Banning single-use plastic is an effective way to save our ocean. By banning single-use plastics, there will be less plastic entering the ocean, it will also help people to start using biodegradable products more, but some might argue that banning single-use plastic doesn’t help because there are still microplastics floating around.

Single-use plastics should be banned because there will be less plastic entering the ocean. The Earthday Network states that around 1,000,000 plastic bottles are being bought per minute worldwide. Only 1out of 5 bottles are ending up in landfills waiting to biodegrade or ending up in our oceans. With this amount of waste so the ocean will be filled with trash. Adding on, about 8,000,000tons of plastic enter the ocean annually according to The Earthday Network, littering and not recycling aren’t the only way plastic enters the ocean. Sloactive states that 1.15 to 2.41 tonnes of plastic enter the ocean via rivers. If single-use plastics are banned there will be a significant decrease in the amount of waste entering the ocean. If there are 8,000,000 pieces of plastic entering the ocean and single-use takes up a whopping 1/3 of that number, then this will impact the ocean massively. When there is less plastic entering it will be easier to clean up the mess that’s already there. This is why banning single-use plastics can decrease the amount of waste entering the ocean.

Single-use plastic should be banned because if so people will start to use biodegradable products more. Plastic can take up to 450 to 1000 years to biodegrade. That means that the first plastics ever created are still on this earth waiting to biodegrade. To prevent any further damage Canada is trying to ban single-use plastics in its country by 2021 states The Conversation. For example, some popular fast-food restaurants in Vancouver, such as A&W and Subway have switched from plastic straws and wax paper to paper straws and compostable rappers. Not only does plastic take along time to biodegrade it also uses up to 1.5 million barrels of oil to make every year. Cotton bags may use more oil and water but it lasts for a longer period and is biodegradable. Paper straws only take a few hours to biodegrade whilst plastic can take hundreds upon hundreds of years. Banning single-use plastic can help people to start using biodegradable products more often.

Opponents may argue that even when the ocean is clean there will still be microplastics contaminating our clothes, ocean, drinking water, and even farm soil. If this goes on there won’t be anything not containing plastic in it. This may be true but microplastics have been around for years, in our water, fish, and ocean. Microplastics aren’t as big as single-use plastic this means that fish are less easy to starve to death when eating it because it does not take up much space. Microplastics have been in some tap water and drinking water but their impact isn’t as big on humans. Banning single-use plastic well also create fewer microplastics that may one day be deadly.

This shows that banning single use-plastic can impact our ocean positively. By banning single use-plastic there will be a significant decrease in the amount of plastic entering the ocean It can also help by making people see the importance of biodegradable products. Last but not least it helps show how this can also slow down microplastics.