The Big Picture
Plastic debris affects wildlife, human health, and the environment. The millions of tons of plastic bottles. bags, and garbage in the world's oceans are breaking down and leaching toxins posing a threat to marine life and humans. People are exposed to chemicals from plastic multiple times per day through the air, dust, water, food and use of consumer products. More than one-third of all plastic is disposable packaging like bottles and bags, many of which end up littering the environment.Floating waste, which can survive for thousands of years in water, serves as mini transportation devices for invasive species, disrupting habitats. This is just an overview of all the different types of problems. In each ecosystem, there is extensive damage that plastic does. Today Americans discard about 33.6 million tons of plastic each year, but only 6.5 percent of it is recycled and 7.7 percent is combusted in waste-to-energy facilities, which create electricity or heat from garbage.The rest ends up in landfills where it may take up to 1,000 years to decompose, and potentially leak pollutants into the soil and water. It’s estimated that there are also 100 millions tons of plastic debris floating around the ocean threatening the health and safety of marine life.
