When plastic made from fossil fuels first came onto the scene it was revolutionary. Now we’re drowning in the stuff. Literally.
Would it surprise you to know that less than 10% of plastics actually get recycled? Or that microplastics have been found in Antarctic ice, fish meat, baby poop and human blood? It’s now everywhere. Which is weird by pretty much any standard.
And while we don’t understand the full health impacts of microplastics in human bodies, we know a few other things that are pretty gross:
- Plastic just doesn’t seem to want to go away. It breaks down into smaller and smaller and smaller pieces, but just keeps hanging out, getting into everything.
- Plastic isn’t an awesome material to recycle. It degrades with each recycling until it eventually becomes something so useless that it has to be thrown into a landfill (compare that with the infinite recyclability of metals and glass), and landfills are yet another reason for deforestation.
- Chemicals including carcinogens and endocrine disruptors, leach from plastic containers into the products they hold.
Products that are free of plastic are a win across the board.