Plastic pollution is a major problem that¡¯s causing a lot of other issues to crop up, including toxins leaching into our environment, fish dying out, and just making everything looking so gross. Apparently, it¡¯s also been warming our planet this entire time.
A team at the University of Hawaii Manoa¡¯s Center for Microbial Oceanography has been studying the effects of plastic on our environment. They¡¯ve found out that everyday plastics are releasing greenhouse gases, including methane, into our environment way too quickly for comfort.
The team tested seven kinds of plastic ¡ª polycarbonate, acrylic, polypropylene, polyethylene terephthalate, polystyrene, high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and low-density polyethylene (LDPE). As it turns out, LDPE doesn¡¯t just have the strongest global warming effect of the bunch, it¡¯s also the most common. LDPE is really cheap, which is why it¡¯s used to make things like the plastic net you keep your vegetables in, plastic bottles, the rings that keep beer six packs together, and children¡¯s playground slides.?
The problem is that the world¡¯s demand for polyethylene plastics is growing, and with it is the rate at which these greenhouse gases are being released. Even worse is that this is a source we¡¯ve never accounted for when considering global warming. That means countries across the world have no budget to deal with it, and studies on the matter either.
And all because it seems no one thought to test plastics to see if they were also overheating our planet.