Environmental issues associated with the disposal of plastic food and drink containers?

Question

Environmental issues associated with the disposal of plastic food and drink containers?

Answer 1

Many plastics are not biodegradable and can take hundreds of years to degrade.

They can kill sea life that become trapped in it.

The various forms of polymers make it difficult to recycle plastics. They must be grouped with similar plastics for recycling purposes. Making reprocessing difficult.

Thermoset plastics are generally non-recycleable too.

Answer 2

The plastic will eventually make it to the ocean.

There it will wrap around sea creatures' necks and slowly suffocate them.

We are polluting our planet and it has to stop.

Answer 3

I bought reusable grocery bags at the health food store. Now that I remember  to take them to the car so I that I can actually reuse them I think they're a great idea, however, many of the organic foods that I buy in the deli are packaged in clear plastic containers. It seems like a bit of a dichotomy that I felt guilt-ed into buying these grocery bags yet the store seems to not be doing all that they can do for the environment. They obviously profit from the purchase of these reusable bags; logo splashed colorful plastic... I admit to being a consumer.I'd like to be a conscientious human being but it keeps on back firing. I support locally grown produce, but I drive an SUV. Guess I'm a dichotomy too. So what's up with tomatoes these days?

Answer 4

A plastic bag or water bottle will take years to degrade in a landfill( there have been documented findings of readable newspapers unearthed from a landfill that are over 70 years old). Some estimates say that ONE plastic bottle could take up to 200 years to degrade not to mention the chemicals that are released to groundwater during that process.Think about this ONE tablespoon of oil can contaminate 1 million gallons of water, and the process of making plastic does involve some sort of hydrocarbon interaction so there you go.

Answer 5

There are loads of environmental issues which everyone else has acknowledged.  The question is - what do we do about it?  Bearing in mind that plastic is less than 10% of all the oil produced - so the best environmental impact by far -would be to change the car fuel we use to solar or something.  Anyway, back to packaging, the point is that plastic packaging (and glass and metal) enable foodstuffs to have a longer shelf-life than they would normally and as a result are able to be distributed to a global market.  Think about it.  Plastic packaging enables water (in plastic bottles) to be shipped into disaster zones (Hurricane Katrina, Wilma, Earthquake in China, etc) and also enables soldiers to have food safely whilst in the field (Soldiers also have to bring all the pkg back with them so it has to be as light as possible).  Therefore plastic packaging is here to stay - so we have to recycle it.

The UK infrastructure for recycling is getting better with hopefully a 'mixed plastics' reprocessing facility operational in 2011.  HDPE and PET recycling is currently available (albeit with a limited throughput), but government and industry need to collaborate to educate consumers to get the recycling rate up.

Check out the WRAP website (google or yahoo it for more information on MRF's etc (Material Recycling Facilities)

Hope this helps!

Answer 6

Sorry for my ignorance. But i thought they were making carpet

and reusing some of the plastic. Not being rude, it is a very

good question.

Answer 7

Anything plastic isnt good for the enivironment. Try to be more environmentally friendly by using recyclable objects and recycling plastic bags.

It also harms animals, the soil, the air and our own human kind

Answer 8

animals get trapped in them? and it ruins there habitats.