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The Scourge of Plastic

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The Scourge of Plastic
Johncarlo Cerna April 18, 2013 Period 3A
The Scourge of Plastic
Plastic is used in so many of our worldly possessions. This resource is in our bottles, our televisions, even in our clothing, and makes up much of the things we use every day. “So what?” you may ask, “it’s just some material that we use a lot in our lives, why is that important?” The fact of the matter is that a lot of the plastic in many of the things we own are unsafe, toxic, and not fit for commercial use.
Every company that makes plastic has their own closely-guarded secret formula and procedure to make their plastic, which means that unless you bring in a lab of scientists to analyze the contents of the plastic, there’s no way to tell exactly what is in your plastic, this substance that makes up most of your world. There have been reports of traces of heavy, nonferrous metals such as mercury, that are very poisonous, and other materials in plastic that are potentially harmful and toxic to humans and could cause severe illness and even death. The byproducts of plastic also affect the biodiversity of animals when they are dumped into their environment. But since people are dependent on plastic for all of their stuff, people usually turn a blind eye to plastic issues and concerns. Most plastic companies outsource their factories to places like China and Taiwan, where the quality of skill is less than their MDC counterpart.
We have to do something against the scourge of the plastic industry. First, countries should pass laws that would require all plastic companies to submit an ingredient list that would be highly classified, and if the ingredients were changed or altered, the company would have to notify the countries or pay stiff fines. Next, plastic companies should have higher qualities of skill and ingredients going into the plastic. Finally, since plastic takes such a long time to decompose naturally, recycling awareness should be raised to help the environment and decrease landfill

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