What about Microplastics?
We’ve talked a bit about plastic free swaps you can make now, but why? What is the problem and why do we need to make changes? What’s wrong with single-use plastic and what are microplastics anyway?
In general terms, anything plastic that is smaller than 5 millimetres is considered to be a microplastic.
There are many different types of plastic commonly found in every day objects. The problem with single-use plastic is that it is designed to be used just once and then thrown away. The problem is, it doesn’t go away!
Sometimes, these plastics wash up whole on our beaches. Other time, they break down into teeny tiny parts – microplastics – which are consumed by birds, fish and other wildlife causing suffering and entering the human food chain.
This is why we need to make changes and stop using single-use plastic as much as we can.
That is a very basic overview! This article from Get Green Now gives a really good and simple explanation of the problem and what we need to be doing to solve it.
Click here to read the article
It doesn’t matter whether you change one thing or twenty, anything that you can do to help is important, it does make a difference.
So think about what changes you can make today. and remember the 6 Rs
![The 6Rs of Zero Waste](https://www.plasticfreehighcliffe.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/6Rs.png)
There are lots of variations of this, with 5, 6 or 7 Rs! They are all right. Recycling is the last resort.