By Hollie Muir
Litter, litter everywhere, litter, litter, we obviously don’t care. It’s true, we are slowly killing our marine life, polluting the earth and quite frankly, haven’t done much about it. Passing wooded areas, bushes and pathways there always seems to be a plastic bag in every tree!
Litter, litter everywhere, litter, litter, we obviously don’t care. It’s true, we are slowly killing our marine life, polluting the earth and quite frankly, haven’t done much about it. Passing wooded areas, bushes and pathways there always seems to be a plastic bag in every tree! These white bags sit there floating around in the wind looking like we have surrendered to them. We cannot let that happen, so I ask myself, why have we spent so much time not doing anything? Are we just afraid of what might happen when we finally realise what we are doing? I think we know what we are doing wrong, but how can we stop it?
I am sure that everyday you pass at least one piece of litter on the way to school or work and you just walk past it thinking someone else will pick it up. No one will probably pick this up and you will walk past this same piece of litter for the next few months or even longer! This really has to stop. Even just picking up one piece of litter when you see it will make a difference. The question is, how did this litter get here in the first place, and where will it end up? Well, it got there because of us, and that is a fact. We just drop our rubbish and plastic bottles on the floor and leave it there to rot away in a tree. This litter could end up in rivers and then travel to oceans and then it could end up being eaten by marine life which could kill them. It is such a devastation that marine life is eating plastic bags because they think that is food and it is OUR fault and OUR problem that we need to solve soon, or it might be too late.
Now, litter is a big problem but the plastic problem is worse. This is the problem that is killing our animals and choking our oceans everyday. We shouldn’t have to use as much plastic as we are because we can reduce it and we can do things that will help this dilemma. I am sure there are lots of ways to reduce plastic all over the world, but we just don’t know about them yet. We have all seen videos and TV shows that have been telling us about our plastic but haven’t done much about it. We are only starting to do anything about it now because we have gone too far, and we need to stop soon! We once thought that plastic was an amazing revolution which would change the world, and it did change the world, but not in the way we expected and now over 300 million tons of plastic is produced globally each year.
Here are only a few of the simple ways that will reduce your use of plastic in and around your home:
1. Stop using plastic straws-they are pointless and are killing sea life
2. Use reusable material bags instead of plastic ones
3. Give up chewing gum-funnily enough it is made of synthetic rubber which is plastic!
4. Purchase a reusable water bottle
5. Use a soap bar instead of liquid hand soap
6. Shop in bulk to reduce the amount of packaging you are using
Interesting and useful websites to have a look at:
https://lessplastic.co.uk/ -Everyone is getting involved, even families like this one
http://footprint.wwf.org.uk/ -The WWF has a great quiz to see what your environmental carbon footprint is and how you can make lifestyle choices to change the way you live
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