I ditched plastic for a week. Here's what I learned

我放弃塑料制品一周了。 这是我学到的

Life Kit

自我完善

2024-10-01

19 分钟
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Plastic isn't great for your health or the planet. Here's what NPR's Claire Murashima learned from avoiding single-use plastics for a week. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy

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  • Plastic is everywhere, and for good reason.

  • It can be cheap, strong, light, bendable, waterproof.

  • So in recent decades, we've been making a lot more of it.

  • In fact, over half of all plastic that's ever been made has been made since 2002.

  • Plastic has really advanced what we can do in our culture, but we have to find ways to to make it more safe for human consumption and use.

  • Doctor Sheela Sathenaraina is a pediatrician, an environmental health specialist at the University of Washington and Seattle Children's Research Institute, and she studies the effects of plastic on people, especially during childhood and pregnancy.

  • She says plastic is bad for the environment since a lot of it ends up as pollution.

  • But before it even ends up there, the act of making plastic releases greenhouse gases since it's made from petroleum.

  • I don't think that people generally know that.

  • So when we think about the impact of plastic overall for the environment, there are huge greenhouse gas emissions that come from plastic production.

  • And as it's used, plastic breaks down into microplastics and chemicals leach out of it, which can cause health problems even if we don't feel the immediate effects of them.

  • Also, if you want to use less plastic, it gets really hard.