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Plastic Bottles Pile Up As Mountains of Waste (MSNBC)
"The Story of
Stuff" video on plastic bottles
Plastics
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Tell us what you think about plastic shopping bags | |
| Please take our short survey about plastic bag use. |
In the Environment
One of the largest problem with plastics is improper disposal by consumers. Plastic items make their way into the environment, especially our oceans. It is on all our beaches and throughout all our waterways. The greatest concentrations of plastic trash is a Texas-sized mass of plastic debris in the north Pacific gyre, a collection of trash that has been swept together by ocean currents.
Plastics stay in the environment for a very long time. Most commonly used plastics do not mineralize (or go away) in the ocean and instead break down into smaller and smaller pieces. Because the ocean is a cold, dark place, this process happens slower in water than on land. Plastic can harm fish and other wildlife in two main ways:
Direct Impacts - Studies show that fish and other marine life eat plastic because it often looks like their food: plastic bags/jellyfish; bottle caps/squid; plastic bits/fish eggs, etc. Plastics cause irritation or damage to the digestive system. If plastics are kept in the gut instead of passing through, the animal feels full (of plastic not food). They do not eat and this leads to malnutrition or starvation.
Indirect Impacts - Plastic debris acts like a sponge. It accumulates pollutants up to 100,000 to 1,000,000 times the levels found in seawater. It is still unclear whether these pollutants can seep from plastic debris into the organisms that happen to eat the debris. More research is needed to help better understand these areas.
In Your Food
Ironically, the additives in plastics that make them great food container are also the ones that cause health concerns.
Plastic Water Bottles: Bisphenol A (BPA) is a key building block for making polycarbonate plastics such as water bottles, with 2.3 billion pounds of it manufactured annually in the U.S. BPA has been shown to leach from the containers into the food it contains, and scientists have linked BPA exposure to health issues including cancers, immune disorders, hyperactivity, obesity, diabetes, and hyperactivity.
Plastic Wrap and Food Packaging: Polyvinyl chloride and DEHP (a colorless liquid added for flexibility) are found in food wrap and packaging used for various foods such as milk, fish and oils. While low levels of these chemicals are believed to be harmless, high levels have been linked to asthma, liver and kidney damage, and reproductive problems. The Environmental Protection Agency believes that DEHP will eventually be proven to be a human carcinogen.
Cans: BPA is used to line cans to prevent corrosion and food contamination. Tara Parker-Pope states in her April 22, 2008 New York Times article, "A Hard Plastic Is Raising Hard Questions," that most human toxic exposure comes from canned foods. She says, "Virtually every canned product, even those labeled organic, has a liner with BPA."
Baby Products: Millions of baby bottles and cans of baby formula, manufactured with BPA, have been sold annually for decades. Parker-Pope's article indicates that babies who drink from polycarbonate bottles ingest an estimated 10 micrograms of BPA per kilogram of body weight. Pacifiers and teethers can contain polyvinyl chloride (known as PVC or vinyl) or DEHP.
One of the best ways of reducing your impact is to become more aware of your consumption and production of trash. Reduce what you buy and avoid disposable products or those with excess packaging. Reuse what you can. Recycle all products that are accepted in our local programs.
Share your ideas with us at ThurstonSolidWaste@co.thurston.wa.us
Thurston County residents use about 90 million plastic shopping bags each year. Solid Waste staff would like to work with the citizens, cities, retailers, and community groups of Thurston County on the problem of disposable bags. Our goal is to develop possible solutions to reduce our use.
If you would like to receive periodic emails of the work we will be doing, meeting schedules and more information on the issue, please sign up here.
Our first step will be to coordinate with interested cities to host a series of community meetings. Below is a list of the initial city presentations to discuss the idea. We will post the dates of the community meetings as they are scheduled.
| City Meetings: | |||
| Bucoda | 4/10/12 | 7:00 p.m. | city council meeting |
| Yelm | 4/24/12 | 6:00 p.m. | city council meeting |
| Rainier | 4/24/12 | 7:00 p.m. | city council meeting |
| Tumwater | 5/22/12 | 5:30 p.m. | work session |
| Lacey | 6/4/12 | 12:00 p.m. | work session |
| Tenino | 6/12/12 | 6:30 p.m. | work session |
| Olympia | 7/10/12 | 7:00 p.m. | city council meeting |
We will be surveying residents about their plastic bags at the community meetings, special events, and in front of local retail stores. In exchange for completing the survey at these events, residents will receive a free, reusable, recycled content shopping bag. The survey is also available on line at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Tcbagsurvey.
We have purchased copies of the documentary DVD “Bag It”. We will be arranging for as many public screenings as we can. To view a trailer for the film, click here. If you would like to coordinate a viewing for your church, neighborhood, or community group, please contact Loni Hanka at hankal@co.thurston.wa.us or (360) 754-4398. You can also rent the movie for home use on services such as Amazon or Blockbuster. Below is the movie description:
| Try going a day without plastic. In this touching and often flat-out-funny film, we follow everyman Jeb Berrier as he embarks on a global tour to unravel the complexities of our plastic world. What starts as a film about plastic bags evolves into a wholesale investigation into plastic and its effect on our waterways, oceans and even our own bodies. We see how our crazy-for-plastic world has finally caught up to us and what we can do about it. Today. Right Now. |
Volunteers of all ages are needed to survey residents, distribute free reusable bags, and coordinate showings of the "Bag It" video. For more information on how you can get involved, contact Loni Hanka at hankal@co.thurston.wa.us or (360) 754-4398.
Because plastic bags are lightweight, they travel easily through the environment. Even when placed in a trashcan, they can become airborne during the collection and disposal process. The Marine Research Foundation estimates that 100,000 marine mammals die each year because of plastic litter in the North Pacific Ocean. Whales, dolphins, seals, turtles, and birds mistakenly swallow plastic for food. Smaller marine life and birds routinely become entangled in the bags. Land animals, including livestock are also regularly affected.
Hidden CostsRetailers in the U.S. spend an estimated four billion annually on bags and pass costs onto customers. Some stores offer “cash back” if you bring your own bag.
Governments and taxpayers have to pick up the costs for managing plastic bag litter. Bags can also clog gutters and storm drains, which leads to costly flooding.
What about recycling?
Plastic bags cannot be recycled in our commingled curbside program because they tangle in equipment at the sorting facility. Some residents put bags in their recycling anyway, even though our outreach materials say not to. This creates an extra expense for recycling facilities of about $1000 per day.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the nationwide recycling rate for plastic bags is only 4.5%, despite the availability of collection bins at stores. That means too many bags wind up in the trash. When plastic bags are recycled, the material is used to make a lower quality plastic product.
What Are Others Doing?Data shows that recycling efforts are just not working. With that in mind, over 50 cities, counties, and even countries have placed bans or fees on single-use bags.
What Can We Do Here?If you have plastic bags around the house, be sure to recycle them. And remember they cannot go in your curbside recycle bin. Most grocery stores have a plastic-bag recycling bin near their front door. We also have a bin for plastic film at the WARC Recycle Center.
At these locations, you can recycle plastic bags, dry cleaning bags, bread bags, plastic newspaper sleeves, and any other type of stretchy plastic that you can poke your finger through easily. It doesn't matter where the bags originated; they're collected by a recycling company that is unaffiliated with the store.
Thurston County Solid Waste encourages residents to use durable bags to prevent waste in the first place. We hope you will join us in the upcoming community dialog about single-use plastic bags, so we can make a difference in Thurston County.
Remembering to bring your reusable bags when you shop is like learning any new habit - you can do it with time and practice.
Tell us how you remember your reusable bags! Email ThurstonSolidWaste@co.thurston.wa.us.
Americans buy more bottled water than any other nation in the world, adding 29 billion water bottles a year to the problem. In order to make all these bottles, manufacturers use 17 million barrels of crude oil. That’s enough oil to keep a million cars going for twelve month.
Imagine a water bottle filled a quarter of the way up with oil. That’s about how much oil was needed to produce the bottle.
So why don’t more people drink water straight from the kitchen faucet? Some people drink bottled water because they think it is better for them than water out of the tap, but that’s not true. In the United States, local governments make sure water from the faucet is safe. There is also growing concern that chemicals in the bottles themselves may leach into the water.
People love the convenience of bottled water. But maybe if they realized the problems it causes, they would try drinking from a glass at home or carrying water in a refillable steel container instead of plastic.
Plastic bottle recycling can help—instead of going out with the trash, plastic bottles can be turned into items like carpeting or cozy fleece clothing.
Unfortunately, for every six water bottles we use, only one makes it to the recycling bin. The rest are sent to landfills. Or, even worse, they end up as trash on the land and in rivers, lakes, and the ocean. Plastic bottles take many hundreds of years to disintegrate.
Water is good for you, so keep drinking it. But think about how often you use water bottles, and see if you can make a change.
And yes, you can make a difference. Remember this: Recycling one plastic bottle can save enough energy to power a 60-watt light bulb for six hours.
National Geographic: Drinking Water: Bottled or from the TapPlastics Recycling in Thurston County
Knowing which plastics are recyclable can be tricky. There are so many different kinds and, unfortunately, not everything that features a recycle symbol is truly recyclable. It all depends on whether recycling plants will actually accept the materials, regardless of whether the manufacturers imprint the familiar "chasing arrow" symbol on the bottom. Please follow these guidelines when you place items in your curbside recycle cart or one of Thurston County's blue bin locations.
YES you can recycle:
NO you cannot recycle:
In the 1967 movie "The Graduate," Dustin Hoffman's character receives career advice: "there is a great future in plastics.” It was the game of billiards that provided the unlikely cause for plastics commercial success.
Contact Us
Call Thurston County Public Works at (360) 867-2491 or e-mail ThurstonSolidWaste@co.thurston.wa.us.
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