Why is single use plastic so bad?

We've all become pretty reliant on plastic in most aspects of our lives. It's on most of the food we buy, the cosmetic products we use and even across household products such as dishwashing and cleaning. It’s literally everywhere. The issue with all this plastic is most of it cannot be recycled. 

So? SO, this means as it’s not profitable to collect, they get either burned or dumped where it eventually makes it way into our ocean systems. 

"80% of the waste that ends up in the ocean is non-recyclable. When it finally ends up in the ocean, more than 90% sinks to depths where it can never be recovered."- Clean Hub. 

This practice releases thousands of particles of microplastics into the ocean, into sea life and then back into our bodies when foods are consumed. 

"There is now 5.25 trillion macro and micro pieces of plastic in our ocean and 46,000 pieces in every square mile of ocean, weighing up to 269,000 tonnes. Every day around 8 million pieces of plastic make their way into our oceans". -condorferries.co.uk

Our current methods of recycling don’t have a solution for most of the non-recyclable plastics we use, whereas recyclable plastics such as water bottles, can be recycled and reused into something else meaning the collection of these plastics are incentivised therefore are collected and disposed of responsibly. 

The key is to not only create value in non-recyclable plastics by finding a use for them or finding a way to make use of them such as alternative fuel, but to also reduce the amount of non-recycled plastics even being produced. By creating/buying and using products that don't use plastic at all, we are helping break the chain we have created.