Tapped

**NOTE** I am not against using plastic because if you look around I bet a lot of things you own are made from plastic...and I'm not about to give up my tv, phone, or other electronics.  On the other hand, I think more thought has to be put into how you get rid of plastic.  I also think it's crazy to buy bottled water when there are drinking fountains all over campus and in a lot of workplaces because the water you are buying is basically the same water that is coming out of the tap.**

Topics covered in "Tapped" included: how plastic bottles are made, recycling plastic bottles, pollution caused plastic, and solutions to pollution problems.  In this post I will try to stick to topics dealing with pollution caused by plastic bottles.  The information in this section of the blog is either what I have learned from watching Tapped or something I have known prior to watching it.  The "Tapped" logo was taken from http://thegreenpages.ca/bc/2009/08/tapped/.

Plastic Bottles

The main ingredient in many plastic bottles we use today (PET and PETE) is called parazylene, which is obtained from refining crude oil.  According to Tapped, 714 million gallons of oil, or enough to fuel 100,000 cars, is used every year to manufacture plastic bottles.

More importantly, refineries that produce parazylene pollute the air, greatly affecting the health of people living around the refinery because the toxins can cause a wide range of diseases.  In Corpus Christi, TX, where a major refinery is located, birth defects are 84% higher than the state average, and the residents believe it is caused by the refinery’s pollution.

Recycling

The problem that rises after a bottle has been produced and used is how it is thrown away.  I think it’s safe to say that everyone knows plastic bottles are recyclable, but how many people actually recycle all the time?  Nobody likes carrying extra stuff around with them until they find a place to recycle, so bottles usually end up in a garbage can.  Every day in America, 80 million bottles of water are consumed, but only about 30 million of those are recycled.  When compared to International Recycling Rates, America falls behind with a recycling rate of about 20% of all beverage containers, while the rest of the world is around 50% (Tapped). 

Pollution

Most of the pollution research discussed in Tapped was done by Captain Charles Moore; founder the Algalita Marine Research Foundation.  Moore stated that a lot of bottles that end up in landfills wash into bodies of water (like the ocean), where they eventually end up washing up on shore.  Kamilo Beach, one of the southern most beaches in the U.S., has plastic material littered all over the sand, as well as broken down plastic mixed into the sand.  To the left is an actual picture of the plastic scattered on Kamilo Beach (http://algalita.org/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=109).

Moore has also done research in the planet’s oceans and has found huge areas (like the North Pacific Gyre) that accumulate enormous volumes of garbage due to the currents in the water.  Picture from: http://www.algalita.org/research/index.html

Water samples taken from these areas show some places contain more plastic per weight than plankton.  In 1999, testing of their samples showed as much as 6 times the amount of plastic as plankton per weight and the same tests in 2008 showed 46 times more plastic than plankton (Tapped).   The plastic in these samples is mostly broken up into small enough pieces resembling fish eggs so small fish eat the plastic, which can eventually poison them.  To the left is an example of what Capt. Moore finds when he skims the water in the North Pacific Gyre (Picture from: http://algalita.org/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=474).

Watching this documentary made me realized that bottled water is a ripoff and I really don't like paying money for something that I can get free out of my tap or one of the many drinking fountains on campus.  I will talk about ways pollution can be reduced in a later blog post.