Because plastic is one of the most popular toxic pollutants but does not actually cause as much harm to the environment as water, land and air pollutants. Plastic is a non-biodegradable substance that can destroy the environment and cause long-term problems to the lives of animals, plants and humans. Plastic is distributed in different areas and varies with certain factors such as wind and ocean currents, urban areas, coastline geography, trade routes and population. These enclosed areas include the nooks and crannies of towns and cities that often have a negative impact on the environment. Under this, organisms are dispersed to remote shores of non-native habitats. Overall, the effects of plastic pollution on the environment include noise pollution, food chain disturbance, slaughter of animals, soil pollution, toxic potential, air pollution, expensive prices, and contamination of groundwater.
1. Ground Water Pollution
Groundwater is water that exists underground in rock or soil and other materials. Groundwater forms the connection between surface water systems and materials in the Earth’s crust. According to , groundwater in its natural form is relatively free of contaminants in most areas. Since it is a very exploitable source of drinking water, groundwater contamination was indeed a major concern. Our drinking water, whether purchased in bottles or filled from the tap, originally comes from streams and lakes or groundwater on the Earth’s surface. When it rains, the whole world will become a mess due to leakage of plastic and garbage. It rains and all this garbage dumps, landfills and plastic waste everywhere flows into groundwater supplies; Which ends up in our drinking water pools. Groundwater and aquifers have leaked environmental toxins into the contaminated water. Plastic has made the ocean dirty and polluted, which has adverse effects on it. This caused environmental destruction to many marine species, with adverse effects on people and their fish and other marine life nutrient sources.
2. Disturbance In The Food Chain
A food chain is defined as the linear sequence of who eats what in an ecosystem. Most species fit into more than one such series, especially when it comes to the lower food levels of the system. An ecosystem may consist of one or more communities of organisms that interact with each other and with their physical environment through the flow of energy and the cycling of materials. According to this classification, each species in the ecosystem occupies a specific position in the hierarchy of food levels/trophic levels. Transfer of energy from one food level to another is one of the major factors affecting the functioning of any ecosystem. The components of a food chain include producers, consumers and decomposers. The main source of that plastic waste is feeding by these creatures, which come in many different sizes, large or small. Therefore, even the smallest organisms on Earth, such as plankton, are affected by plastic pollution. The problem with this is that when these organisms, the producers, use the plastics as food, they are eventually ingested and become toxic, which harms the animals higher up the food chain that depend on them for food, the consumers. It becomes a problem for him. This causes disruption in food chains and ultimately the ecosystem. This can also result in highly toxic carcinogens and chemicals entering plankton, fish and humans, especially when consumed through the food chain.
3. Killing Of Animals
Plastic waste like plastic bags, containers, six ring plastic can holders etc. are dumped into the cracks and corners of the environment, killing the following animals: ducks, dolphins, fish, chickens, turkeys, turtles etc. . These animals either become trapped by the waste or are poisoned by the toxins released into the environment by plastic waste. It has harmful effects on nearby animals and is thus harmful to the ecosystem. According to this, many marine creatures like fish, turtles, birds etc. have become entangled in plastic debris, leading to their death. Animals become trapped in their tracks and eventually die from suffocation or drowning. They die of hunger or escape from predators because they cannot fend for themselves. Entangled animals also suffer serious wounds and ulcers. In a 2006 report titled Plastic Debris in the World’s Oceans, it was estimated that at least 267 different animal species were suffering from entanglement in and ingestion of plastic debris. He said that the economic loss caused by waste products made from plastic is huge. Studies have also shown that environmental damage causes economic losses to the world of at least $3 billion every year. It also impacts tourism, fishing and shipping industries.
4. Land Pollution
Plastic waste is usually dumped into landfills. This eventually combines with water to form dangerous chemicals that typically degrade water quality when they seep underground. Plastic waste is increasing due to wind which carries and deposits plastic from one place to another. When these plastics get entangled on trees, fences, towers, poles, traffic lights, roofs, etc. and animals come in contact with them, it can lead to death of indoor and outdoor animals due to suffocation. The provision of open land and free-enterprise systems of garbage collection and disposal led most American communities to patterns of landfill disposal of urban waste. Previously, most of these were simply open dumps on land that were public health and aesthetic blemishes on the landscape. However, by the 1960s, more stringent federal controls required that waste be disposed of in a more socially and environmentally responsible manner called sanitary landfills. This involves bringing the waste into a natural pit or dug trench, burying it, and closing it by covering it with soil every day. And open dumping of garbage became illegal in 1976.
About 75% of municipal waste in the country is treated through landfilling. In fact, during the years 1970–1980, there were real concerns because it implied that cost-effective or acceptable landfills were rapidly decreasing over time; This meant that solid waste disposal costs would, from now on, increase unimaginably. About two-thirds of existing landfills had failed and were closed by 1990. More than half of the cities with demographics that crisscross America’s eastern seaboard had no local landfill sites until the mid-1990s. However, with all the decades since the economics of waste changed in the 1990s, the logic has given rise to unnecessary panic.
Land-based plastic pollution poses significant risks to all plants and animals, including humans, causing harm to nearly everyone in the environment. Mismanaged plastic waste can range from sixty (60) percent in East Asia and the Pacific to one percent in North America. Every year, one third to one half of that year’s mismanaged waste reaches the oceans as plastic marine debris. Chlorinated plastics can release toxic chemicals into nearby soil, where toxic chemicals can leach into groundwater or other nearby water sources, as well as the world’s ecosystems. As a result, it can cause serious harm to animals who drink this water. Soil becomes infertile, affecting plant growth as toxic chemicals from plastic waste react with water and seep into the soil. Near oceans, these landfills often serve as sources of marine debris, primarily by the fact that the material is easily washed into the water or carried to the ocean through wind channels or small waterways such as rivers and streams is going.
5. Poisonous Ability
Plastic pollution is poisonous. Plastic pollution has the potential to poison any animal, which could eventually destroy the human food supply. Many toxic chemicals are used artificially by humans to produce plastic. The use and exposure to plastic can be closely linked to many health problems that are affecting the citizens of the earth. Plastic pollution is a major cause of great danger to large marine mammals. This is the biggest threat to such an empire. Deep accumulations of plastic waste were found in the stomachs of some marine species, such as turtles. In such circumstances, animals die of hunger. This is because consumption of plastic disrupts the digestive system of the animal. Sometimes, marine mammals become entangled in plastic products such as nets, which can cause them to be injured or killed. The processes of animals producing, storing, using or disposing of plastic or even being around plastic can be downright dangerous/harmful to living things. Toxic substances produced by emissions, fly ash and slag deposited in burn heaps spread over long distances and accumulate in soil and water and sometimes enter the human body after getting deposited in the tissues of animals and plants.
6. Air Pollution
Air pollutants include any type of chemical present in the atmosphere in such quantities that they can harm living organisms, ecosystems or organisms or man-made materials or alter the climate. Currently, air pollution is a global phenomenon; It can reach even remote areas that are not close to the pollution source, provided that atmospheric circulation allows pollutants to move freely without regard to boundaries. When plastic is burned in the open air, through landfills or incinerators, poisonous or toxic chemicals are released, causing environmental pollution. Thrown plastics also emit greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, due to which their adverse effects will be felt by both humans and animals. Therefore animals and humans breathing this polluted air face health hazards as a result of endocrine and respiratory problems etc.
7. Expensiveness
Plastic pollution is very expensive. Landfills, incinerators and more have been built in different parts of the world, amounting to millions of Naira/Dollars every year for those who inhale the toxic chemicals emanating from plastic waste. The price of land is increasing; While it is being used for many purposes, finding a place to dump trash and garbage has become a headache in many places in the world. Areas are becoming more polluted, leading to a decline in tourists and recreational destinations in these areas, leading to a recession in the economy.
Read Also:
- Causes Of Plastic Pollution
- Plastic Pollution
- Health Effects Of Air Pollution
- Air Pollution: Health Effects
- Effect Of Air Pollution On Human Health
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