Plastic – threatening our environment

A couple of days ago, NRK, the national broadcaster in Norway, sent a documentary that engaged me and made me very angry at the same time. The documentary was about issues in the world that comes as a result from plastic.

I don’t even think I can imagine how this situation will develop in the upcoming years.

110 years ago, a Belgian-American chemist named Leo Baekeland invented the material that we call plastic. People thought this new material was going to be amazing, but plastic has in fact turned out to be one of the biggest, if not the largest environmental problem that we are facing today in 2017. We will most likely struggle with the plastic issue through many of the remaining years of this decade as well.

Despite being a large environmental threat, plastic is also very helpful in today’s society. Especially when it comes to our food. The plastic makes the food hold longer, and plastic packaging makes it easier to transport. Plastic is also used in many other parts of our community, like out-door furniture, in cars, in household etc. Plastic is everywhere.

The thing is that plastic ruins more than it helps us. In this exact moment there are 5 fish for every plastic piece in the ocean. In 30 years it could be more plastic compared to fish in the ocean. We have to act now. If we don’t, we will be facing a huge environmental catastrophe.

Think about this, today we only see 1% plastic off all the plastic that is out there in our nature. That’s pretty shocking if you think about the big visible plastic islands floating out on the sea.