Plastic Pollution

Did you know that it can take up to 500 years for certain pieces of plastic to decompose (if it ever decomposes!). Specifically looking at polystyrene, the packing materials often used for poultry and meat packing, egg cartons, and for shipping (among other things) can be here for centuries. It gets washed into our water supplies and dumped into our streets. Even the pieces that are properly disposed of will not leave our environment. Man-made, chemically-engineered materials like polystyrene are convenient and yet incredible costly. 

As consumers, it’s about more than reading the data or hearing the facts. We need to know what’s happening in relation to our environment, our manufacturing standards, our recycling effort if we’re ever going to know our path forward. 

Education

It’s important that we be educated on many fronts in this discussion. An understanding of what’s happening in manufacturing standards, legislation efforts, and plastic pollution mitigation can help us make the right and necessary strides toward protecting our environment. 

The more you research, the more you’ll discover. More and more research has gone into the topic of plastic pollution over the past several years. The costly impacts on our ecosystem by manufacturing breakthroughs are beginning to be measured in very practical ways.

Action

Moving your efforts to understand plastic pollution should result in action at some point. Getting involved can mean volunteering for a local plastic pollution cause. It can mean pushing for tighter restrictions in the manufacturing of toxic products like polystyrene. It can also mean fundraising and giving to causes that are making a difference. 

Action can also be as simple by making small changes in your own life. Using less one-time use plastics and supporting plastic-free initiatives like bringing your own grocery bags take little effort but make a big difference. And while it may seem to make a microscopic impact on such a massive issue, that’s just fine. Because as we’ve learned from plastic pollution itself, that which is microscopic can have a massive impact! 

Installing a Filtrol is one great way to start making a difference with the amount of plastic that’s ending up in our environment. To get yours, click here. 

Not All Plastic is Equal

At Filtrol, we have committed all that we are to putting a stop to plastic pollution, and some types of plastic are taking a bigger toll on our environment than others. About 8 million tons of plastic are entering our oceans each year. With so many issues to address and so much plastic already released into the environment, it’s hard to know where to start. From researching plastic’s long-term impact to developing tools and technologies to deal with it, the issues, topics, discussions, and challenges of plastic pollution are a global conversation with massive implications. 

But…Did you know that not all plastic pollution is equal? 

Some plastic pollutants have proven to be more damaging and impacting to our ecosystem than others. According to this article from Maritime Executive, fishing debris, plastic bags, balloons and plastic utensils are the most impacting plastic pollutants in our oceans. Each of them have a different impact, and each of them require a different strategy to address. 

Sometimes a single piece of plastic has a direct impact on wildlife, such as when a piece of fishing gear or a plastic piece obstructs a whale’s digestive tract or pierces a sea animal’s stomach. Other times, a steady consumption of microscopic pieces of plastic leads to a build up of the pollution over time. The impacts to the natural order of our ecosystem are still being measured. 

So what can be done?

Like you’ve probably heard before and will certainly hear again, there is no “one-size-fits-all” solution to the plastic pollution problem. We need to change our manufacturing standards. We need to change our habits and values. We need to upgrade our technology and update our equipment. 

We need technology that will capture microscopic plastic particles and we need tech that will capture large pieces. We need manufacturing that will eliminate the use of harmful plastics and we need innovations that will capture plastics before they’re released into our ecosystem. We need legislative support that will help us with each of these. 

At Filtrol, we will stay the course we’re on. We’re not just stopping microplastics from leaving your home through your laundry’s wastewater (which happens to be one of the primary sources of microfiber pollution), we’re developing more effective solutions. We’re working together with other likeminded groups to go further, accomplish more, and make a bigger impact. 

Join our fight to protect our environment from this onslaught of plastic. 

At current rates of pollution, our planet’s oceans will have three times as much plastic in them by 2040 than they do now. This expected exponential increase in plastic is an indication that common solutions and simple changes in behavior aren’t going to suffice. As much as we encourage people to not use disposable plastic grocery bags or to change their face soap, plastic is continuing to enter our ecosystem at an alarming rate.

According to a new analysis published in the journal of Science, with the tech that’s available today, plastic in our oceans could be eliminated by as much as 80%. Further advancements of existing solutions coupled with research and development of new solutions could inch us globally closer to that 100% containment marker. 

But 100% containment of plastic pollution in our oceans is a bigger hurdle than advancing technology forward. 

The only solution that is going to work has to be bigger than a simple change in behavior or an advancement in tech. It has to involve something much more collaborative and much more  innovations in technology, international buy-in, significant financial backing, and a commitment from people everywhere to accept changes in daily routines and convenience. In summary: This problem is complex enough that it’s not going to be solved simply.

Read the full article from the World Economic Forum here.

To see what Filtrol is doing to do our part to get us closer to 100% containment, watch this video.

Plastic pollution does not discriminate. Across the country and around the world, we’re seeing the impacts of plastic pollution on what would be considered our most remote locations. High in the mountains and miles deep in the ocean, plastic is showing itself to be present. It makes its way from our home, through our laundry’s wastewater, and into our environment. From there it goes into our wildlife, our food, and our drinking water. 

Recent studies are showing that this permeating problem of plastic is disproportionately impacting the youngest of consumers, as baby bottles are actually shedding millions of particles of plastic with each use. 

The problem isn’t necessarily the bottle itself (even though the bottle is made of a propylene that is a synthetic material known for not breaking down). The problem is the process by which a bottle is prepared for a baby. Because babies’ food must be warmed before it is consumed, these plastic bottles are being put through a process of warming with each feeding. Whether using a bottle warmer, on a stove top, or in a microwave, the warming process is instigating the shedding of millions and millions of microscopic pollutants – directly into the baby’s digestive system. 

Many of these microplastics are processed by the body and make their way into diapers. But like all areas of microfiber pollution research, this is still a relatively young study. The synthetic materials of plastic are relatively young in our world. We still don’t know the long-term implications and negative side effects of consuming the amounts of plastic our world is consuming with each meal and drink. 

According to the Guardian, the group that compiled this research and tracks much of the narrative around pollutants like these in our world, babies in the United States alone are consuming as many as 2.5 million particles of plastic every day! 

As we continue to see new research tell us how much plastic is impacting in our ecosystem, we continue to be amazed at its far-reaching potential. We already knew it was in our streams, rivers, and oceans. It’s in the food chain and subsequently in our bodies. And now seeing how it’s impacting our tiniest members of society at an even higher rate, it’s essential that we do something to stop it. 

A professor from the University of Georgia, Dr. Jenna Jambeck, published an article in the popular magazine Science that defined “ocean-bound” as a principle for understanding both the track and impact of plastic pollution. The article, available by logging in here, shines light on the existence of plastic in our ecosystem and also on its track through (or around) our treatment systems.

Ultimately, the majority of plastic does not end up in the ocean but in various other pockets of our ecosystem.

As the research and technology has expanded over the past 5 years since this article was published, advanced processes and systems have been put in place to help members of the scientific community — members like Dr. Jambeck — study, track, and solve the plastic pollution conundrum in front of us. Plastic is still entering our ecosystem. Metric ton upon metric ton of it is still ending up in our oceans, but much of it ends up in freshwater sources and in other deposits around the globe. 

Ocean-bound plastic is only part of the problem!

We could (and eventually will) dig deeper into exactly where plastics released into our ecosystem are ending up. The argument posed in Sustainable Brands, for instance, contends that ocean-bound is a far too limiting term, as it limits the conversation to pieces of garbage (in this instance, plastic garbage) that are literally being tossed directly into the ocean or are being washed into it before much times passes. It does not unpack the journey of the plastic spoon that is thrown onto the ground just a few miles inland from the coast. 

And it’s garbage that is not being properly categorized or managed that needs to be part of the bigger conversation. It’s leading many environmentalists to change their understanding of what an honest conversation about plastic pollution really entails.

A comprehensive plan to solve plastic pollution is about much more than the plastic in our oceans. It’s about the plastic in our world. 

Continue to follow this conversation by reading the full article.

Read the original publication about ocean-bound plastics from Dr. Jambeck.

And stay connected to us at Filtrol, as we continue our fight to get back to real water and stop plastic pollution in its tracks.