Reduce, Re-use, Recycle. This phrase is the corner stone of the movement for humans to create less plastic waste which directly impacts the health of wild animals and the environment they live in. Since the first Earth Day in 1970, a conscious effort has been made to encourage people to monitor their use of plastic and become more willing to recycle all that can be recycled. But despite our best efforts, land fills are quickly filling up and overtaking the planets wildlife and oceans.

The Town of Brookhaven transfer station (the town dump) in Suffolk County, NY is estimated to close by the year 2026 due to lack of funding and rapid growth in size. What will people do with their garbage then? Who will be responsible for getting rid of our garbage? It is an imperative now more than ever that the best efforts of the citizens is made to Reduce, Re-use and Recycle. The states possible ban on single-use plastic straws in bars and restaurants is a step in the right direction, but it isn’t enough to tackle the problem at hand.

Change is needed now to brighten our future and clean our planet. We must replace plastic drinking straws with paper ones. Ban the sale and production of plastic water bottles, milk jugs, soda bottles, egg cartons and other products which are easily replaced with their paper alternatives.With this change people can continue to Reduce, Re-use and Recycle, but at a much lower cost to the environment. For example, plastic does not biodegrade like paper does, but rather photo-degrades over a much longer period of time. This means that it must be exposed to light and air for it to become a reduced version of itself rather than naturally breaking down as paper would. Because it’s such a new invention, scientists aren’t even sure that plastic will ever degrade fully and return back into the ecosystem. But they are definitely sure that paper possesses this property. All the while continue to be recycling what can be recycled.

By making these changes, we could effectively reduce the size of transfer stations globally and reduce our impact on the environment by filling our landfills with things that will actually return into the Earth through biodegradation.