Persuasive Essay Example: Plastic Bottles Should Be Banned

Did you know that over 50 million plastic bottles go in landfills every single day? This has to stop one way or another and recycling doesn't seem to be helping. Plastic bottles should be banned for good, everywhere. 

Plastic bottles are huge contributors to death in marine animals. Underwater animals are constantly confusing plastic for food nearly every day. This causes them to choke on it, or make them stop eating because they think they are full after eating it which inevitably leads to death. 

“Marine animals swallow plastic when they mistake it for food or inadvertently swallow it while feeding or swimming. Once swallowed, it can obstruct their digestion or lacerate their intestines, interfering with their ability to feed and gain nourishment. These problems can lead to starvation and death,” (Mcdonald 1).

This further explains how the animals are dying from plastic bottles and other plastic waste.

 “Oceana found evidence of nearly 1,800 animals from 40 different species swallowing or becoming entangled in plastic since 2009,” (Mcdonald 1).

This shows how much plastic is truly affecting animals. Thus, Plastic should be banned to protect animals. Plastic bottles also take up a lot of energy and oil to make due to high demand.  Not only are plastic bottles and other waste dangerous to wildlife, but because of high demand for them it takes up too much material and energy.

“If we calculate the energy costs of making plastic water bottles, processing the water that goes into them and cleaning, filling, sealing, labeling and transporting them to market, researchers concluded that satisfying the annual global demand for plastic water bottles consumes the energy equivalent of about160 million barrels of oil. This is up to 2,000 times the energy required to produce the equivalent volume of tap water,” (Optimum Water Solutions 1).

Optimum goes into further explanation as to how much goes into making these plastic bottles despite them being damaging to the environment.

“We are producing over 380 million tons of plastic every year, and some reports indicate that up to 50% of that is for single-use purposes – utilized for just a few moments, but on the planet for at least several hundred years. It’s estimated that more than 10 million tons of plastic is dumped into our oceans every year,” (Plastic Oceans International 1).

Plastic Oceans explains the amount of plastic that is being produced which helps imagine how much energy people are actually using to create plastic bottles from the previous evidence. Hence, why plastic bottles should be banned.

What about recycling? While recycling is helpful, very few people do it. The amount of people who recycle isn't enough to make a better environment. 

“Even avid recyclers are not necessarily making a difference. For starters, the recycling industry is in crisis: There's so much junk mixed with the recyclables that the cost of separation is making the business financially unviable. The crisis worsened when China stopped taking our recyclables in 2018,”  (Peçanha 1).

Peçanha does great at explaining how the current amount of recycling isn't making as much of a variance as banning bottles entirely. In conclusion, recycling is not helping enough.

At this point, the best way to start reducing plastic bottle waste is to ban it completely. Although people are  recycling, the plastic bottles are not being reduced adequately. However, please do not stop recycling as the earth is better off that way.