THE PERILS OF PLASTICS

Nancy Percivall, Committee Chair for Horticulture, shared the history of straws and the effects plastic straws have on our environment. It is estimated that 500 million straws are used every day in America, and a significant amount of those end up in our oceans, polluting the water and killing marine life. She shared several types of straws that can be used in place of plastic straws – paper, acrylic, aluminum, bamboo, hay, and pasta. Several corporations and cities have banned the use of plastic straws. If we don’t act now, by the year 2050 there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish.

Nancy also did a recap of her previous discussions on

• Plastic shopping bags – Plastic shopping bags are convenient, but they are a major source of waste and pollution in our society and pose health risks as they leach toxins into water supplies. Plastic shopping bags are not recyclable and most of these bags actually end up in landfills and sit there for hundreds of years. 
• Plastic water bottles – Americans buy 29 billion water bottles a year. For every six bottles, only one is recycled. That leads to a big problem since water bottles do not biodegrade, but rather photodegrade. This means that it takes at least up to 1,000 years for every single bottle to decompose, leaking pollutants into our soil and water along the way.
• Plastic microbeads – Microbeads may be small, but they are causing big problems for our environment and our health. These tiny pieces of plastic used in personal care products go down the drain and into our waterways by the billions every day. They absorb toxins in the water, are eaten by marine life, and can make their way up the food chain all the way to our dinner plates.​

Every person, community and business plays a role in preserving our planet. By making eco-friendly choices, each of us can do our part to help protect the environment. 

"We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors,
​we borrow it from our children."
– Native American Proverb