Can we end plastic pollution? Plastics have been polluting land and bodies of water and threaten marine life and human health. Plastics are ubiquitous components of the world’s consumer culture. They symbolize the throwaway culture that we have developed. We cannot go business as usual as it pollutes our oceans and water, and even the air when burned. A 2016 report, “The New Plastics Economy: Rethinking the Future of Plastics” by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, showed that the world produced 20 times more plastic in 2014 (311 million tons) than it did in 1964 (15 million tons) and at this rate, oceans are expected to contain more plastic than fish (by weight) by the year 2050.

Conscious efforts vs. plastics. (2018, September 9). Panay News, p. 8.