People have walked this planet for many ages, but have people recognized its conditions? Even though the planet we live on might seem like a safe and friendly environment, there is more to think about than the positive aspects of the earth. The earth itself has been polluted in many ways and because of this it can be difficult to call the place we live home. What is so worrying is that we humans are the ones causing all the pollution since our environment does nothing on its own. Some factors that have contributed to our planet being polluted include water bottles, plastic bags, and non-renewable energy resources. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Water bottles are a significant factor in polluting our environment. The water in the bottles might be pure, but it's not the water that causes the pollution. It's actually the bottle itself that causes the problem. Many water bottles are made of polyethylene terephthalate (PET), but their production requires a lot of energy. According to a newspaper article titled “Energy Implications of Bottled Water,” the energy is “embedded in the PET material itself, and additional energy is required to turn PET into bottles. This energy is typically provided by natural gas and oil, along with electricity from the local city grid” (Gleick 3). It really takes a lot of energy just to produce a bottle of water, even though the bottle may not seem that big. They really use a lot of resources and pollute the environment. Both natural gas and oil are already an environmental concern, along with the amount of electricity used. The real problem is the quantity that is used. To produce the quantity of bottles of water that is produced every year (29 billion), approximately 17 million barrels of crude oil would be needed; That's enough oil to run a million cars for a year. You need about a quarter of the full bottle of oil to create the water bottle itself. Since all these materials are wasted, it may be harder to create more energy in this world. Many people claim that tap water is purer than bottled water, but that's not always true. There is a possibility that the water you drink may contain harmful chemicals such as pesticides due to runoff. According to the newspaper article, “FDA safety and consumer protections are often less stringent than comparable EPA protections for tap water,” there were tests “conducted by [various groups] to show that water bottled water is not [really] cleaner than tap water” (Stephenson 1) Bottled water seems clean compared to tap water, but the quality is not always perfect which makes the quality of the water questionable. water is that the bottled water industry is not always required to release possible results to the public, unlike tap water tests Tap water comes from the tap and is used throughout the community, therefore the government needs to make sure it is tested. Bottled water is just another product that people buy and there is no need to reveal test results about it because it is not required by the government if there are filters that make the water clean dirty, it is impossible to get 100% pure water AKA H2O. There may be a certain chemical that is difficult to detect and filter. It may feel like doing drugs at the same time as drinking the water because there may be harmful chemicals present in the water. The substancesChemicals in bottled water might even help make the water appear clear to hide any special effects. There are also plasticizers in water bottles that could help increase the strength of the water bottle, but they could also contaminate the water along with the chemicals. It might seem wrong to start drinking tap water over bottled water, but not everyone can drink clean water. There are people in poor countries like those in Africa who cannot have clean drinking water due to its scarcity. They have to dig into the lake which has been polluted for many centuries and contains a lot of bacteria. People in these areas really want to drink cleaner water like tap water, even though there is debate that tap water is not as clean as bottled water. Some people just don't see the big picture of how lucky they are and don't see others who aren't as lucky as them. This doesn't mean people should start drinking water they find everywhere, but think carefully about their options. What people could do is not only save the environment, but also themselves. When people finish drinking the water bottles, they are thrown away. Most of these bottles are not recycled and many end up thrown on the street. This process is called littering and leads to more waste. The more waste we have in our environment, the more pollution created. There is already enough trash in this world and adding water bottles to the trash already in the environment is not the best idea. Furthermore, these water bottles take a long time to decompose and there is not a single water bottle that has decomposed yet. It may take many centuries or even a millennium for the water bottle to finally decompose. Since water bottles take a long time to decompose, it is really useful to recycle them. The more water bottles are recycled, the more resources are saved and energy is also saved. Even just one bottle of water could make a huge difference because it requires a lot of oil to produce. Another major contributor to pollution is plastic bags. People like to use them to save money after purchasing. They are not truly recyclable and must be thrown into the landfill along with the rest of the waste group. It's really bad because they don't biodegrade, they photodegrade. Even after so many years the plastic bags are still there. They are simply broken down into smaller pieces and this could contaminate soil and waterways. Plastic bags are already made from recycled materials, so recycling them can't really help solve a problem. Even burning plastic bags will not help much because more air pollution will be released into our environment and toxic fumes may result. Once there is more pollution in our environment, it can stay there for a while. It doesn't magically disappear, but it will disappear over time if we clean it up or eliminate the threats. If pollution in our environment increases, it will continue to increase if nothing is done about it. Humans can actually take action to stop using plastic bags and can start using other alternatives, such as bringing their own bag to the store when purchasing something. In some stores you may be able to choose between paper and plastic. It might seem obvious to prefer the paper bag to the plastic bag, but in reality it is not so obvious. Plastic bags cause many problems for our environment, but paper bags also cause problems for our environment. Of course they are made of paper and paper comes from trees. In fact, several are killed every yearmillions of trees for the production of paper bags. It is bad because it leads to deforestation and there will be less oxygen in our environment due to the fact that there would be less trees in the environment. Paper bags are also more difficult to produce than plastic bags because they require much more energy to produce, and this also causes pollution. Paper bags can also be recycled more easily than plastic bags because they are biodegradable, but they cannot break down in landfills due to the lack of elements such as water and sunlight. While paper bags may seem like a better alternative to plastic bags, they are not the perfect solution because they continue to have problems. That's why people should start bringing their own reusable bags to stores. More resources will be saved and fewer materials will be wasted. One possible solution is to ban the use of plastic bags. According to the magazine “Plastic Bags – Prolific Problems”, plastic bags are “taxed in Ireland and banned in Bangladesh. [They cause] waste problems, [so] the Irish government [started] charging shoppers a tax of 0.15 euros on each bag used. [In Bangladesh], blockages of drainage systems caused by wayward pockets contributed to the floods, [so] Bangladesh banned them from its capital” (Spivey A208). Basically other countries are trying to help ban the use of plastic bags. Governments in some countries can ban the exchange completely if they are strict enough, or they can help tax users for the exchange if they are not so strict. Some stores in the United States also encourage people to bring their own reusable bags to get a discount and support the cause of not using plastic bags. Other stores may require you to bring your own bag, otherwise you will have to pay for a plastic bag from the store. The stores that want you to bring reusable bags are only a limited percentage and not really a universal percentage. Switching from using plastic bags to reusable bags might seem unfair to some people due to the convenience of plastic bags, but in the end, it may be very necessary. Not only will the environment itself be saved from the pollution resulting from the production of these bags, but the lives of animals will also be saved. Plastic bags will eventually end up in the ocean, where lots of living creatures live. According to the magazine “The Plastic Baggers: An Evaluation of a Boutique Cause in Targeted Environmentalism,” the marine environment is greatly affected because “plastic bag waste [kills] at least 100,000 birds, whales, seals and turtles every year. After an animal is killed by plastic bags, its body decomposes and the plastic is released back into the environment where it can kill again” (Wilks 12). Plastic bags actually harm all types of wildlife and marine life as well as clogging waterways. In essence, the plastic bag is like a reusable weapon because the same bag can kill so many lives. What essentially happens is that the sea creatures see the plastic bag and think it's food. They start eating the plastic bag and then their digestive tract gets clogged. Marine animals will die because their intestines will be clogged. Marine beings don't really know the difference between what is food and what isn't, so keeping the ocean clean will only make them fair to them. Some marine creatures are also endangered and will eventually become extinct if nothing is done about them. plastic bags. The extinction of somemarine creatures will be a man-made problem because it is not the environment that does anything, but man himself. It's like our inventions can have a double sword because they may seem like a good concept, but they have some different consequences along the way. We can also be affected because endangering marine life will affect fishermen due to shortages of certain types of fish. Deficiencies of some fish will affect the entire food chain. This can also include humans because we are the ones who eat the fish. The economy is also affected, because less money will also come out due to shortages, which could lead to a shortage. The price of some types of fish could increase significantly because it would become difficult to find that particular type. All fish lovers should think twice before disposing of their plastic bags because they too will be affected. Non-renewable energy is one of the largest sources of pollution because it is used in everyday life in various applications. Some of the energy resources we use are oil, coal, natural gas and nuclear electricity. The problem is not only that they have a negative impact on our environment, but the fact is that we are depleting them at an exponential rate. According to the journal article titled “Understanding Nonrenewable Energy Supply Behavior,” the process of supplying “nonrenewable resources in general, and oil and natural gas in particular, is very complex and difficult to describe in a simple theory. Oil and gas production involves many stages in the process of developing and extracting the resource, with complicated dynamic interrelationships operating both within and between stages of the process” (Bohi 927). Producing non-renewable energy resources is already difficult, and wasting them will mean a waste of productive labor. This hurts us in two ways because we are putting so much work into creating non-renewable energy resources instead of converting them into renewable energy resources, and using them when at the same time they pollute the environment. The solution to non-renewable energy resources is alternative energy resources. While finding an alternative energy resource is a daunting task, it is not impossible. Even companies like automotive companies are starting to find ways to replace a non-renewable resource that is oil. They invented these biofuels created from dead biological materials. This is good because it reduces greenhouse gases better than other resources such as gas and ethanol. Biofuel is even better for the car because it not only burns cleaner, but has greater lubricity. Gas prices are also high due to oil shortages, so switching to an alternative could help the economy as well. One thing to note is that America is already slowly converting to alternative energy resources. According to a newspaper article titled “Alternative Energy Sources,” there are “alternative technological solutions [that have been] presented. These alternatives range from using constantly occurring passive energy flows for natural ventilation, heating and cooling to more high-tech integrated natural energy systems. [They] integrate different means of using solar energy [and] wind energy” (Davis 31). Since there are already alternative energy means out there, there should already be a conversion that happens immediately, but the conversion doesn't really happen immediately. This is mainly due to the price of some components such as solar panels and wind turbines. If it weren't for the price of these components, we would have been converted long ago. The total conversion of these resources.