Single-use plastics are very useful because they are versatile, durable, flexible, and affordable. However, the health and environmental risks associated with single-use plastics far outweigh the benefits. Hence, some countries, including Jamaica, have banned the use of single-use plastics. Despite the ban, people still use single-use plastics in Jamaica. It then becomes imperative to investigate the awareness of the Kingston population on the health and environmental hazards of single-use plastics, to understand the reasons behind their persistent use of single-use plastics even after the ban. The study will equally examine the perception of the Kingston population on the ban. The findings of the study will help to proffer lasting solutions to the problems caused by single-use plastics in Jamaica and even beyond.
Literature Review
Introduction
Though there is no published work on the health and environmental hazards of single-use plastics in Kingston or Jamaica as a whole, there are many related works that have examined the health hazards and/or environmental hazards of single-use plastics in the Caribbean, Europe, America and other parts of the world. Hence, sections of these existing reports that are relevant in addressing the problem of the present study were reviewed. Related studies on the usefulness of single-use plastics, their impacts, solutions, and awareness of the people regarding their health and environmental hazards as well as their perception of the ban on single-use plastics were specifically reviewed.
The Usefulness of Single-Use Plastics
Single-use or disposable plastics which include but not limited to carrier bags, food packaging, grocery bags, bottles, containers, cups, cutlery, and straws are used everywhere in the world because they are versatile and very affordable. As opined by Azoulay et al. (2019), plastic resins can form “long unbroken molecular chains” and hence can be squeezed, rolled, stretched, and extruded into many different shapes. They further explained that this versatility is the reason plastics (especially single-use plastics) have become an “inescapable part of our material world”, finding useful applications in our daily activities, in all walks of life, including, among other areas, food and drink packaging and preservation, transportation of items, and medical equipment.
In recent times, the demand for single-use plastics is outgrowing the demand for reusable plastics because single-use plastics are more versatile, more flexible, cheaper, more lightweight, and more portable. Among all the applications of both disposable and reusable plastics, packaging represents 42 percent of all plastic ever produced, making it the most viable market for plastic currently. Geyer, Jambeck, & Lavender (2017) attributed this record to the recent “global shift from reusable to single-use packaging (including containers)”.
Gradually and steadily, people are becoming increasingly dependent on plastics, mostly single-use plastics, owing to the unique characteristics of plastics – plastics are chemically inert; they are strong, flexible, durable, and versatile; they have high heat of combustion and absorb less moisture. Plastics require little energy to produce, are biocompatible, lightweight, and quite cost-effective (Proshad et al., 2018). Plastic is soft, transparent, flexible, could be biodegradable and many different types of plastics function as innovative materials for use in engineered tissues, absorbable sutures, prosthetics, and other medical applications (Andrady & Neal, 2009). “Types of Biodegradable Plastics” (2019) notes that ‘oxo-biodegradable plastics’ made from fossil fuels, oil, and natural gas, with only a small amount of prodegradant additive and ‘hydro-biodegradable plastics’ made from plant sources are the two main types of biodegradable plastic.
In addition to the aforementioned properties of plastics, Thompson, Moore, Saal, & Swan (2009) pointed out that plastics are “corrosion-resistant materials, with high thermal and electrical insulation properties” and these properties account for their prominent use in making energy-saving products that bring about advancement in medicine, technology, and other societal benefits (Andrady & Neal, 2009).
Consequently, plastic production has increased tremendously over the last few decades, yielded much income, and employed millions of people worldwide. For instance, the global production of plastic that used to be about 0.5 million tonnes per annum (Thompson, Moore, Saal, & Swan, 2009) is now about 300 million tonnes per annum, 50% of which is for disposable applications like packaging (North & Halden, 2013). Furthermore, 85% of the plastics are for medical applications (North & Halden, 2013), most of which are disposable. In the same vein, the plastics industry in Europe alone creates over 1.6 million jobs and a turnover in excess of over 280 billion euros per annum (“The Compelling Facts about Plastics”, 2008). In India, the plastic industry is a very fast-growing one which contributes significantly to the driving sectors of the Indian economy, producing 8.5 million tonnes of plastic in 2013, with a growth rate of 8% over the previous five years which is expected to reach 10% over the next five years (Panchal, Kapoor, & Singh, 2014). Prior to the ban on single-use plastics, Jamaica was one of the highest users of single-use plastics in the world such that on the average, every Jamaican used 500 disposable plastics every year (Ellsmoor, 2019). Following these trends in various parts of the world, one can only predict that plastic production, distribution, and usage will double every two decades.
From the inception of plastics through the ’70s and ’80s when plastic bags were introduced with the good intention of reducing deforestation which is required to produce paper bags (“The Purpose of Single-Use Plastics”, n.d.) till date, the production and applications of plastics (especially single-use plastics) have multiplied, with plastics replacing many traditional ways of packaging things (United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), 2018). For instance, milk and edible oil previously packaged with glass and metal are now packaged with 3 or 5 layer film pouches; toiletries (like soap and shampoos) previously packaged with paper and glass are now packaged with plastic pouches or films; cement and fertilizers previously packaged with jute are now packaged with PP/HDPE woven sack; and toothpaste previously packaged with metal is now packaged with plastic lamitube (UNEP, 2018). The usefulness of plastics (especially single-use plastics) was best summarized by UNEP (2018) when it described plastic as a miracle material which has helped to save countless lives in the health sector, facilitated the growth of clean energy from wind turbines and solar panels, and revolutionized safe food storage.
The usefulness of plastics – particularly single-use plastics – is quite enormous and cannot be exhausted in this review. Moreover, it is not the main focus of the study. Nevertheless, the review of the existing literature on the usefulness of single-use plastics provided in this section is very important in addressing the problem of the present study since the massive use of single-use plastics lead to their massive disposal which in turn cause health and environmental hazards because plastics take several years to biodegrade. In this section, it was established that people use single-use plastics a lot because they are versatile, strong, flexible, corrosion-resistant, cheap, lightweight, and portable.
The Health and Environmental Impacts of Single-Use Plastics
Despite the numerous benefits of single-use plastics, the problems associated with single-use plastics, if not contained, could far outweigh the benefits. Plastics have come to stay. Their contributions to the key sectors of the economy, the health sector inclusive, are simply too many to mention. Some of them have already been highlighted in the previous section. It was also pointed out in the previous section that the usefulness of plastics (especially single-use plastics) is due to their special characteristics, including versatility, strength, corrosion-resistance, affordability, and portability. Unfortunately, these features that make single-use plastics attractive are the reason single-use plastics have become so ubiquitous in the environment that they constitute a life-threatening form of environmental waste. Single-use plastics are disposed of after a single use or after being reused a few times but they persist in the environment because they are durable and could take a few years to a thousand years to biodegrade (Sutton, 2012). According to Yarsley & Couzens (1945), the durability, ubiquity, and the diverse applications of plastics, single-use plastics inclusive, were all anticipated but the numerous problems associated with plastic waste management were not anticipated.
Pure plastics on their own are of little or no concern to human health. However, the additives added to plastics during their production are a major source of worry to human health (Araujo, Sayer, Poco, & Giudici (2002). Plastic additives such as Bisphenol A (BPA), Phthalates, Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), etc. are very harmful to human health (Alabi, Ologbonjaye, Awosolu & Alalade, 2019). When these chemicals find their way into the body through ingestion, body contact, or inhalation, they could be carcinogenic and they could also disrupt the endocrine system (Azoulay et al., 2019). Other health problems associated with plastics include but are not limited to respiratory problems, cancer, kidney failure, and brain damage (Azoulay et al., 2019).
The seas, including the Caribbean Sea, are significant dumping grounds for most of the world’s single-use plastic wastes. Some were dumped directly into the seas; most were emptied into the seas by other water bodies within and outside the coastal areas; while others were blown into the seas by the wind. Irrespective of how they found their way into the seas, the presence of a substantial amount of plastic waste in the seas is obvious. Plastics already broken down into ‘microplastics’ occupy more than 2.5 million square kilometers of the Pacific Ocean off the coasts of Chile and Peru (Montanari, 2017) and this figure is bound to increase as more single-use plastics and even reusable plastics are finding their way into our water bodies on a daily basis. Every year, five to fourteen million tonnes of plastics, most of which are single-use plastics, flow into the oceans from coastal areas (Royte, 2018). Most of these single-use plastics are packaging products – the products with the shortest lifespan that leave the economy the same year they are produced (Vandenberg et al., 2010). These plastics in the seas are broken down into microplastics by heat, abrasion, and other factors. Most times, sea animals mistake these microplastics for food and ingest them. Afterward, the ingested microplastics cause various problems for the sea animals; sometimes, these sea animals, especially the younger ones, starve to death after filling most parts of their stomachs with microplastics (Lazar & Gracan, 2011). Others could get entangled, suffer, and/or die (Gregory, 2009). Microplastics containing harmful additives could cause some life-threatening diseases in sea animals though there is no strong evidence yet to support this assertion. Human beings in turn ingest microplastics by partaking in seafood consumption (France, 2017). As noted by Azoulay et al. (2019), microplastics can cause respiratory problems, cancer, kidney failure, brain damage, etc. in humans.
Besides the seas, the farmlands are other notable dumping grounds for most of the world’s single-use plastic wastes. Before finding their way to the oceans from landfills, plastic wastes pass through the farmlands; some plastic particles last for a lifetime in the farmlands. Most researchers have focused on the presence and impact of microplastics on the oceans and have given little or no attention to the presence and impact of microplastics on the farmlands. Hence, little is known of the presence and impact of microplastics in the farmlands. Nevertheless, there is strong speculation that substantial amounts of microplastics are present in the farmlands and that they decrease soil fertility, enter into the food chain (Srinidhi, 2018; Daly, 2019) and cause health hazards in humans when they consume the food.
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