic overwhelmed nations worldwide. Many have argued that reusable bags and plastics need to be sidelined in an effort to implement m...

  ( Khemka ) First Things First      In Context Of the roughly 200,000 humanity has existed on the planet, the last century alone has had an incredible impact on its wellbeing. Human activity has contributed to drought , ecosystem destruction, a rise in temperature that has in turn affected sea levels, and in air pollution . Plastic pollution, meanwhile, has had a devastating impact on ecosystems throughout the world. The question of our role remains: how does it affect us , now? Plastics are frequently ingested by animals in the form of microplastics either found in their food, the soil, the air they breathe or in their habitats as particles in the ocean. We, too, are exposed to these microplastics as we serve the animals that have ingested them. According to a report on the hidden affects plastics have on our livelihood, “over 170 fracking chemicals that are used to produce the main feedstocks for plastic have known human health impacts, including cancer, neurotox...