The Plastic Crisis

My solution that covers the plastic crisis is to clean it up. We need fleets of ships designed to do just that. California has plenty of coastlines to clean up. We have the whole of the West Coast, bedsides, to try this idea out on. 12.7 million tones of plastic winds up in our ocean every year, according to the BBC earth website. This is because plastic has trouble breaking down, being recycled and degrading. Aspergillus tubigensis is one such natural way to fix the problem as this fungus lives in warm habitats. This fungus could be let loose in a landfill, which would breakdown problematic plastics such as diapers.

Diapers and menstrual pads take forever to degrade, up to 500 years, but the fungus would cut that time to something manageable. There are such things as eco-friendly diapers, made of bamboo, that is easier to decompose. Menstrual pads take 500 to 800 years to biodegrade. I try every which way to lessen my carbon footprint. We need to do something about the plastic in our oceans. It is up to the West Coast to clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Somebody thought of an ocean clean up invention, called System 001, a 600m long floating garbage collector, which could collect the plastic. Good ideas come out of the Netherlands, to build a plastic road that they managed to do, making a bike path from recycled plastic. This material is more durable than asphalt, because concrete itself is a way to pollute our environment. So many people fall on concrete anyway, that I view concrete as a very dangerous material to use in construction. We really have to start making alternatives to concrete as a planet, since cement manufacturing processes are contributing to the levels of carbon dioxide, which is a greenhouse gas that cars also make worse.

But with COVID-19, and the entire planet staying home, pollution has become less of a crisis. We could say it is something that is being worked on. Scientists are working on something called a bioplastic, or plastic made from something other than oil such as plastic made with seaweed. The plastic pollution situation is so bad, that BBC World remarks on how by 2050 there will be more pieces of plastic than marine life. So what do we as a planet do to fix this crisis? I suggest a fleet of boats or System 001s, hiring people to clean up the mess. We'd have to pay them a good salary; a better salary than they've ever had since cleaning up the mess could become a full time job for somebody willing. There should be more companies looking to clean up the mess. It is necessary to clean up the mess, only because the planet has to fix itself. Staying home a lot means there is less pollution, and I remember a picture I saw of an Indian city where there was no smog while in lockdown. The planet is in crisis from not only COVID-19, but they found a new swine flu also out of China, that could turn into a pandemic. Those of us, who have thought this situation through, understand that the planet is in deep trouble. Everybody is too busy living their own lives to think about how little things contribute to the mess. People are trying to have a meaningful existence, but are way too distracted by working to make money, to fix global problems and make things better. We are all distracted by having to work full time, unless somebody comes up with companies/think tanks dedicated to solving the crisis.

Works Cited

https://www.bbcearth.com/blog/?article=unexpected-solutions-to-the-plastic-crisis https://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/waste/is-green-menstruation-possible--64796

https://www.greenmatters.com/p/are-diapers-biodegradable-compostable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_concrete