Plastic Paradise: Turning Troubling Trash into Opportunity

The Oceans Will Contain More Plastic Than Fish By 2050

Task:

The reason I chose Plastic Paradise is because I have a love for the ocean and have always wondered where garbage has been accumulating. Once I watched the trailer for Plastic Paradise, I knew this was the case I was most interested in and will hopefully answer my questions.  Throughout the documentary, I was building some anger towards plastic users and corporations because it seems they do not feel morally obligated to help. I also pondered who is at fault, ethical issues and started thinking of how to turn this plastic pollution problem into new innovative opportunities to help. These are the current events I chose:

Troubling trash: “out of sight out of mind” needs to stop.
The oceans will contain more plastic than fish by 2050.
3 companies that are turning ocean plastic pollution from a problem to an Opportunity.

I found these current events related nicely to the concerns I developed after watching Plastic Paradise. Troubling trash focuses on the corporate side of things and how they have to start taking responsibility and thinking ethically about their decisions. The second current event relates to the documentary by giving more up to date statistics about the plastic problem in our oceans. For example, the amount of plastic and trash that is getting dumped into our oceans each day without considering the wildlife and long term effects. Lastly, the current event about 3 companies that are turning ocean plastic pollution from a problem to an opportunity shows that some people are recognizing the severity of the problem. It was nice to read that innovators are putting their efforts into trying to solve the problem at the same time as seeing an opportunity to start a socially responsible company. Next, I will go into more depth on each current event.

The Oceans Will Contain More Plastic (Sun, 2015)than Fish By 2050

This article had many similarities to the video case in regards to the negative effects plastics are having on the ocean. They both are talking about how the wildlife is suffering from the rapidly increasing amounts of plastic that is being disposed in the ocean. According to d’Angelo, 8 million tonnes of plastics enter the ocean per year, equaling roughly one garbage truck per minute of plastics are being disposed in our oceans (2016). A lot of trash is dumped into the ocean purposely, perhaps to hide it and allow nature to dispose of it. However, plastics truly never breakdown and are effecting the ocean as a whole (Sun, 2013). There is a concept called “tragedy of the commons” which is exactly that (Hill, 2013). I see in the video and the current event that people are taking advantage of the common, which is the ocean, by dumping their waste in there as a quick solution. However soon, if people keep doing this, they will completely ruin a global common that is essential to human life.  At the point when there is more plastic in the ocean than fish, our ocean is well on its way to effects we will not even be able to reverse. In these cases where everyone is dumping into the ocean makes me think of one of the straw men approaches to ethics which is the naïve immoralist (Hill, 2013). When countries or corporations see and hear of others disposing of garbage into the ocean, they think it is okay.  Companies or countries think that it is ethically fine just because everyone else is doing it, and it is not. I think this is sad that we as humans actually dump the garbage when we know the negative effects of it. Yes, there may be too much and nowhere else to put it. Instead of putting ourselves in that position, governments need to go to the source and stop the massive amounts of production from plastic corporations. Moreover, the governments should educate the people on how to cut down on plastic consumption and create awareness of what is happening to our important global commons. I was thinking while watching Plastic Paradise about how governments have good arguments for intervention based on protecting the environment. Governments should set tougher regulations and set production limits for these plastic corporations or maybe tax them heavier. A good one they can impose is saying plastic corporations can make X amount of plastic and anything over that could be taxed very hard making it so these corporations stick to the governments regulations. This making the government have more control over the problem.