Letters | How global warming is being made worse by single-use plastics
- Plastic debris on the ocean surface affects the natural process by which the earth’s climate is regulated
- Tackling single-use plastic waste problems would address plastic pollution and climate change challenges simultaneously
We all know that an environmental impact of single-use plastics is the massive amount of waste they create when our brief use of them ends.
However, most of us are unaware that single-use plastics also exacerbate climate change, right from production through to disposal.
Of the 368 million tonnes of plastics produced worldwide in 2019, single-use plastics accounted for over a third, with 98 per cent made from fossil fuels. Based on the current trend of single-use plastic production and usage, it predicts that single-use plastics will account for 5 to 10 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Over 130 million tonnes of single-use plastics were discarded in 2019, 19 per cent ending up in nature. Anything not sent to landfills or collected will start disintegrating and eventually become micro- or even nano-particles affecting marine organisms and humanity.
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Face masks add to pollution in Philippine sea
Moreover, plastic debris floating on the ocean surface adversely affects the growth of phytoplankton. These are microalgae producing food for other species by photosynthesis, a process that absorbs the carbon dioxide in the waters to regulate the Earth’s climate, like forests do on land.