Our plastics, from crisp packets, to shopping plastic bags, to plastic bottles (plus many more) are being thrown into our countryside without thinking about where it goes, or what it does, or what eventually happens to it? Much can get blown or carried by rivers and floods to our seas and beaches. Next time you are by a river see if you can spot plastic bag trees along its banks?
Different kinds of plastic can break down at different times, but the average time for a plastic bottle to breakdown is at least 450 years. It can even take some bottles 1000 years to breakdown. But because it has got smaller It doesn’t mean it has gone away! Instead it ends up in living things, which we then sometimes eat. Next time your parents do the washing up, take a look at how that grease sticks to the plastic washing bowl, this is what all the nasty things in the sea, pollutants end up doing to plastic..sticking to it…where does that end up? There is so much plastic in the sea and it is still increasing, by 2050 there could be more plastic in the sea than fish!
All of the time our lovely wildlife dies because of plastic, in your local hedge row, and in your sea, and what is it doing to your body?
So next time you buy something plastic, give a thought to where it’s going to end up, and ask yourself, who else is thinking about this, or, is doing anything about it?
