Activity 3.3.3.1 Current Events In Plastic Pollution.

My name is Kamaria Flowers, a college student attending Alamo Colleges currently enrolled within an environmental science class. Within this essay I will be explaining a non-biased point of view on plastic pollution within today's environment, as well as from five years prior. Though I am a big buff on keeping our Earth healthy and being an active person on lowering my carbon footprint, so that my children and their children have a future I do maintain a professional decorum within topics of pollution. 

The topic of plastic pollution is known as an abundance of plastic waste that has been dispersed into our environments. More common would be oceans, rivers, and landfills, which results in a harmful impact in ecosystems, wildlife, and humans. Impacts such as long-term damage of course to our Earth, species decline, and various others are all due to massive plastic use, improperly disposing waste, and inadequate recycling practices. Within my essay I will deep dive into separate articles on plastic pollution and the message that comes off. 

Article 1: “An Earth Law Solution to Ocean Plastic Pollution” Michelle Bender 3/9/25

Within Michelle Bender article, she states the clear problem in today's plastic pollution is causing significant damage to freshwater and marine ecosystems. Due to plastic being such an economically positive product, demand has increased extremely since the 1960’s. With the feeble attempt of environmental law to regulate pollution threats within our growing society “Plastic pollution is emerging as a top threat to ocean ecosystems. By 2025, there could be 1 ton of plastic for every 3 tons of fish in the ocean. Plastic debris affects nearly 700 species worldwide through entanglement and ingestion, alters natural biological and chemical processes, provides a means for the introduction of toxins into the food web, and costs the U.S. economy millions of dollars annually. The majority of this debris comes from land-based sources (e.g., plastic manufacturers, processors, landfills, sewage overflows, litter). With only 14% of plastic packaging and containers recycled in the U.S., 75% of leakage is due to uncollected waste.” This supports her statement that she originally made stating if we continue to do nothing our Earth will suffer. Upon reviewing the article it doesn’t seem that she is coming from a bias place, it seems the main point of the article is to inform the public that if we are not more conscious of our plastic use and if the our environmental law enforcers become more strict on the disposal of plastic the future she predicted won’t come true. As far as weakness for this article I personally didn't see any myself, the entire article was very informative and gave ways on how we can improve our plastic use. Also she provides diagrams of where all of our plastic goes or the “hotspots” so we know our part to help to clean up. Taking action to be able to clean up plastic and properly recycle it. 

Bender, M. (2025, March 9). An earth law solution to ocean plastic pollution. Earth Law Center. https://www.earthlawcenter.org/blog-entries/2018/3/an-earth-law-solution-to-ocean-plastic-pollution?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwna6_BhCbARIsALId2Z3FhwSDMRsWlhTVuTO9YPLijFHhgXCApfhEmB2oTw1UBrmEhg3CtpcaAtv5EALw_wcB 

Article 2: “Plastic pollution is a huge problem- and its not late to fix it” Laura Parker

October 6, 2020, Laura Park wrote an article for National Geographic on how plastic pollution has become a very serious issue. Similar to Bender, though she brings it up in the beginning instead of the middle, she expresses “The global campaign to gain control of plastic waste is one of the fastest-growing environmental causes ever mounted. Yet it hasn’t been enough to make a dent in the growing tonnage of discarded plastic that ends up in the seas.” She too predicted at the rate we’re going within the next ten years plastic waste will have “ the waste that slides into waterways, and ultimately the oceans, will reach 22 million tons and possibly as much as 58 million tons a year.” Trying to express to her fellow citizens the importance of managing our waste properly. Fairly similar to Bender, Parker hints that if it wasn’t for businesses trying to save face on an ecological scale to win the favor of their targeted demographic or market group, waste would be worse. Though because of the lax system of environmental regulations placed as what she describes “ a business-as-usual scenario,” our Earth will suffer. “With no improvements to managing waste beyond what’s already in place today, 99 million tons of uncontrolled plastic waste would end up in the environment by 2030.” The message is as clear as sand glass, if we don’t do better we will suffer, losing necessary species, habitats, and even develop health issues we possibly won't be able to reverse. 

Parker, L. (2020, October 6). Plastic pollution is a huge problem-and it’s not too late to fix it. Science. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/plastic-pollution-huge-problem-not-too-late-to-fix-it 

In the end both Bender and Parker though the research is almost five years apart, the message and data remains the same. There is no sense of bias or a weak argument; they just speak pure fact. We as humans need to be open to know this is our fault and our responsibility to fix it. These women excuse the energy that we only have one planet, one shot to do what is right. Our kid, our grandkids, parents, siblings, and everyone you love on this Earth will be affected. If we don’t see it now then these women our right our future will be plastic.