Eliminating the Use of Plastic to Promote a Smart and Sustainable Environment

Ever wonder what happens to plastic bottles once we throw them away?

What if I told you that every plastic bottle you have ever drank from still exists today and that it takes over 400 years for a plastic bottle to biodegrade. What if I told you that despite water bottle manufacturers marketing their bottles as 100% recyclable, that this is not the case and only a fraction of these bottles are recycled. This is due to countries not having the recycling infrastructure to recycle such vast amounts of plastic water bottles being produced. In fact, although the bottles are made from 100% recyclable plastics only around 9% of all manufactured plastic is recycled, which means the rest of the 91% is dumped in landfills or becomes litter, most of which finds its way into our oceans, lakes and rivers and causes a catastrophic impact on our oceans and marine life. 

We are now seeing the detrimental impact that plastic pollution is having on our oceans, killing over 100 million marine animals a year. But there is a feeling that change is coming and it’s not all bad news, we are seeing more and more people becoming far more environmentally conscious and wanting to do more to save our oceans and planet and there are new technologies being introduced, one caught our attention, the Love Earth Smart Water System, consisting of a stylish biodegradable bottle and an innovative application that is designed to help eradicate plastic water bottles from our environment.

The negative impacts of plastic on our planet

While the US and Europe have just recorded their hottest summers on record, we are seeing more wildfires along with an increase of flash floodings, droughts, melting ice bergs, it is making us realize that the health of the planet we call home, and our environment is in jeopardy. We all must play our part in changing our consumption of plastics as they are inextricably linked. We make these positive impacts by straightforward human action. However, to begin to change our current behavioral habits and to reduce our plastic waste, we must first understand how hazardous plastic is for our ecosystem.

Greenhouse gas emission
While many people are aware that plastic waste is polluting our oceans, most people are not aware of the carbon footprint that is created by generating plastic. Plastic bottles make up the vast majority of our plastic waste and is the leading polluter. Globally, we drank more than 400 billion plastic bottles in 2021, of these plastic bottles the majority are plastic water bottles. Over 1 million plastic water bottles are produced each minute or 20,000 plastic water bottles per second. The production of plastic water bottles involves burning vast amounts of fossil fuels which is a major factor in our planet overheating. For every plastic bottle that reaches a store near you, it has a caron footprint of 82 grams of carbon dioxide. Renowned Environmental Scientist Dr. Alea Samerra, an Ocean conservationists’ states “the ocean is vital for all planetary life systems and if we don’t change our habits when it comes to plastic waste our oceans will be almost totally polluted by 2050. Recycling cannot get even close to keeping up with the production of plastic, recycling is simply not enough, we must remove the requirement for plastic bottles if we want to save our oceans”

Time for change

In more than 100 nations, plastic bottles and bottle caps are top of the list when it comes to the most frequently found plastic garbage items during the Ocean Conservancy’s annual September beach clean-ups. Additionally, the market for water bottles now exceeds $280 billion. We are now spending more money on plastic water bottles then we do on green energy. There is hope, as highlighted, more people are making more sustainable changes and new technologies such as the Love Earth Smart Water System, the world’s first green smart water system are being introduced to the market place, creator of the Love Earth application, an Irish entrepreneur, Ciaran Maguire says “people are more aware then ever of climate change and the negative impact of C02 emissions, they hear about it read about all the time but they don’t see it, its invisible, but what if it wasn’t, what if people could track their own carbon footprint and see the positive benefits they have on our environment by being educated and incentivized to make changes such as removing the requirement to drink water from a plastic throwaway bottle” Maguire goes on to say “the Love Earth app is synchronized to the bottle and is designed to inspire and encourage users by showing the user the exact co2 emissions they are saving along with the marine life they are saving with every refill, ultimately providing the user with a feel good factor as they see their own positive impact on the environment, the Love Earth Smart Water System has the capacity to save millions of metric tons of co2 emissions while saving millions of marine animals and helping revive our oceans”

So, there is hope and the Love Earth Smart Water System may just be the most important application of 2022. As we take hope that pioneering technology is being created that can help reverse the impact of plastic waste. Hope also lies in our ability to make changes and to not just recycle but to change our habits to buying throw away plastics. Reduce our dependency on plastics and encourage the elimination of plastic water bottles. We need to raise the awareness in our neighborhoods and local communities, get involved in beach clean ups and crucially educate the next generation. It is time for a movement of change and collectively we can have an impact that might just save our oceans for the next generation!