The college Baby Boomers attended Earth Day 1970 with great excitement that they could make a difference in the world. At the time, human overpopulation ranked highest on the list of concerns for the health of the planet.

The Earth housed 3.5 billion human beings in 1970. Today, humanity boasts 8.1 billion human beings. As humans add 83 million more babies, net gain, annually, the United Nations projects humans will reach 9.7 billion by 2050. That’s 1.6 billion more of us scarfing up water, energy and resources. It also means our waste will multiply by 1.6 billion more of us.

Little known at the time, Dustin Hoffman had starred in the 1967 movie, The Graduate, where his mentor said, “You’ve got to get into plastics, son, that’s the big item that’s going to change the world.”

Fifty-six years later Earth Day 2026, and we’ve got plastics piling up all over the world. They’ve overwhelmed our landfills, our lakes, our rivers, our highways, and our oceans.

“Approximately 2,000 garbage trucks full of plastics, (about 30,000 tons, daily) are dumped into the world’s oceans , river, lakes and along roadsides every day.This equates to roughly 19–23 million tons of plastic waste leaking into aquatic ecosystems annually, driven largely by 400 million metric tons of global plastic production each year.”

*Accumulation:At least 200 million metric tons of plastic are estimated to be circulating in the world's oceans.

Special note: here in the United States, only seven states passed bills to mandate 10 cent deposit/return laws. That leave 43 states that don’t give a damned about conservation, recycling or contaminating the air, land and water.

Reported by NPR this past weekend, we have plastics breaking down in landfills, and in city trash collection, plus plastics are in everything we wear or use…so much so that we’re breathing tiny microplastics into our lungs…which then circulate into our brains.

“Americans are inhaling thousands of microplastic particle daily,with estimated exposure ranging from tens of thousands up to 68,000–71,000 particles per day. These particles, often under, originate from indoor synthetic textiles, carpets, and car interiors, penetrating deep into lung tissue and contributing to potential long-term health risks.”

Key Findings on Inhaled Microplastics:

Source: Rense.com