Why Plastic Pollution Is Getting Worse, And What Is Being Done

Billions of people the world over are dependent on plastic. Billions of people plastic dependent live in places that lack the infrastructure to properly dispose of their plastic waste. Until proper waste disposal becomes universal, plastic trash will continue polluting oceans, rivers and lands. No technology, no scientific miracle, no plastic straw ban, no beach cleanup, will amount to anything as long as billions of people use millions of kilos of plastic daily without any way to properly dispose of the plastic they use. And so plastic continues pouring into oceans and rivers by millions of kilos daily. The political will, the economic will, even the religious will to ensure universal proper waste management is absent. No movement exists to ensure billions of people plastic dependent have adequate ways of disposing of their plastic waste. Unless this changes, all the anti plastic pollution well funded organizations and advocates provide nothing more than crumbs or feel good endeavors that do not make a dent against plastic pollution.

The plastic trash and other harmful garbage generated from billions of people that do not have a way to properly dispose of their garbage pollutes rivers, lakes, oceans and lands worldwide. Employing people to do the manual labor necessary to remove plastic trash already in the environment remains virtually nonexistent.  Garbage collection and proper ways to dispose of plastic trash remains  nonexistent for billions of people.

It is easy for many to ignore what happens in developing nations. All the plastic trash and other harmful contaminants that end up in oceans does not stay confined to one geographical area. The modern world is heavily dependent on plastic and on a variety of chemicals and materials that are harmful to human health, animals and the environment. The unwillingness to address what to do with plastic trash and other harmful materials that billions of people use and have no way to properly dispose of ensures the continued destruction of oceans and more.

Most plastic trash cannot be recycled. It is disingenuous, even harmful, to continue the illusion that plastic waste is recycled. The priority must be on ensuring the proper disposal of plastic trash, either by proper burial, or proper burning (such as what is done in Sweden, where plastic is burned and used for energy, and where most of the contaminants are captured and not released into the atmosphere).

This is not a problem that is going away. The dependency on plastic is only increasing. Walk through  supermarkets in developing countries, and there one can see the same thing that can be seen in developed countries. Millions of products packaged in plastic wraps, containers and bottles, and bagged in plastic. Most of the world uses plastic, but most of the world has no way to properly dispose of their plastic. Almost everything that one sees in many developing country supermarkets will end up in rivers, oceans, or openly burned, thereby poisoning people, animals and the environment. No one is held responsible, including the companies that benefit from cheap plastic. The oceans, the environment, human health, animals, pay the true costly price for plastic's cheapness.

The failure to ensure proper waste disposal, now that most of the world is plastic addicted, is beyond disgraceful. The world is being poisoned, and instead of addressing this catastrophe, the catastrophe gets exploited, talked about or ignored. Instead of more ruminations, empty words and gestures, time, effort and money must be spent on ensuring proper waste management worldwide. Anything short of that is nothing but window dressing.