The investigation revealed that the industry’s and policymakers’ claims that plastic garbage is valuable because it can be cleaned, separated and recycled were, and still are, lies. Plastic waste is not valuable and it never has been and the industry has known this all along, at least since the early 1970s. Of all plastic produced less than 10 percent has ever been recycled.
Plastic Problem – Plastic is Everywhere
In “The Plastic Problem: PBS NewsHour Presents”, Amna Nawaz and her PBS NewsHour colleagues look at this now ubiquitous material and how it’s impacting the world, why it’s become so prevalent, what’s being done to mitigate its use, and what potential alternatives or solutions are out there.
Natural Environment Promotes Wellbeing & Good Health
A growing body of research of over one thousand studies points to the beneficial effects that a pristine natural environment has on human health and quality of life. Being in nature is just so good for us. When we enter nature we should go quietly, with humility and respect, understanding that we have everything to learn and little, if anything at all, to teach.
Plastic Trash Solution: Produce Less Plastic
Mismanaged plastic trash in dumpsites that is released into the environment presents a range of risks to human and ecological health. Substantial quantities of toxic, greenhouse gasses will continue to be emitted into the environment as plastic trash is openly burned in landfills.
Plastic Pollution: The Circular Economy Myth
Hundreds of millions of tons more plastic pollute our sea, ocean and land environment every year. Plastic pollution is everywhere, killing and endangering wildlife as well as being a serious threat to human health. Plastic particles have been found in soils and sediments, in animal carcasses and in the atmosphere.
Dead Zones in the Oceans, Seas, Lakes and Rivers
Dead zones are exactly that, deadly. They are oxygen-deprived or hypoxic bodies of water. Not much survives in these oceanic deserts as, not surprisingly, marine life needs a constant intake of oxygen to live. Large swaths of ocean habitats that would otherwise be teeming with life become biological wastelands.
Plastic-Free Choices demanded by Oceana
We should not be forced to pollute the ocean every time we eat, drink or go shopping. We need to be given a choice, a plastic-free choice. Our oceans sustain life. An abundant ocean can feed a billion people a healthy meal every day forever. But now they are being killed, filled by throwaway plastics. The equivalent of one garbage truck of garbage is dumped in the sea every minute, 17.6 billion pounds (8 million tons) every year. Plastic is everywhere in our ocean, floating on the surface, mixing in the salt water and sitting on the ocean bottom, miles and miles deep. And once in the ocean it never goes away.
Sumatran Tiger – Critically Endangered – 500 left
Sumatran Tigers are the only subspecies of tiger not found on the Eurasian continental mainland and are also the smallest and the rarest of all tiger subspecies. The Sumatran tiger is endemic to the island of Sumatra, Indonesia. The prime habitat of the Sumatran Tiger is lowland and hill forests. Human intrusion has pushed it to higher altitudes, even above 3,000 metres.
Sumatran Rhino – Critically Endangered – 55 left
The Sumatran Rhino, also known as the hairy rhino, is the oldest species of rhino existing today. It evolved more than twenty million years ago. The Sumatran Rhino is the last existing species of an otherwise extinct family of rhinoceros, that included the woolly rhino hunted to extinction by humans 10,000 years ago.
Sumatran Elephant – Endangered – 1,500 left
The Sumatran Elephant is one of the four existing Asian elephant sub-species and is found only on the island of Sumatra, Indonesia. The other three sub-species are the Sri Lankan Elephant (Sri Lanka), the Indian Elephant (India to Malaysia) and the Borneo Elephant (Indonesia).