If you’ve been a student of plastic pollution on any level, you’ve discovered that the problem is much bigger (and much more microscopic) than grocery bags or plastic milk cartons clogging up our drainage systems and filling the oceans with garbage patches in the Pacific. 

The problem with plastic is that it’s everywhere. 

Plastic’s remnants exist in the most remote places of our planet; in particles so small that they can’t even be seen with the human eye. 

Plastic is everywhere. It’s in wildlife and in our drinking water. It’s well-documented and only moderately understood. It’s being studied, researched, and then studied again. It’s a topic of discussion anywhere that conservation and global responsibility are on the agenda. It’s a problem being addressed in research labs and in legislative efforts across the globe.

But the problem still exists. And the efforts we take to address plastic has implications for generations to come. 

The problem with plastic is that it’s forever. 

Well…maybe…almost forever. We haven’t been around forever yet to know how long it really sticks around. But we have been around long enough to see it find its way into serene landscapes and dark ocean depths. Aging and degradation studies have estimated that the amount of time for break down of certain plastics is more than 2000 years!  

The problem with plastic is that it never used to exist. 

Once production began of plastic more than a century ago, materials were introduced into our environment — into marine life, into our diets, and into our lives — that had previously never existed. We’re talking about a material that didn’t exist until we made it exist! And some bells can’t be unrung. The introduction of plastic brought with it a million different conveniences. However, with the introduction of it also came the corresponding hazards of foreign chemicals and harmful toxins entering our world in places previously untouched. It changed our world – in more than one way. 

The problem with plastic is that it’s all of ours.  

Some countries are doing more than others to cause the problem; some are doing more to solve it. Some people are doing just about nothing about the problem — maybe because of a lack of awareness or because individual contributions seem so insignificant. Regardless of how you may feel about plastic or pollution, the problem is a shared one. It’s a dilemma that impacts us on the most basic level. It doesn’t discriminate or limit itself to research facilities or legislative sessions.

The fight against plastic is all of ours: All of ours to address. All of ours to fight. 

Plastic pollution is an exponentially growing problem that needs an exponentially growing movement. Join Filtrol as we work to solve the problem with plastic.