In North America Alone it is estimated we use 900 million plastic laundry jugs each year.

 

From the moment plastic is created, its negative impact on the environment begins. Oil extraction is typically the first step needed to formulate plastic. Crude oil is a non-renewable resource, meaning its quantities are extremely finite and it’s being used at a much faster rate than it can be replaced. Petroleum for plastic manufacturing is extracted from in between layers of the Earth’s crust, running the risk of oil spills or oil fires that contribute to waste and pollution. 

Once the oil is extracted, it’s shipped to a refinery for distillation. The high demand for plastic means that there is also a very high volume of transportation needed to ship these large quantities of oil across the world. This burns fossil fuels and emits greenhouse gases, creating more waste and pollution before the plastic has even been formed yet. 

In order to create the high density polyethylene, a process called cracking creates the ethylene gas, which ultimately attaches to form polymers that create the sturdy polyethylene that can be molded to take the shape of a laundry detergent jug. 

After the HDPE plastic is formulated, the plastic is shipped yet again to a factory that specializes in bottle manufacturing and packaging. Once the jugs take form, they are sent off to be filled with the laundry detergent and then they’re off to the shelves where we see them in the grocery stores. 

2) Your Home  

Once you purchase the HDPE plastic jug of detergent, it’s used until empty and then discarded making room for you to buy another one. Although HDPE plastic is 100% recyclable and you may think putting them in the recycling bin solves the problem, even then only 30% of these jugs are properly recycled. 

3) Recycling 

In 2018, 68,000 shipping containers filled with plastic recyclables were sent to underdeveloped countries, where waste management is poor. Not only are these developing countries facing obstacles to manage their country’s own recycling, they are being overwhelmed with over one million tons of American plastic waste every year. In 2015, only 9% of America’s plastic was properly recycled and anything that wasn’t was sent to landfills to decompose for hundreds of years. 

4) Landfills, Oceans, and Incineration 

For the jugs that skip over recycling, their final stop is one of three places: the ocean, the landfills, or incineration. Plastic within each of these three stops pose an extreme environmental threat. 

• Oceans: Eight million tons of plastic are dumped into the ocean every year, accounting for over 80% of all marine debris. Once plastic is dumped into the ocean, it sticks around for a very long time. Over time, the plastic jug will break down into tiny pieces of micro-plastics. These micro-plastics enter our ocean’s marine life, injuring many species and contaminating our food sources. Covering our oceans with plastic, also has a major impact on our climate as plastic traps sunlight to make our oceans warmer and accumulate toxic pollutants that attach to its surface.

• Landfills: Once plastic jugs end up in landfills, they can take up to 500 years to properly decompose. That means piles and piles of plastic jugs will be sticking around for a very long time. While they are sitting in landfills, plastic jugs will also leak pollutants into the soil and groundwater, running the risk of contamination. 

• Incineration: Some of the plastic jugs will end up in incinerators to be burned. Although this process is thought to release less greenhouse gases than landfills, toxic pollutants, such as carbon dioxide and mercury, are still emitted during the process and the process uses energy that is non-renewable.