Aims and Goals: (Plastics in the Environment)

Since the beginning of "Disposable Culture" in the 1950's plastic wastes have been accumulating in our environment at rapid levels. Some of the main factors contributing to our large amount of synthetic plastic wastes are: increasing population growth rates, socio-economic development (GDP), and changes in household consumption patterns for disposable goods, and increased manufacturing of goods. Increased manufacturing production plastic makes up the majority of the plastics that find their way into our environment, and less than 8% of the plastics used in production are actually recycled; This means almost 92% of it finds its way into our landfills and oceans, and can affect these kinds of aquatic environments immensely. These plastics are polluting our environment on dramatic scales and in ways that are incredibly detrimental to the balance of our ecosystem because of their long natural decomposition times. It is estimated that 225 million tonnes of plastic are produced each year, and although they represent only 10% of all wastes produced, they account for a much higher percentage of the wastes that enter our environment as pollution. Plastics comprise 50-80% of the waste stranded on beaches, floating on the ocean surface, and on the seabed. We have decided to address this problem of excess plastics in the environment by reappropriaiting one of the biggest kinds of plastic pollution: bottles. By using plastic bottles as insect catchers we hope to reduce the amount of plastic that enters their environment and give already existent plastic bottles new function.