PLASTIC IN TIMES OF CORONA  by Natalia Strzelczyk 2bg

  Nowadays products that we use are made of many different materials. However, lots of people complain about using too much plastic in our lives. Of course, it's for the better because we should care about stuff like this. Caring about our planet should be our priority. Unfortunately, the Coronavirus situation made us change our customs and resolutions and even though we want our life to be the same it looks a bit different than always. 

   Firstly, I think although we were all at home, we used more plastic than we do as usual. Plastic bags and gloves were used in extremely big amounts of time. In the very beginning of the pandemic, every time we went out we wore masks, gloves and sometimes even plastic gloves were worn on the latexes one! In my opinion, there was a rise in the level of using plastic and I’m afraid it may have tough consequences in the nearest future. I tried so hard to use as less plastic as I could. For example, instead of buying tee or bottles of juice, I was only drinking mint tee and the mint was from my garden.

  Furthermore, shops and institutions tried to use as less as they could as well. I was told that many restaurants started using paper packagings and stripes instead of the plastic ones. What more, many places introduced bamboo cutlery, so if you want to get some food out, you get in a paper packaging and with bamboo cutlery. Moving on, I noticed that many supermarkets exchanged plastic bags for paper or material ones, which is also a great investment.

   This demonstrates my point: Even though during the Corona situation using plastic was sometimes very important for us, there were places and occasions not to make use of it. We should support investments and ideas like this because we can save our world. Sometimes it may sound funny, but we need to remember- The more we do something together- the more profits we can get. It is just a matter of time.

CORONAVIRUS AND PLASTIC USE-WHAT DO THEY HAVE IN COMMON?

by Jakub Rogala 2cg

    Nowadays, plastic is the inevitable thing in our world. Without it, our lives would be immensely more difficult. Things made of plastic are quite cheap in production and  have unbelievable durability, for example, plastic had been found in the Mariana Trench, which is one of the most uninhabitable areas  on Earth.

    Due to the global pandemic of COVID-19, plastic is used in making a great amount of facemasks, gloves, disposable boxes and more other items. Wuhan hospitals which are centers of coronavirus outbreak, produces more than 240 tons of medical plastic waste per day, due to the amount of disposable masks, gowns and gloves. If the calculations are true, the USA could generate an entire year’s worth of  medical waste in 2 months.

   Individuals have their part in the increased plastic pollution too . Packaged meals and home-delivered groceries adds tens of thousands tons of plastic in the whole world, especially in Singapore there was more than additional 1440 tons of plastic waste in the 8-week lockdown. Global health crisis leads to inappropriate disposal of plastic, as incineration or local burnings, and even throwing out plastic in forests.

   In southeast London, there is a plastic-free supermarket: BYO (Bring Your Own). It offers nuts, pulses, grains, some household goods like argan olive, chilli olive oil and much more. There is even kombucha and vegan cheese. They also have a spice wall. Customers use reusable jars, canvas bags and paper bags. All that can reduce impact on the environment and make people healthier.

   All things considered, the use and disposal of plastic changed drastically in the period of 9 months. People have forgotten about pollution of the environment due to the appearance of a new enemy, the pathogen. We are doing everything to prevent the devastating power of that illness, but I have a question: Are we not making the new outbreak, this time very much more bizarre, which major ingredient is plastic pollution?

MY PERSPECTIVE by Paweł Marciniak 2dg

I think plastic is a good material which pushes our civilization. My attitude towards it did not change much even though every day we can hear that if we don’t change anything in 2050 there will be more plastic than fishes in the oceans. It has its weaknesses and one of them is that it’s falling apart into very small pieces called microplastics which are unhealthy for you. Despite that fact I still  can not imagine our life without it. Of course we can easily give up on one use plastic bags, cups, forks or plats and it’s going to make a big change. But we can not give up on it completely because there is no other material that is as cheap, light, durable, flexible and waterproof.

Medicine is probably that field where we can not replace plastic. Plastic is used to make samples,filters, gloves which are used by medical staff and much more and that made medical costs much cheaper. The next thing are lenses which are also made from plastic so they are safer because they won't break. People also say that plastic decomposes very slowly which is true but it doesn't mean we can’t do anything from it. It is possible to make fuels by heating up plastic without access to oxygen and this is a solution for plastic that we don't use anymore. We can’t stop producing plastic but we can raise people's awareness  of the danger from mindless use of plastic.

MY PERSPECTIVE by Samuel Kręc 2dg

In these difficult times due to pandemic people around the world started using a sight  more plastic products, including gloves, protective suits, face shields and surgical masks. On the one hand it’s good, because people are protecting themselves and others from being infected with SARS-CoV-2, but on the other we are producing a ton more of plastic wastes.

    Few weeks ago I read an article which stated that the biggest manufacturer of plastic gloves in the world multiplied his wealth three and a half times in a span of four months of the pandemic. And to clarify he was a billionaire even before all of that. This shows the pure scale of the problem. Because of the pandemic of the coronavirus we partially forgot about our two biggest problems; pollution and plastic wastes.

    In spite of all of this some small food shops are using waxed paper instead of plastic, because they are trying to reduce usage of plastic to protect our food. This method is less popular, because waxed paper is more expensive than plastic containers. Many restaurants stopped using plastic straws. Grocery stores don’t sell anymore cheap foilic bags, instead they offer recyclable or reusable bags.

    In my opinion we should try to reduce plastic usage as much as we can, especially in times when implications of pollution are visible like never before; wildfires are consuming California even now, ice is melting on the north pole and there are heat waves across the world.

MY PERSPECTIVE by Kinga Kmiecik 2dg

There is plastic everywhere these days. We don't even notice it anymore. We buy food - it's usually packed in plastic, we buy furniture - it' s packed in plastic, even newspapers are sometimes packed in plastic. There might be some advantages of it but I think drawbacks outnumber them. But is plastic really the only solution in most of situations?

When I was younger I didn't realize that plastic isn't necessarily a good thing. I can't really recall a lot of people saying otherwise. As I was getting older, the world was becoming more aware of harmfulness of plastic. A lot of campaigns had started - people were trying to save our planet, show the disadvantages of plastic. So I and my family tried to change our lifestyle - I think we succeed in this. 

However I think there are areas of our lives where synthetic materials are inevitable and irreplaceable. One of them is medicine. They are used for among other things production of all kinds of dentures and medicinal devices. They are also a part of some of the drugs. At this moment removal of plastics from medicine is impossible.

In brief, I strongly believe we should reduce the use of plastic - it's really harmful to our planet. We have to do it if we want to live in a healthy, beautiful place. There are solutions other than plastic, even though there are situations where it can't be replaced.

MY PERSPECTIVE by Zuzanna Kalak 2bg

Every second we produce 11 tons of plastic. It adds up to a homogeneous number of 330 000 000 tons per year and that’s more than all humans on the Earth weight. Furthermore only 14 percent of all the plastic ever produced was recycled. Giving how harmful to our environment plastic is we need to reduce its consumption. 

Using plastic bags and drinking bottled water used to seem completely natural to me and I had never even thought that it might cause any harm to me or our planet. But now that I know it is killing both I avoid plastic as much as I can. I don’t use disposable bags, bottles or straws. I reuse everything that I can. I am more aware and every time I get a chance to use less plastic I take it. These are small and simple changes that everyone can apply. Of course there, where it is possible.

There are some aspects of our lives in which we aren’t able to avoid plastic. For example in hospitals doctors must wear gloves, and use disposable syringes in order to keep us safe. Pills are packed in plastic wrapping to maintain their chemical stability and plastic breathing accessories are more efficient. 

All in all plastic is a very useful material, that unfortunately still plays a role too big in places where it is not necessary. But we all can do something to change it. It really isn’t hard and the benefits of it are absolutely worth its cost. 

MY PERSPECTIVE by Martyna Frankiewicz 2bg

Our planet is very persistent and can survive the hardship. But it is not an unlimited source of things. People enjoy its goodness as if it will never end. Scientists claim that we’ve gone too far and soon the earth will not be able to stand more. If everyone wanted to live like a developed, wealthy part of the world (read: Europe and North America) we would need to have from three to five planets similar to the Earth.

At this time privileged countries which have everything available, suddenly realised that constant pursuit of improving their own lives has a major impact on the natural environment, which has far-reaching implications. it will be very hard to take away the freedom and convenience of using all of the human inventions. But lately we can see emerging trends in on caring for the future of the planet. We are becoming become more aware of our actions and how they influence the environment. The first rule to on changing our lifestyle should be: minimize everything we buy. And the second rule: buy only from eco friendly brands. These two easy rules are for all aspects of our lives, so: stop wasting food, don’t purchase unnecessary clothes and things only because it is trendy.

A Trend gaining in popularity is “zero waste”. It is an ideology whosewhich main purpose is to reduce waste to a minimum. So it means no plastic packages, no low quality products (sooner or later they become trash). Minimalists often want to reduce their carbon footprint. So instead of the car they choose a bike. Those little changes are important but they only work if everyone does it. 

Life in the modernized part of the world is very fast, consumptive and convenient. But the consequences of this lifestyle won’t be wonderful. On our planet is a place for all of us. Earth is limited but it could bear us if we will respect it.