The story of a plastic bottle.
Fossil fuel.
The story of a plastic bottle begins at an oil well. All plastics are derived from oil and gas. These hydrocarbons were formed millions of years ago when microscopic plants and animals died and settled on the seabed. Over time, layers and layers of other organic material and sediment built up over these organisms. Very high heat and pressure transformed the remains into crude oil. The oil and gas then floated up through water and tiny holes in rocks until it hit an impermeable layer of rock, where it became trapped. Today, we get oil by drilling below these layers of impermeable rock. Pictured here is an oil platform at sea that drills oil fields under the ocean for crude oil.
Oil pipelines.
Oil and gas are transported through a pipeline to a plant where the chemicals needed to make plastic are separated from other types of chemicals that will be used to make products such as gasoline or asphalt.
Oil refinery.
The crude oil arrives through the pipeline at an oil refinery, where the crude oil will be split into either of the two most common petrochemical classes: olefins (including ethylene and propylene - from which you can make plastic) and aromatics (including benzene, toluene and xylene isomers).
What a cracker.
A cracker plant is used to separate the chemicals needed to make plastic. Cracker plants transform the gas and liquid chemicals that come from the ground into tiny plastic pellets that can be used to make polyethylene products. Polyethylene is the most common plastic in use today. It is a polymer, primarily used for packaging (including plastic bags, plastic films, and containers including bottles, etc.). As of 2017, over 100 million tonnes of polyethylene are being produced annually, accounting for 34% of the total plastics market
Nurdles.
Plastic bottle manufacturers buy these pellets, called nurdles, and melt them down to create a malleable plastic mixture. This plastic is injected into molds called preforms that get blown into their final shape.
Filling.
Once the bottle has taken shape, water is injected into the bottle and it is sealed and packaged for distribution to retailers. Did you know it takes more than 3 litres of water to make a physical1 litre plastic bottle, plus the 1 litre of water that people actually drink?
Wrapping.
Once the plastic water bottles are filled, they are often wrapped in more single-use plastic in the form of thin sheets of plasitc wrapping, adding to the already huge carbon footprint of the bottled water industry.
Transportation.
The filled and wrapped water bottles are then transported, normally by truck, to distribution centres and then onto supermarkets, which adds to the carbon footprint of single-use plastic bottles.
Buy it.
At a local supermarket, Mike goes shopping as he's taking visitors to Deira for a trip around the spice souqs (its a great part of town). He picks up a single-use plastic bottle of water because Mike still doesn't understand the impact plastics has on our planet. Around the world, almost 1 million plastic bottles are purchased every minute. So it's not all Mike's fault (but a lot of it is).
Hydrate.
Hydration is key to humans, so Mike and his visitors drink their plastic bottles during their day in Deira. Drinking enough water each day is crucial for many reasons: to regulate body temperature, keep joints lubricated, prevent infections, deliver nutrients to cells, and keep organs functioning properly. Being well-hydrated also improves sleep quality, cognition, and mood.
Discard.
Mike finishes his bottle of water on the abra from Deira to Bur Dubai. He keep hold of the bottle because he doesn't want it to fall into the creek (see, he has learnt something with us!). When he reaches the shores of Bur Dubai, Mike finds a rubbish bin (or as he would call it, a trash can) that is overflowing with waste. He places his empty bottle on top of the pile of waste, turns around and heads to the old town. Why Mike, WHY!?
Floating.
Needless to say, Mike's empty bottle gets blown out of the rubbish bin (trash can) and into the Dubai Creek. This is the same story the world over. In the UAE, the bottle will travel from the Creek, into the Arabian Gulf where tides and currents will eventually push the bottle out into the Indian Ocean, where over years and years it will eventually gather in what is knows as the Indian Ocean garbage patch where it will stay for centuries.
Year 2371.
Fast forward to the year 2371, Mike's great, great, great, great, great, great grandchildren are happily flying around on space discs somewhere in the universe. Do you know what else is still around? Their great, great, great, great, great, great grandfathers plastic water bottle that he threw away in Bur Dubai in 2021. Plastic bottles stay around for up to 450 years before they start to break down. The plastic that we throw away today, will be around for generations.
Break down.
Left alone, plastics don’t really break down; they just break up. Over time, around after 450 years, sun and heat slowly turn plastics into smaller and smaller pieces until they eventually become what are known as microplastics. These microscopic plastic fragments, no more than 5 millimeters long, are hard to detect—and are just about everywhere.
Consumption.
The single-use water bottle that Mike threw away over 450 years ago, is now broken down into tiny piece of plastic. (Some microplastics are even small by design, like the microbeads used in facial scrubs or the microfibers in polyester and plastic-made clothing). These tiny pieces of microplastics are consumed by fish who think they are food (other sea life and also birds and other land animals do the same). These fish get eaten by bigger fish and eventually, humans consume them as food. There have been traces of chemicals found in humans that directly come from the plastic industries, through ingestion of sea food.