Colin McKnight
Ever hear of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch? It’s every bit as big and depressing as it sounds, and maybe even worse. It’s a massive, country-sized floating island of trash, mainly plastic, floating out in the Pacific Ocean. It’s intimidating, it’s hard to actually clean up because of the amount of microscopic plastic and there are several other patches as well.
Unfortunately, this is just one story of many demonstrating what current practices are doing to the Earth. I’ve already written multiple columns about the destruction of nature and the changing planet, and it would be very easy for me to do that again. But I want to focus specifically on smartly taking and disposing of the resources that society needs. We need to learn what and when to take from the environment around us if we want to have any hope of preserving life on Earth.
The actions of big corporations causing damage to the environment and disturbing communities isn’t new. If you want a feel-bad reality check for the day, read up on what Laura Parker with National Geographic wrote about worldwide plastic consumption: Over 6 billion tons of plastic have gone to waste since its invention, probably never to be recycled. Of this, over 40 percent is used just once before being tossed.
Consequently, it’s good to see NC State striving to reduce waste and promote greener activities, as seen on its website. Students here have the advantage of ready access to composting bins and compostable packaging, which both help cut down on waste. That said, these resources are only effective if students take advantage of them and try to compost or recycle acceptable items.
On a society-wide scale, there are other things that we can do. We can start reusing items as much as possible and recycling everything we can. Those are the obvious ones, but we need to stop turning a blind eye when companies like Nestle drain millions of gallons of water from California forests or when an oil company spills drums upon drums of crude oil into our oceans. We have the right to protest and vote for regulations against these actions, as well as the ability to choose how to spend our money, and we can exercise these to at least attempt to create repercussions for these companies that usually succeed in dodging them.
Some will pass this off as impossible: The population is ever-growing, so humanity’s got to keep taking to survive and thrive. But there are ways to minimize the impact we have on the environment so that we don’t leave our kids and grandkids with an unlivable planet.
Brazil is a prime example of this. Many probably know about the state of deforestation in the country: BBC reported last year that Brazilian deforestation had reached a ten-year peak, logging almost 8,000 square kilometers. But efforts are being made to reduce this destruction, however small. As an environmental research organization reported, Brazil is working with smarter land usage and tougher enforcement of regulations to limit mass deforestation. Unfortunately, many industries, like the logging industry, are very lucrative and powerful, so it’ll take a massive shift in society to protect these resources.
I have hopes for the future: It seems that our generation is really starting to force the rest of the world to notice what is actually happening. However, big industries still dominate control of natural resources and land usage. If we continue calling out what we see, then companies and governments may have a chance of being held responsible for their polluting actions. But when we inherit the industries one day, we need to make sure to turn everything around, because we may be looking at catastrophe otherwise.