It's not just that gyre of plastic that I'm concerned about it's the gyre of plastic in the supermarket.

(b) plastics drums and jerricans that

It is down cycled and turned into lesser things, while a glass bottle can be a glass bottle again or can be used again a plastic bottle can never be a plastic bottle again.

Capital onion soup, capital. Pity we don't have rubber pockets, we could smuggle some back to London.

Plastik

At the end of this process, we have a mixed plastic composite many different types of plastics and many different grades of plastics.

It's a bad thing that plastic breaks down into smaller little bits, because it's always still plastic.

It's plastic pollution.

Paper and plastic products, packing materials, camp stores, hoses, fittings kitchen and catering supplies.

He's given a little bottle massage, a little bottle medal.

We've been talking a lot about the horrific impacts of plastic on the planet and on other species, but plastic hurts people too, especially poor people.

Whenever possible, refuse single use and disposable plastics.

Upon educating myself a little further about plastics, I actually realized this was a bad thing.

I'm also concerned about the plastic in the refrigerator, and I'm concerned about the plastic and the toxins that leach from plastic into us and into our bodies.

Moreover, most plastic products are made from so called petroleum based commodity thermoplastics. Given that a non renewable resource forms the basis of many plastic products most of which will not last long current plastics usage patterns are not sustainable.

Plastic just is not going to do it.

(b) plastics drums that

And if you really look into it, particularly when it comes to plastic bottles, most of it is only down cycled, or incinerated, or shipped to China.

After 20 years, we see emerging the debris accumulation zone of the North Pacific Gyre.

Now because the plastics are so plentiful and by the way, those other methods don't lead to the recovery of plastics, obviously but people do try to recover the plastics.

And both in the production of plastic, the use of plastic and the disposal of plastic, the people who have the bull's eye on their foreheads are poor people.

It's a plastic bag.

The Dirt on Plastic Waste

It's mostly many types of plastics and many types of metals.

Plastics have taken the place of many conventional materials.

Closed loop recycling, in which plastics waste is used to make another product, thus carries significant environmental benefits, such as reduced energy and oil consumption. But the process of separating the petroleum based recyclable plastics from other kinds of plastics and solid waste is difficult, costly, and labor intensive, so only a small proportion is recycled.

I remember one night, one of the nurses came in, Jonathan, with a whole lot of plastic straws.

Recycling of plastic in many developing countries means the incineration of the plastic, the burning of the plastic, which releases incredible toxic chemicals and, once again, kills people.

And in the process, we started recreating how the plastics industry makes plastics.

Now look at that plastic chair.

51H flexible plastics large packagings

50H rigid plastics large packagings

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Soybeans, yeah.

glass, plastic, terry cloth.

I like drinking from a stein.

And the last material I'm going to talk about today is plastic, and, of course, my toaster had to have a plastic case.

I've been working with plastic bags, which I cut up and sew back together as my primary material for my artwork for the last 20 years.

ZK For example, you could make a watch that wraps around your wrist, but doesn't use a buckle.

Controls your 3D plastic printer

That bottle winds up getting burned.

This chair is made of plastic.

This plastic chair is very cheap.

You can also find, at your convenience, heights, ropes, ovens, even plastic bags.

And my intention was to go out to the gyre, raise awareness about this issue and begin to pick up the plastic, chip it into little bits and cold mold it into bricks that could potentially be used as building materials in underdeveloped communities.

The other thing that we don't often appreciate is it's not just at the point of production that poor people suffer.