The Plastic Problem
Plastic is amazing because it is durable. Plastic is horrible because it is durable. The very first piece of synthetic plastic was bakelite, invented in New York in 1907 by Leo Baekland. Like many common plastics we see today, the very first piece created probably still exists today. On average plastic takes 400 years to decompose, with elements such as salt water, sun, wind all help decompose plastic faster. Though conceptually it may sound great, when plastic decomposes, it releases toxic materials, such as bisphenol A. In 2018, a survey by the Global Oceanic Environmental Survey Foundation found that the ecosystem in seas and oceans may collapse in the next 25 years, potentially causing the failure of terrestrial ecosystems. Therefore whole human population needs to be proactive in their plastic waste consumption, if we want to continue to experience life as we know it.
Plastic makes its way to the ocean through rivers, coastlines, tides, and other marine sources. Plastic is seen light and buoyant, so it mostly floats at the surface. Due to its buoyancy, it is easily moved through ocean currents and wind eventually ending up in the middle of the ocean basin, where currents and winds are sparse. There is a total of 269,000 tonnes of surface plastic around the world. We can see each ocean's surface plastic in tonnes displayed in the graph on the left.
The best course of action is to stop discarding plastic waste into our oceans. To do that we have to keep plastic on land by implementing high waste management and by reducing the source of plastic. Using single-use plastic is a huge contributor to plastic waste. Consequently, we need ways to reduce our consumption of single-use plastic, possibly by banning or providing easier and cheaper alternatives to the use of single-use plastic.
As everyone started to become more cognizant on our plastic problem, we have increased the use of recycling. However, this is not enough to put a dent on our plastic problem, since globally we keep increasing our plastic production every year.
In the last 50 years, we have doubled the world’s populations from 3 billion to 7 billion. Every person contributes to the global plastic waste problem. Since plastic has a long lifespan, waste will continue to accumulate till we find a solutions. We have created 7.8 billion tonnes thus far. That is one ton of plastic per person!
However, every country does not consume the same in the amount of plastic. If the United States contained 7 billion people, the planet would have accumulated exponentially more waste. The visual below can be used to toggle between population and the amount of plastic waste that country produces. Notice U.S's population relative to India's population and see the differences on the amount of plastic waste the countries dispose.
The visual above we can explore and compare the differences in the population sizes and plastic consumption of several nations. For example, we can see the US having a much smaller population than India, and understand its plastic consumption leaves a larger foot print than India. This comparison, in light of India's large population, but a small footprint in relation to its plastic waste, could possibly show the rest of the world their methods of reducing plastic waste.
The visual below, we can possibly learn a lot about a countries habbits of discarding waste. We are using the scatter-plot to show a perspective on waste per person and the gdp. Here we can see the lower the GDP the lower the waste a single person contributes, which can be expected since people will buy and consume less. We can also note how, China such a huge contributor of plastic waste is also on the lower end of plastic waste per person.
Knowing which country disposes the most plastic is important, but it is not the whole story. We want to know which country is actually has contributed in discarding waste into the ocean. In the graph below, we can compare how each countries manages their waste. The well managed waste, is properly disposed in land locked areas, where it cannot run into the ocean. As you can see from the visual most first world countries, typically do a good job in managing the waste. However, that is not the whole picture. We tab to another map which shows the global percent of countries contributing to the mismanagement of waste. Here we can see how some countries like Indonesia and China are huge contributors of waste mismanagement, which is most likely why the Pacific has the highest concentration of surface plastic.