In an effort to provide eco-friendly environments, stores near you are taking the initiative to alleviate material waste one by one.
Recent reports from the United Nations Environment Programme suspect that plastic will overpopulate the oceans “by the year of 2050.” Plastic as we know it, is becoming more dispensable each and every day. Over time, it’s been estimated that the seamless synthetic product has masked into a harmful substance to the environment, including its inhabitants. In other words, plastic has been of non-existent use to the environment, while endangering the life of humans and wildlife.
People utilize plastic on a daily basis, whether it’s in the form of plastic bags, furniture, packaged food and so forth. The use of plastic may seem harmless. However, when manufactured, plastic contains approximately 14 percent of toxic chemicals. These toxic chemicals vary from trichloroethane, acetone to methylene chloride and methyl ethyl ketone, which has resulted in polluted environments and the deaths of countless marine animals.
According to Forbes.com, “plastic trash is found in the guts of more than 90 percent of the world’s seabirds (ref), in the stomachs of more than half of the world’s sea turtles (ref), and it’s even choking the life out of whales (ref). At the rate at which plastic is accumulating in the oceans of the planet, it’s predicted that, by 2050, the mass of plastic in the world’s oceans will exceed the mass of all the fish that live there (ref).”
On average, people are unfortunately being exposed to these toxic chemicals brought by plastic through the air, water and even food.
Now, many of you may be asking, how does this affect human life exactly? Well, plastic has not only surfaced in the seas but also in our foods, beverages and containers. The main chemical stemming from plastic is Bisphenol A (BPA). The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported, “93 percent of people had detectable levels of BPA in their urine.”
To counter this growing impact plastic has had on the environment and the people within it, well-known clothing labels have decided to partake in decreasing the use of this global deadly weapon. That’s right, clothing brands such as Zara, H&M, Burberry, L’Oréal and Stella McCartney have vouched to lessen their use of plastic.
The retail industry is a major consumer of plastic, representing 20 percent of the industry via packaging. However, this is changing. The brands previously mentioned signed The New Plastics Economy Global Commitment, whose purpose is to:
- “Eliminate problematic or unnecessary plastic packaging and move from single-use to reuse packaging models.
- Innovate to ensure 100% of plastic packaging can be easily and safely reused, recycled, or composted by 2025.
- Circulate the plastic produced, by significantly increasing the amounts of plastics reused or recycled and made into new packaging or products.”
In the grand scheme of things, this may seem like a small gesture from these big brand companies, but ultimately, it’s a start.
