Peçanha, S. (2020, February 19). Opinion | Congrats! You dump 100 plastic bottles in nature each year. Retrieved March 8, 2020, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/02/19/congrats-you-dump-100-plastic-bottles-nature-each-year/?arc404=true

 

The following article discusses how the average American will unknowingly contribute the equivalent to 100 plastic water bottles into the environment. It discusses how more than 300,000 tons of plastics are estimated to be littered or inadequately disposed of each year and this pollution is carried to the ocean by wind, rivers, or wastewater outflows. It talks about how there is so many other materials mixed with the recyclables that the cost of separation is making the business of recycling financially unviable. 

 

This article sheds light on the issue of plastic contamination of the ocean from American plastics. It’s saddening to hear that 300,000 tons of plastics are estimated to be inadequately disposed of each year. Some potential solutions to this problem is to increase education surrounding the recycling of plastics, to manage storm drains in major cities, and to increase the amount invested in waste management. It also talks about how the business of recycling is financially unviable because of the mixing of plastics. This leads to the question of what the government can do regulation-wise to incentivize manufacturers to not mix plastics.