Signing off

I'd like to sign off on this blog by saying how much I've enjoyed it. While I found the weekly update surprisingly challenging (and failed at times), this coursework has really opened my eyes to a problem that I didn't actually know anything about previously. Of course, I see litter in the environment and I hate it, but I'd never really asked myself why it was there, what the impacts could be, how far-reaching the consequences were, and how it could be changed.

I kayaked on the River Lea for many of my teen years, and some of the things we saw on the river were so gross. I helped out a couple of clean-up projects too, boating around the canal and picking up the litter, bagging it up and then putting it in a designated tip. We collected so many black bin bags worth of rubbish. But because I had constantly been surrounded by this litte, I had gotten used to it and never really questioned it before.

Having this blog and researching into plastic pollution in a global context has been great. I'm happy that I chose to focus on the kind of starting point of the pollution and finished off with the direction it seems to be headed. Looking at the waste management industry was probably my favourite bit, simply because it's quite different to what people are usually interested in. The variation of waste collection between countries and even within countries is astounding, and has made me personally so much more perceptive to what kind of products I'm buying and using, how much I am choosing to recycle, and how much more I am tending to criticise things as wasteful.

We have a long long way to go. And while the apparant lack of action and solutions has depressed me at times, I'm actually feeling quite positive now that I've done my research. If I can make minor changes for the benefit of the environment, so can more people. It shows that education is key. If people know, people will care. If people care, people will campaign. And if people campaign, then they get noticed and can really make some changes to policy. The evidence is in the recent ban on microbeads within the U.S by the man himself - Obama. It took a good couple of years, but campaigners finally made some difference.

Throughout this whole process, when I was researching I actually came across numerous other blog posts from random people outlining some information and their own opinion on the issue of plastic pollution. I'm hoping that in the future, maybe some people will stumble across my blog, find some handy information and use it so form their own posts.

I've been through quite a lot - from solid case studies of various waste management measures and policies, and how they are failing in places you wouldn't expect them to. I've focused a bit on the inspiration of my blog title - the 5 pence charge on plastic bags and how bags almost symbolic of the fight against plastic pollution. I've included quite a lot on how riverways have been neglected in research into plastic pollution - despite their being a central pathway to marine environments. I've even talked about the pros and cons surrounding decision making of how to deal with issues such as these, and the different discourses possessed by different people and nations guiding policy. I've stated the obvious: there are numerous solutions which can be used to supplement each other toward achieving the same end goal. And I've also explored the newer scientific research into plastic pollution, particularly microplastics - and how they are a novel transport mechanism for various pathogens moving downstream. To top it off, I've talked (typed?) a bit more on the cultural aspects to pollution - the artwork which strives to draw attention to the issue, and the idea of a Plasticocene, where plastics have been proposed as a marker of the Anthropocene. Finally, I dispelled some myths about bioplastics (at least I dispelled the myths I personally believed that bioplastics magically disappeared).

I hope it's been interesting, I hope it's been educative. I've really enjoyed it, and may even continue! Until next time...