Waste Footprint

 Hi All-

Information from an article that has stuck with me: "For plastic products in general, there is no declaration of composition, and most commonly, not even the type of plastic is specified. The composition of the plastic product is usually only known to the supplier to some extent" (Lithner, 2012). The concept that over time, we've gone from using glass containers to using plastics for a majority of food products with little knowledge of what we're exposed to is somewhat nuts to me. Plastics are part of our lives in almost everyway possible from food containers to medical supplies to clothing. 

The United States is the world's largest generator of plastic waste (Tiseo, 2021). In 2018, we recycled 8.7% of our plastics. I hope we can continue to discover better ways of reducing our waste footprint and continue to minimize the damage we do to our ecosystem. 

Sources:

Lithner: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11356-011-0663-5#citeas

Tiseo: https://www.statista.com/topics/5127/plastic-waste-in-the-united-states/#dossierKeyfigures