Life of a plastic bottle | Grace Jencks | TEDxYouth@ParkCity

We use plastic on a daily basis and rarely think about the effect on the earth. Grace takes us on a journey of a plastic bottle through its life cycle and encourages us to consider alternatives.

At the time of this talk, Grace is a 9th grader at Treasure Mountain Junior High in Park City, Utah.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

Plastic.

What a great invention.

It has made our lives so much easier:

from the everyday toothbrush

to a straw that filters out
the toxins in your water.

But at the rate we are using plastic,
there will be no earth left to save.

We use plastic on a daily basis.

But what we don't realize,
it takes about 450 years

for the average plastic bottle
to biodegrade,

and most of the time,
it doesn't even biodegrade;

instead, it turns into small bits
of plastic called microplastic.

Now, this microplastic
and other plastic debris

gathers in the middle of our oceans

to make islands
that are called garbage patches.

These garbage patches can be
three to four times the size of Texas.

Now, I would like to take
you on a journey

of the average plastic bottle.

A bottle starts in a factory

where oils and other crude materials
are mixed together

to make the raw material
of our plastic bottle.

Now it's sent to another factory

where it is molded
and formed into the bottle.

Then, another factory

where it's filled with a sugary drink
that we are addicted to.

Then, it's sent to the store,

where someone like you or I buys it,

and we use it for 15 minutes.

That's a minuscule part
of our life and its.

Then we throw it away -
like it's no big deal.

It makes me sad and angry
that sometimes us as human beings

can be so ignorant about how
we treat our environment.

Anyways, back to our journey.

Somehow it ends up
in the Mississippi River

and flows down river
to hit the Gulf of Mexico.

From there it is swept up
by the Northern Atlantic Current.

It flows out in the middle of the ocean

and hits the Northern
Atlantic Garbage Patch.

Out there, hundreds of animals
die each day from plastic.

Let's take the average
sea turtle for example.

So, the sea turtle will mistake
a plastic bag for a jellyfish

and will eat it as its meal.

And the plastic tricks the sea turtle
into thinking it's full,

but in reality, it's not getting
the nutrients it needs

and soon will starve to death.

When I heard about this,
this made me so sad,

and from then on, I've always
wanted to help our planet.

So, I know this sounds like a talk
about how we are horrible

and we can't do anything
to save our earth,

but I promise you it's not too late.

Even if just choosing the can
over the plastic bottle

or choosing a piece of fruit
instead of a bag of chips,

every little thing you do
makes a difference.

We are the generation to save our oceans.

So, let's do something about it.

Thank you.

(Applause)