CARELESS DISPOSAL OF PLASTICS IS DANGEROUS

Sep 20, 2020 Consumer Concerns, News

---

CONSUMER CONCERNS:

By Pat Dial

The invention and widespread use of plastics has provided human beings with an accessory of life which is extraordinarily useful and cheap. Modern man regard plastics as an indispensable amenity of life. Plastics are produced from crude oil and as such, plastics are described as a fossil fuel product.
Plastics provide the world with thousands of useful products, some of which have become so essential a part of human life that to remove them suddenly would diminish the quality of human life.
In commercial activities worldwide, the bags are used to store, deliver and sell goods, whether they are foodstuffs or hardware, are plastics.
In the restaurant and food catering business, the crockery and cutlery are usually plastic and very often, so are the furniture and decor of restaurants. Even some kitchen utensils and kitchen tools are of plastic. Many machines are now built with plastic parts. Motor cars, for instance, have most of their interiors made of plastic.
Plastics are, however, not bio-degradable and could survive indefinitely unlike iron or paper which with the effluxion of time would again be re-absorbed into the earth’s surface.
Though some effort has been made to recycle plastic waste, this is comparatively expensive and it is only about one percent of such waste is recycled. Such waste is not burnt since it would pollute the atmosphere to a dangerous degree.
Accordingly, plastic waste is thrown into rubbish dumps and a good deal of it finds its way into the rivers and oceans and along the coastline. Much of this waste derives from single use plastics such as wrappings and bags used in commercial activity or from the restaurant and fast foods industries where millions of plastic spoons, knives, forks, plates and table covers are disposed of every day.
This irresponsible disposal of plastic waste negatively affects bio-diversity and upsets the balance of nature. Everything in the environment, everything in nature is in the web of life and is related to each other though such relationships may not be immediately obvious.
Trees, birds, animals, mountains and rivers, the oceans, fishes and marine animals and humankind are all linked in this web of life and if any part of the web is wantonly harmed, it would eventually negatively affect mankind.
We will give a few examples of this inter-dependence of the various parts of the environment : Some years ago in New England in the United States, the apple orchards were being attacked by swarms of insects.
The farmers succeeded in eliminating the insects and reaped a good crop. Next year, however, the orchards produced poor crops since the insects to pollinate the blossoms were absent having been eliminated. Or the tourism sector being negatively affected by plastic debris washing up on the beaches with governments and hoteliers forced to undertake costly, ongoing clean-ups.
It is estimated that 40% of the world’s oceans are covered with plastic waste and this is growing at three to four percent per year.
Since plastic is such a buoyant material, it floats both below and above water forming micro-plastics. Sea birds mistake such plastics for food thus reducing the storage space in their stomachs resulting in their dying from starvation.
Turtles mistake plastics for jellyfish and when they eat them they choke and die. Or sometimes drinking straws become lodged in their nostrils, suffocating them.
Entanglement in various types of plastic waste such as abandoned nets has proved a threat to marine species and even birds. An example of this is the 40,000 fur seals which die each year from entanglement.
The report of the UN Environmental Coral Reef Unit sums up this situation: “Marine plastic litter pollution is already affecting more than 800 marine species through ingestion, entanglement and habitat change”.
In confronting this enormous problem of working to save the environment from plastic waste and to protect biodiversity, every segment of society has a part to play.
The state has to take action; industry and the private sector has to take action; and the individual citizen has an important part to play at the ground level.
The individual citizen could help by being an environmental steward where he/she could volunteer to physically clean up the environment; donate funds to help the cause; lobbying state authorities; and educating the public.
On the individual level, he/she could minimize use of single use plastics by a variety of activity such as using cotton shopping bags or buying reusable bottles and food containers.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

---

---