The movement against single-use plastic is growing. Try it for yourself in July
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Canada is the latest country to join the still small but expanding movement to phase out or ban single-use plastic—plastic that gets carried from rivers into oceans, killing sea creatures, altering their habitats, and causing an overall blight to the enviroThe movement against single-use plastic is growing. Try it for yourself in July
Canada is the latest country to join the still small but expanding movement to phase out or ban single-use plastic—plastic that gets carried from rivers into oceans, killing sea creatures, altering their habitats, and causing an overall blight to the environment. And plastic is not biodegradable, which means it will be with us for thousands of years. On June 10, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a plan to phase out single-use plastic as early as 2021. Canadian government figures show that each year, Canadians throw away 3 million tons of plastic waste, and one-third of the plastics used in Canada are for single-use or short-lived products and packaging. Besides the obvious negative effect that plastic waste has on the environment, Canada’s move also is born of necessity: Many developing nations that once accepted imports of recycled plastic waste are now closing borders to the garbage or sending it back to the country of origin if the waste is too contaminated. Of course, Canada is not alone in tossing plastic. “Globally, one garbage truckload of plastic waste enters the ocean every minute, and that amount is increasing steadily,” according to a statement on a Canadian government website, a statistic echoed by the World Economic Forum and Greenpeace. Countries around the world produce roughly 300 million tons of plastic each year, and only 10 percent to 13 percent of that gets recycled. The World Economic Forum describes the heavy price paid across the globe of a throwaway society: The worldwide total volume of plastic has reached 8.3 billion metric tons, the equivalent of more than 800,000 Eiffel Towers, according to a 2017 article in Science Advances. Of this enormous amount, 6.3 billion metric tons have been disposed as waste. … The biggest problem is that plastic does not biodegrade easily. It stays around for thousands of years. Slowly, it leaks chemical substances that are harmful for the environment, for animals and for people. In marine areas, many mammals, fish and birds suffer from ingesting plastic or becoming entangled in plastic materials. More than 90% of all birds and fish are reported to have plastic particles in their stomach. In this way, toxic chemicals accumulate and pass through the food chain. Read more