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DISPO
Plastic Pollution
Plastic Pollution and the Global Throwaway Culture:
Environmental Injustices of Single-use Plastic
Plastic Pollution: Clienti
Plastic pollution has become one of the most pressing environmental issues, as rapidly increasing production of disposable plastic products overwhelms the world’s ability to deal with them.
A cross-ecosystem plastic pollution injustice has been generated by the global throwaway culture, which create a disrespect of material goods that has turned the earth’s resources into rubbish after a single use. The literature establishes that there is an ecological problem with disposable plastic. Eighty percent of the yearly 8 million tons of plastic that enter the ocean is single use plastic, such as plastic bottles, plastic shopping bags, or cigarette lighters.
The ‘throwaway culture’ is a term coined by Pope Francis I in his encyclical Ladauto Si, where he challenges the world to realize the "intimate relationship between the poor and the fragility of the planet".
Plastic Pollution: Testo
" Throwaway culture describes the current social and economic structure of society in which unwanted things and people are rejected as waste. "
Plastic Pollution: Testo
On August 1st 1955 Life Magazine published an article entitled ‘Throwaway Living’. This article is thought to be the first public instance of the term ‘throwaway society’ being inuse. At the time, the new disposability of items was nothing but positive. The article focuses on the idea that these new throwaway items give housewives back time which would have been spent cleaning plates, towels, diapers,ash trays, and even ‘a feeding dish for dogs’…
Plastic Pollution: Testo
“The objects flying through the air in this picture would take 40 hours to clean — except that no housewife need to bother.”
Photo from Life Magazine article ‘Throwaway Living’.
Plastic Pollution: Immagine
They give people the feeling of freedom to change their minds, change look, or change house decor at any moment, without incurring anymajor financial repercussion.
Plastic became associated with modernity, with new items such as telephones, radios, and televisions all designed using plastic. It may have started with plastic, but it didn’t stop there. Now, almost everything people own is disposable to some extent.
American journalist Vance Packard published the book The Waste Makers in 1960, in which he called planned obsolescence:
Plastic Pollution: Testo
“…the systematic attempt of business to make us wasteful, debt-ridden, permanently discontented individuals.”
Plastic Pollution: Testo
This certainly seems to be the case now. Humans are starting to wake up to the hidden costs of their throwaway society, and the environmental impacts which were not considered (or ignored) in those exciting first few decades of the mass consumer society.
The excessive use of plastic is promoted by the throwaway culture of todays world, particularly in developing countries. Once humans throw away their trash they never see it again and so create a false understanding of the impact of their throwaway thought.
The SUPD (the single-use plastics Directive) defines a single-use plastic product as:
Plastic Pollution: Testo
"…a product wholly or partly made of plastic and that is not conceived, designed or placed on the market to accomplish, within its life span, multiple trips or rotations by being returned to a producer for refill or reused for the same purpose for which it was conceived."
Plastic Pollution: Testo
It applies without distinction to fossil fuel based plastics, bio-based plastics, biodegradable and compostable plastics and composite material plastics, for example paper or card items with a plastic polymer lining.
While plastic has many valuable uses, we have become addicted to single-use or disposable plastic, with severe environmental consequences.
Plastic Pollution: Testo
Plastic Pollution: Galleria
Plastic Pollution: Elenco
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