Shaliyah Kerr, Ashley Mejia Jimenez and Laiba Shahid

Don Valley Middle School (Toronto, ON)

Do you think you’re suffocating the world with plastic?

The world uses one billion straws everyday and many of them end up in the ocean. Straws are a single-use item; they are used once and then tossed away. This is a short lifespan for something that will be around on the planet forever. As time goes by, plastic breaks down into smaller pieces but it never biodegrades. Many seabirds and mammals eat plastic, mistaking it for food and the plastic travels up our food chain. This means we also consume plastic when we eat fish and other mammals or when we drink water because microplastics are so tiny that they can’t even be filtered. In our survey we found that 48.3% of students in
our class feel that they contribute to plastic waste. Our planet is being suffocated with plastic. We can’t undo the damage that’s already been done, but we can prevent it from getting worse.