Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio, Hey brain
Speaker 1: Stuff Lauren Vogelbaum here. In early January of China joined
Speaker 1: the growing movement of more than a hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: countries pledging to ban single use plastics. The country of
Speaker 1: one point four billion citizens is the number one producer
Speaker 1: of plastic waste in the world. It topped sixty million
Speaker 1: tons in but China announced that it plans to outlaw
Speaker 1: the production and sale of nondegradable bags by the end
Speaker 1: of twenty in major cities and everywhere by two, as
Speaker 1: well as single use straws by late market selling produce
Speaker 1: will have until five to follow suit. The push to
Speaker 1: ban plastic took center stage in with massive promotions like
Speaker 1: the hashtag stop Sucking campaign, which featured stars like NFL
Speaker 1: quarterback Tom Brady pledging to give up single use plastic
Speaker 1: straws now. Countries and companies are saying no to plastics
Speaker 1: by the dozens, and consumers are following along with them,
Speaker 1: and they're serious. In Kenya, for example, any citizen caught
Speaker 1: using plastic bags for trash or groceries can face four
Speaker 1: years of imprisonment and finds of up to thirty eight
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. As the plastic span movement hits major milestones,
Speaker 1: such as China's latest announcement, we decided to take a
Speaker 1: moment to unpack the bottles, bags and straws that are
Speaker 1: causing this global stir. So what is single use plastic?
Speaker 1: True to its name, a single use plastic is disposable
Speaker 1: plastic that's designed to be used once and then tossed
Speaker 1: or recycled. This includes everything from plastic water bottles and
Speaker 1: produced bags to disposable plastic razors and plastic ribbons. Really,
Speaker 1: any plastic item you use and then immediately discard. While
Speaker 1: these items can be recyclable, that's hardly the norm. We
Speaker 1: spoke via email with Megan Weldon of the blog and
Speaker 1: waste prevention shop Zero Waste Nerd. She said, in reality,
Speaker 1: very few plastic items can be processed into new materials
Speaker 1: and products. Unlike glass and aluminum, plastic isn't processed into
Speaker 1: the same item it was when it was collected by
Speaker 1: a recycling center. The quality of plastic is downgraded, so
Speaker 1: eventually and inevitably that plastic will still end up in
Speaker 1: a landfill. Take a plastic water bottle. Most bottles say
Speaker 1: they can be recycled and based solely on their easily
Speaker 1: recyclable p et composition, they could be, but nearly seven
Speaker 1: out of ten bottles end up in landfills or tossed
Speaker 1: as litter. This problem increased when China decided to stop
Speaker 1: accepting and recycling plastic in for municipalities. That meant recycling
Speaker 1: became significantly pricier, and according to The Atlantic, many are
Speaker 1: now simply opting for the budget friendly landfill over recycling
Speaker 1: pair This landfill first approach. With the world's ever growing
Speaker 1: plastic consumption, humans produce almost twenty thousand plastic bottles her
Speaker 1: second according to The Guardian, and America's waste grew by
Speaker 1: four point five percent from It's no wonder the world
Speaker 1: is overflowing with plastic waste, and I think banning all
Speaker 1: of this plastic is overkilled. There are some very solid
Speaker 1: reasons why it makes sense. First, the plastic and landfills
Speaker 1: doesn't just go away. According to Weldon, a plastic bag
Speaker 1: takes ten to twenty years to degrade, while a plastic
Speaker 1: bottle takes almost five hundred years, and even when it's gone,
Speaker 1: it's remnants remain. We also spoke by email with Katherine Kellogg,
Speaker 1: author and founder of the waste reduction website Going Zero Waste.
Speaker 1: She explained plastic never breaks down or goes away. It
Speaker 1: only breaks into smaller and smaller pieces until there's so
Speaker 1: microscopic that they can be found in our air and
Speaker 1: our drinking water. Some grocery stores have switched to biodegradable
Speaker 1: plastic shopping bags as a way to meet consumers in
Speaker 1: the middle, but research shows that this is hardly a
Speaker 1: savvy solution. One study from researchers at the University of
Speaker 1: Plymouth in England analyzed eighty single use plastic grocery store
Speaker 1: bags made of biodegradable plastic over the course of three years,
Speaker 1: their goal to determine just how biodegradable these bags really were.
Speaker 1: Their findings were published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.
Speaker 1: They found that soil and seawater didn't lead to bag degradation. Instead,
Speaker 1: after those three years, three of the four types of
Speaker 1: biodegradable bags were still sturdy enough to hold up to
Speaker 1: five pounds of groceries that's about two point two kilos,
Speaker 1: and the non biodegradable bags performed the same. The biodegradable
Speaker 1: bags exposed to sun did break down, but that's not
Speaker 1: necessarily a positive either. The small particles from that degradation
Speaker 1: can quickly spread throughout the environment. Think air, ocean, or
Speaker 1: the belly of hungry animals who mistake plastic fragments for food.
Speaker 1: Another reason many countries are prohibiting single use plastics is
Speaker 1: because they shouldn't be reused, despite our best and engines.
Speaker 1: As many municipalities for go recycling, it's tempting to take
Speaker 1: matters into your own hands by reusing plastic bottles and containers.
Speaker 1: And sure, this may work for bags, but experts say
Speaker 1: to take caution when it comes to plastic bottles or
Speaker 1: food containers. One study in Environmental Health Perspectives showed that
Speaker 1: all plastics used in food containers and plastic bottles could
Speaker 1: release harmful chemicals if used repeatedly. This includes those said
Speaker 1: to be free of b p A, a controversial chemical
Speaker 1: that's been linked to hormone disruption. While researchers are still
Speaker 1: analyzing the safety of repeated plastic reuse, experts recommend glass
Speaker 1: or metal to avoid potentially harmful chemicals, and according to Weldon,
Speaker 1: it's time we adopt a reuse mindset. Be at cotton
Speaker 1: produce bags, stainless steel, straws, or full on zero waste.
Speaker 1: She said, the worst thing about any single use item
Speaker 1: is that we devalue something to the point that we
Speaker 1: intend to throw it away. The convenience culture has normalized
Speaker 1: destructive behavior, and as a result, we produce millions of
Speaker 1: tons of it every single year. If we change our
Speaker 1: mindset on what we consume, will be more aware of
Speaker 1: the single use plastic we use and how we can
Speaker 1: avoid it. Today's episode was written by Stephanie Vermillion and
Speaker 1: produced by Tyler Clang. Brain Stuff is a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. For more on this
Speaker 1: and lots of other multi use topics, visit our home planet,
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com. And for more podcasts from
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