Can we live without plastic? 😅

Hello everyone! Welcome back to our segment “Mind Sparks”, where we discuss various topics about things that surround us nowadays. Today, we will explore why, despite knowing the damage, breaking up with plastic feels almost impossible. The reason behind stands for a century-long design revolution that changed the world. It eventually turned into the stage when plastic became an inevitable part of our everyday lives!

⭐Now, if you want to buy something without plastic and eco-friendly, you have to find it beforehand and pay more sometimes. That is why many of us still use plastic. Why? It is cheap, flexible, and durable. But what are the consequences of our love for plastic?

😆“Plastic is fantastic”
This phrase became commonly used in the 1950s when mass-produced plastic items commenced integrating into our daily life. After decades, it eventually became the top material for everything even if you use the product only once. Why did it happen? Initially, it should have been an option to preserve natural resources and be an alternative. Only now the world has realized the massive aftermath of pollution as this material, unlike a paper bag as an instance, does not biodegrade

😆People suffer hiddenly
You may certainly have read those articles about the negative consequences for the environment such as climate change and unsightly bottles and bags clogging beaches. However, a threat is closer than you think. There are microbeads that you can’t see but those tiny plastics are everywhere: not only in oceans, but in our food and our bodies

😆Light in the dark
Nature still doesn’t know how to deal with plastic as it is synthetic and made by combining manmade chemicals. However, it is starting to fight back with plastic-eating microbes, but they are few and far between. So the genuine solution for this problem is to reduce plastic production instead of permanent recycling

Such a step for a world tied with a plastic system is definitely hard but crucial, that is why we are slowly coming to understand that plastic was never an option to preserve those limited natural resources but became an actual threat for the future 😊

🧐Vocabulary notes:
Single-use plastics - plastic products which are designed to be used just once, before being thrown away
Microbeads - tiny plastic particles found in products like toothpastes and body scrubs, which can enter and pollute rivers, seas and the human body
Synthetic - a non-natural material made by combining chemicals
To biodegrade - to decay naturally in a way that is not harmful to the environment
Few and far between - very rare or not happening very often
Unsightly - ugly and unpleasant to look at

#mind_sparks ❤️