It's very debatable as to whom discovered the first synthetic plastic. Some say it was first discovered by Englishman Alexander Parkes while he was looking for building materials that could be easily molded. Others state that the first synthetic polymer was invented by American John Wesley Hyatt in 1869 in order to provide a substitute for ivory. Nevertheless, plastic was invented, and what at first seemed like a helpful substitute for building materials, has become a worldwide problem. At first, plastic products were limited to decorative items such as the comb and other small accessories.
This was in part due to the labor-intensive process of making these items. However, by the 1940s, machines were developed that allowed business owners to mass-produce plastic-made items and made them cheaper to buy. As a result the plastic industry boomed, as did the amount of plastic waste. As the EPA reports, "In 2013, Americans generated about 254 million tons of trash and recycled and composted about 87 million tons of this material, equivalent to a 34.3 percent recycling rate. On average, we recycled and composted 1.51 pounds of our individual waste generation of 4.40 pounds per person per day" (https://www3.epa.gov/epawaste/nonhaz/municipal/). The rest of the garbage that we throw away (which is over 60% of our garbage) if placed in landfills or floats out to the ocean.
Through this process so far, I have learned that I know more about the negative effects of plastic pollution in the ocean and how it affects sea creatures, and I find myself gravitating more towards that type of research than I am knowledgable on plastic pollution on land, so I might have to do some additional research on that side of the issue to make sure I am representing both sides fairly and proportionately to the problem.
The one setback I encountered was while I was researching days to attend beach cleanups, I found a couple on days I know I cannot attend, but hopefully with more research, I will be able to attend one in the future before this project is over. It's also a little discouraging at times to see the extent of the problem of plastic pollution, and how much work has to be done, but hopefully if I put more research into the problem and educate others about it, then plastic pollution in our society will slowly start to get better.
The next step for me is to gain more information by researching some more on line and by crafting questions for interviews. That way I can see how aware people in this community are aware of the plastic problem and what they are doing to fix it or decrease the amount of plastic they use. I could also maybe create a poll online and see what the most common plastic items people are using in their households that they throw away and try to address the issue of reducing those items first. At school, I can educate the people in our class by showing them the interviews and statistics on plastic abuse in both the community, the US, and the world.
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