What if we stopped using plastic?

 What if we stopped using plastic?

 Of the 8.3 billion tonnes of plastics produced by the end of 2015, 6.3 billion tonnes have been disposed of. Much of this plastic waste still exists, either to fill vacancies or to pollute our environment.

 Plastic particles are also found in Antarctic sea ice, in the intestines of deep-sea animals, and in drinking water around the world.

 In fact, plastic waste has become so widespread that researchers have suggested that it could be used as a geological indicator of anthropocene.

 But what if we waved a magic wand and got all the plastic out of our lives? This idea may seem appealing to the planet, but we will soon realize how much plastic has become a part of our lives. Is life possible without plastic?

 Humans have been using plastic-like materials for thousands of years, such as shellac, which was made from the dripping resin of leaking insects. But plastic, as we know it today, is a 20th-century invention. The first plastic backlight made from fossil fuel was invented in 1907. It was not until World War II that the production of synthetic plastics for use outside of the military began.

 Since then, plastic production has been increasing almost every year, from 2 million tons in 1950 to 380 million tons in 2015. If production continues at the same rate, it could account for 20% of plastic oil production by 2050.

 Today, the packaging industry is the largest consumer of new plastic particles. But we also use plastic in a much more sustainable way: it is in our buildings, transport and other important infrastructure. Also in our furniture, appliances, TVs, carpets, phones, clothes, and countless other everyday items.

 All this means that a world completely free of plastic is unrealistic. But imagining how our lives will change if we suddenly lose access to plastic can help us figure out how to build a new and more lasting relationship with it.

 Lack of plastic in hospitals would be disastrous. "Imagine running a dialysis unit without plastic," says Sharon George, a senior lecturer in environmental sustainability and green technology at the University of Kiel in the UK.

Plastic is used in gloves, tubes, syringes, blood bags, sample tubes, etc. Standard reusable surgical instruments have been used only once for certain operations since the discovery of different strains of Creutzfield Jacob's disease (vCJD) in 1996. The disease is caused by a type of insoluble protein called prions and they escape the normal process of hospital disinfection.

 According to a study, a single tonsillectomy operation at any hospital in the UK can result in the discovery of up to 100 different pieces of plastic waste. Although some surgeons argue that disposable plastics are more commonly used in hospitals, many plastic medical products are indispensable and without them lives could be lost.

 Some everyday plastic items are also very important for health protection. Condoms and diaphragms are on the World Health Organization's list of essential medicines, and facial masks, including plastic surgical masks and respirators, as well as reusable cloth masks, have been shown to reduce the spread of the COD-19 virus. Has helped

 "The mask you have for Code is about our safety and the safety of others," says George. If done on a large scale, eliminating it could result in loss of life

It is almost impossible to work in hospitals without plastic

The pool of our food system will also open up fast. We use packaging to protect food from damage in transit and store it long enough to reach the supermarket shelf, but also for communication and marketing.

"I can't imagine that (plastics) in our system could be completely isolated," says Eleni Aikodo, a lecturer in environmental management at Brunel University in London.

It's not just consumers who will need to change their habits, supermarket supply chains will also have to change as they become accustomed to selling packaged goods. Meanwhile, with the long journey between the farm and the supermarket, perishable goods, such as green beans and berries, will be lying in the fields and no one will pick them up.

Fruits and vegetables can be sold openly if we can solve these supply chain problems, but we may have to buy more often. Research by the WRAP, a UK-based waste management organization, has found that plastic packaging has extended the shelf life of refrigerated broccoli by up to a week and bananas at room temperature. The shelf life of one point eight days.

Although apples, cucumbers and potatoes are no different from plastic. In fact, research has shown that selling fruits and vegetables openly can reduce food waste, because it will allow people to buy only what they need.

Even tons of tomatoes and fruits will not survive because they have a plastic inner coating to protect the food, so we have to buy dried pulses in paper bags and cook them at home. "People rely heavily on getting the things they need most easily and simply," says Aikodo.

Replacing plastic packaging with something else will also have environmental effects. Although glass plastic has some advantages, as it can be reused indefinitely, a liter glass bottle can weigh up to 800 grams compared to 40 grams of plastic. Because of this, glass bottles have a higher overall environmental impact than plastic containers for milk, fruit juice, and fizzy drinks.

When these heavy bottles and jars need to be carried over long distances, carbon emissions increase. And the cars they're carrying, if they don't have plastic, will be heavier by themselves, which means even more emissions.

However, changing the food packaging in some ways will be an easy part. You can buy milk in a glass bottle, but in the dairy industry plastic tubes are used to transport this milk from the cow to the bottle. Even if you buy open vegetables, the plastic mulch sheets may have helped the farmer to save water and keep away from the grass. Without plastics, industrial agriculture would be impossible.

Instead, we need small food chains, things like farm shops or community-supported resources. But with nearly half the world's population living in cities, it will take a lot of change to figure out where and how we grow food. Aikodo says it's not an impossible task, but "we have to make time to do it, and we have to reduce the amount of food we eat."

If we want to reduce synthetic material, we need to increase cotton production

 Living without plastic will also require a change in our clothing.  In 2018, 62% of the textile fibers produced worldwide were synthetic, made from petrochemicals.  Although cotton and other natural fibers such as hemp (cannabis) may be good alternatives to some of our fabrics, increasing production to meet current demand will come at a cost.

 Cotton already grows on 2.5% of the world's arable land, but this crop accounts for 16% of pesticide use, which endangers farmers' health and pollutes the water supply.  Without plastics, we would need to quickly abandon fashion in favor of more durable goods and take things that we can wear again and again.

 And our shoes will soon be gone.  Before the advent of large-scale synthetic plastic, shoes were often made of leather.  But there are many people on earth today, and each of us has several pairs: in 2020 alone, 20.5 billion pairs of shoes were produced.  "We couldn't afford leather shoes for everyone on the planet," says George.  That's not possible. "

 There are problems in the world without plastic, although we will avoid its harmful effects on our health.

 Making plastic from oil and gas releases toxic gases that pollute the air and affect local communities.  In addition, chemicals involved in the manufacture of plastics can disrupt the endocrine system, producing hormones that regulate our growth.

 Two of these endocrine disinfecting chemicals (EDCs) have been extensively studied, one of which is phthalates, which are used to soften plastics but are also found in many cosmetics, and the other is bisphenol A,  Which are used to harden plastic and are usually used inside tin cans.

 Shana Swan, a professor of environmental medicine and public health at the Icon School of Medicine in Mount Sinai, New York, says: 'Although they are important for the structure of phthalates or BPA plastics, they are not chemically linked to it.  This means that when these chemicals are used in food packaging, they can enter the food itself and then into our body.

Some phthalates can reduce testosterone production, reduce sperm count, and increase fertility in men. BPA, on the other hand, mimics estrogen and has been linked to an increased risk of reproductive problems in women. But the effects have gone beyond reproduction.

 Swann writes in her book, Countdown, that the potential for disruptive effects of EDCs is astonishing. They have been linked to a number of adverse health effects in almost all biological systems, not only the reproductive system but also the immune, nervous, metabolic, and cardiovascular systems.

 EDCs can have long lasting effects during the critical stages of fetal development. "If the mother is pregnant, and she is exposed to plastics or other chemicals that alter the development of her fetus, those changes are lifelong, irreversible," says Swan.

 This means that hasty action on plastics will reduce our involvement, but its effects will be felt for at least the next two generations. "Your grandmother's exposure is related to your reproductive health and your health in general," says Swann.

Plastic has also been found in Antarctic sea ice

 At some point, we may want to address the issue of plastics already in the oceans. Can we ever get rid of it all? "You have some materials that are on the ocean floor and they're not going anywhere, they're just part of the ecosystem," says Chelsea Rockman, an assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Toronto. Accordingly, we can fight with floating plastic.

 Researchers believe that most of the plastic floating in the ocean will eventually land on our shores or be buried there. Today, some of this plastic is removed by trash traps and old-fashioned beach cleaning methods. Maintaining this process of removal will make a difference to marine wildlife.

 "There will be fewer animals on the beach in front of you that will have plastic in their stomachs, and less confusion," says Rockman. Many of the things that animals eat are not from the deep sea, they are coastal things.

 Removing large pieces of plastic waste can prevent them from breaking down into microplastics. Most of the microplastics found near coastal areas date back to the 1990's or earlier, suggesting that it took decades for large fragments to break down.

 This means that if we stop adding new plastic pollutants to the oceans tomorrow, microplastics will continue to grow in the coming decades, but at the same time by removing existing debris, we can stop this increase. "Maybe we'll get to a point where every animal we take out of the water doesn't have microplastics," says Rockman.

 In a plastic-free world, it can be tempting to create new types of plastic from plants.

 Bio-based plastics, which have many properties like petrochemical plastics, are already in use. For example, corn starch-based polylactic acid (PLA) from which beverages are made has the same effect as fossil fuels. Get wet before finishing.

 Bio-based plastics can also be made from edible parts of plants such as sugar or corn, or from plant materials that are unusable, such as sugarcane powder that remains after extracting the juice. Some biodegradable plastics, but not all, are biodegradable. But most of these plastics, even in industrial fertilizer facilities, still require careful processing to ensure that they do not remain in the environment. We cannot hope for the best by throwing them into the sea.

Even if we build some infrastructure to compost them, bio-based plastics may not be good for the environment, at least not yet. Stuart Walker, a research fellow at the University of Exeter and author of a recent study on the environmental impact of bio-based and fossil fuel plastics, says:

Allocating land for crops can affect ecosystems and biodiversity. Fertilizers and pesticides release carbon and can pollute local rivers or lakes.

One study found that 300 to 1650 trillion liters of water would be needed each year to replace fossil fuel plastics with better alternatives. It makes up three to 18 percent of the world's water. In such cases, the crop space can be used for the production of plastics, which will pose a threat to food security. Crops need biological alternatives, such as crude oil, to grow during their production. It requires energy and emits carbon as a result.

But in terms of environmental impact, it is difficult to compare bioplastics with traditional alternatives as fossil fuel plastics have some advantages. "We've been making these things for a long time and we're very good at it," Walker said.

"We will see that emissions from bioplastics will be reduced."

Countries around the world are eliminating carbon from their power systems. In this way, the production of bioplastics will reduce carbon emissions.

However, making plastic from plants is not the solution to all the health problems caused by this substance. Research on this topic is limited, but it is possible that conventional plastics contain the same ingredients used in biological substitutes because both types of materials have similar properties.

"The only thing that worries us is the damage caused by the additives," she says.

It is clear that replacing one thing with another will not solve all our plastic problems.

Emphasis is being placed on what kind of plastic is unnecessary, what can be avoided and what plastics cause problems. The United Kingdom, the United States, Australia and many other countries plan to phase them out. We can decide which plastic we really need.

George explains in his research how we can make this decision. We need to see what is needed in food, shelter or medicine. We can see if it can be reduced or if there is an alternative. We have to see which life is possible without plastics and difficult without which.

But these requirements are different for everyone. In some places, clean drinking water is only available in plastic bottles. "We need to create water systems that are not dependent on bottled water," says Gina Zambic, a professor of environmental engineering at the University of Georgia. But for now, this plastic is necessary. "

"We have forgotten that recycling is not the best quality and that we can use things for other purposes after use," said Walker.

He and his colleagues at the University of Sheffield have researched disposable and reusable utensils. They learned that a good quality plastic container can be used two to three times, it can also be washed. This is better because polypropylene can only be used once. They also found that the stainless steel container could be used 13 times before it broke, so it could be used instead of plastic in food delivery.

We need to rethink the culture of 'throwing away everything' when we stop using plastic. We need to change our attitudes about how we use things, food, clothes, washing machines and mobile phones. We also have to look at how we create new things.

"We buy something cheap and disposable very quickly," says George. We have to have things that fit the situation. We have to set our own standards so that things can be changed or corrected. "

 Without plastic, we may have to change the way we talk about ourselves. "Consumer is the person who uses the goods individually." In a world where things are reused and their purpose is changed instead of thrown away, we may be able to become good citizens.

 There are many benefits to using plastics, but not all of them are positive. With the help of plastic packaging we can carry food items on the go. But without it, it is possible for us to learn punctuality in life. "If the pace of life slows down a bit, it probably won't be that bad," says Zambic.