Reduce, Reuse, Recycle?

Despite the popular mantra, our plastic is single use. How many people actually refill their plastic water bottle once it is empty? The answer, very few. We as a society are under this popular misconception, that if we recycle our bottles everything will be okay. But that is not true. Despite what has been beaten into our skulls, recycling does not ensure that our plastics will be properly handled. In all actuality, it is almost impossible to sort through all of the plastic bottles America goes through on a daily basis. We equate recycling with reducing our plastic circulation, assuming that by following all the steps we are making the world a better place, but that is false. Our plastic remains single use, most people discard their plastic water bottles after one use and so even if you recycle you are not reducing the amount of plastic in circulation. If anything you are increasing the amount of plastic in circulation because now another bottle has to be made. 

About 1,500 plastic bottles are discarded EVERY DAY. That is a crazy amount of plastic that we are literally just throwing away. Only about 30% of a plastic bottle thrown away are actually recycled. Less than half of the people who buy water bottles actually recycle them. That is mind-boggling. That means the remaining 70% is not recycled and these bottles head straight to our oceans and landfills. This may not seem like a big deal until you understand that plastic water bottles are not biodegradable. They can not be broken down in nature. Plastic NEEDS to be manually crushed and processed, if left to the elements it could take up to 450 years to completely decompose, and in that time a lot of problems can arise, from unchecked waste management to the death of sea creatures. 

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