Class Discussion

In class on March 26 we watched a video from tedtalks.com called Catp. Charles Moore on the seas of plastics and then talked about plastics. It was the first time I had heard about this sea of plastic that is three times the size of Texis! It makes sense that all the garbage in the ocean would accumulate in the middle of the currents. I think that plastic is one of the deadliest things to animals because it's not naturally made and they don't know what it is, so they try to eat it and it kills them. I believe that this sea of plastic will be with us forever and we can only stop it from growing, and even that will be very difficult. I don't like how our society has decided that it is ok to use plastics in a large percentage of packaging and products even though it is not recyclable or environmentally friendly. We even ship plastic beads to different countries and then ship back the products! Plastics definitely make my life more convenient, but I try to only use them when I absolutely must. I think that plastics are beneficial for convenience and ease but there are other materials that are more environmentally friendly that we could be using instead. Recently, I have seen a slight reduction in plastics. Now, people have the option to buy re-usable grocery bags, sunchips now makes a chip bag out of compostable material, and some products have reduced their amount of packaging. This is only a small reduction and I believe that the power lies with the choice of the consumer.