By: ORPTeam On: June 11, 2014 In: STEM Education Comments: 0

Old Mill Middle School Student Blog — Pollutants and more..

The OMMS team has been researching about plastics and found some pretty interesting, yet disgusting information. When plastics break down they release harmful chemicals and pollutants. The pollutants include heavy metals such as cadmium and lead. The chemicals such as benzene, dioxins, and other pollutants enter the food supply of animals. Have you been able to see the harmful side effects? What animal/s do you believe is being the most affected by this type of pollution? Other chemicals such as biphenyl and BPA can cause health problems. This is why more products need to be “designed to be benign” to the environment. That means they need to be designed to be waste free or environmentally friendly. An example of this is an oxo-biodegradable plastic bag. An oxo-biodegradable plastic bag is a plastic bag with certain materials in it so that when it breaks down, harmful chemicals are not released into the ground or in this case, the oceans. Also if the plastic products have a label on them asking the consumer to please recycle then the consumer should recycle more because then the Extended Manufacture Responsibility would achieve the ability to be able to promote the reuse of plastics or recycling.  Within the ocean that you are searching, where are you finding the most plastics right now? What is the most common type of plastic or item you are finding? Another thing is plastics take hundreds of years to degrade but with certain additives (like the ones in the oxo-biodegradable plastic bags) plastics can degrade with-in a couple of months and they wouldn’t release harmful chemicals. If we continue with the way we are making plastics today, then the world will become much polluted in the future. If we make the plastics with certain additives then we can stop the world from being overwhelmed with such pollution.