PERSONAL COMMITMENTS
This write-up is so much more than just a story about pollution;
I want it to be my give-away on the scope of how all humans contribute to water
pollution and specifically the devastating consequences of plastic on Oceans of
the free World and all its inhabitants.
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My aim is to help to share information to the fact
that through specifically plastic pollution, we are all guilty of killing
marine life including sea birds and ultimately ourselves.
I believe that to contribute to spread the word and create
awareness together with how to reduce plastic pollution thorough our own
everyday consumption by the use of throwaway plastic products, we can make a
difference. In other words, each of us, young or old must become aware and
become committed to personal contribution in this cause.
HOW MUCH TRASH IS IN THE SEA
The world population is now living, working, vacationing,
increasingly conglomerating along the coasts on all continents and we are all standing
on the front row of the greatest, most unprecedented, plastic waste tide ever
faced in the history of man.
Global production and consumption of plastics have continued
to rise for more than fifty years. In 2008, global plastic consumption
worldwide has been estimated at 260 million tons and according to a 2012 report
by Global Industry Analysts, plastic consumption was to reach 297.5 million
tons by the end of 2015. From studies made since, I believe that, was a very
conservative estimation.
Most ocean pollution starts out on land and is carried by
wind and rain to the sea. Once in the water, there is a near-continuous
accumulation of waste. Plastic is so durable that the Environmental Protection
Agency reports, “every bit of plastic ever made still exists.”
Due to its low density, plastic waste is readily transported
long distances from source areas and concentrates in gyres, systems of rotating
ocean currents.
All five of the Earth's major ocean gyres are inundated with
plastic pollution. But it's not limited to the gyres; studies estimate there
are 15–51 trillion pieces of plastic in the world's oceans — from the equator
to the poles, from Arctic ice sheets to the sea floor.
An ocean gyre is defined
as a system of circular ocean currents formed by the Earth's wind patterns and
the forces created by the rotation of the planet.
Emerging research suggests
that not one square mile of Surface Ocean anywhere on earth is free of plastic
pollution.
There are many reasons why this huge amount of trash enters our
oceans every single day. One reason is due to poor trash management by the
Waste Management Department in many regions of the world.
The North Pacific
Ocean Gyre, or as most people known it as, the infamous Great Pacific Garbage
Patch, has become so filled with trash, that it is visible from space.
WHAT IS PLASTIC?
Plastic is a versatile, lightweight, flexible, moisture
resistant, strong, and relatively inexpensive commodity. Those are attractive
qualities that lead humans around the world, to such an eager appetite and over-consumption
to use plastic goods and packaging. However, durable and very slow to degrade,
plastic materials that are used in the production of so many products all,
ultimately, become waste with staying power. Our tremendous attraction to
plastic, coupled with an undeniable behavioural propensity of increasingly
over-consuming, discarding, littering and thus polluting, has become a
combination of lethal nature.
Greenpeace stated that at least 267 different animal species
are known to have suffered from entanglement and ingestion of plastic debris.
According to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, plastic
debris kills an estimated 100,000 marine mammals annually, as well as millions
of birds and fishes.
The United Nations Joint Group of Experts on the Scientific
Aspects of Marine Pollution (GESAMP) estimated that land-based sources account
for up to 80 percent of the world’s marine pollution, 60 to 95 percent of the
waste being plastics debris.
The plastic waste tide we are faced with is not only obvious
for us to clearly see washed up on shore or bobbing at sea. Most
disconcertingly, the overwhelming amount and mass of marine plastic debris is
beyond visual, made of microscopic range fragmented plastic debris that cannot
be just scooped out of the ocean.
Slow, silent, omnipresent, ever increasing, more toxic than
previously thought, the plastic pollution’s reality bears sobering
consequences, as unveiled by the report of Japanese chemist Katsuhiko Saido at
the 238th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS) as far back
as in August 2009 and the findings from the Project Kaisei and Scripps
(Seaplex) scientific cruise-expeditions collecting seawater samples from the
Great Garbage Patch. Both, the reports and expeditions uncovered new evidence
of how vast and “surprisingly” (as it was termed then at the ACS meeting) toxic
the plastic presence in the marine environment is.
There have been 275 billion
plastic bags produced worldwide in just 2017 (one year) alone. Estimations are
that every second, a massive amount of 160,000 plastic bags are being produced
and used.
We must understand that for every action, there is an equal
and opposite reaction - all sea creatures, from the largest to the microscopic
organisms, are, at one point or another, swallowing the seawater soup instilled
with toxic chemicals from plastic decomposition.
The overwhelmingly largest unquantifiable plastic mass is
just made of confetti-like fragmented pieces of plastic.
This is not only bad
for the health of marine life; it is very bad for our health as consumers of
seafood. The world population “… is eating fish that have eaten other fish,
which have eaten toxin-saturated plastics. In essence, humans are eating their
own waste.”
WHAT CAN WE DO?
As a start, we must all urge local food dealers, which we
support through purchasing their goods, to phase out single-use plastic
packaging by investing in biodegradable alternatives.
Think about how often you
touch plastic in some or other form everyday – grocery bags, food containers,
coffee cup lids, and drink bottles, straws for juice boxes— the list goes on
and on.
It is clear; plastic may be convenient, but its success carries a steep
price.
Secondly, we can all make a conscientious effort to rethink
and to use less plastic when we buy groceries, fast foods, soft drinks,
bottled water, refrain from using straws (besides, straws suck!).
And we can
make sure when we do use plastic, that it is properly recycled.
THE CONSEQUENCES
It is not an exaggeration that our world is choking on
throwaway plastic; the equivalents of one garbage truck of plastic enter the
ocean every minute, every day, all year long. That is not only a health hazard
and public nuisance, but greatly impacts on marine life, fisheries and tourism.
We’re producing more and more throwaway plastic, which we don’t
really need. Recycling schemes are failing to keep up. Less than 1% of used
plastic bags are properly recycled.
Plastic pollution is transforming our seas into the biggest
waste dump on earth.
Oceans Plastic Pollution is indeed a global tragedy for our oceans
and sea life.
Plastics pollution has a direct and deadly effect on
wildlife.
Thousands of seabirds and sea turtles, seals and other marine mammals
are killed each year after ingesting plastic or getting entangled in it. In
fact, thousands of animals, from small finches to great white sharks, die grisly
deaths from eating and getting caught in plastic:
Fish in the North Pacific ingest 12,000 to 24,000 tons of
plastic each year, which can cause intestinal injury and death and transfers
plastic up the food chain to bigger fish and marine mammals.
Sea turtles also mistake floating plastic garbage for food.
While plastic bags are the most commonly ingested item, loggerhead sea turtles
have been found with soft plastic, ropes, Styrofoam, and monofilament lines in
their stomachs. Ingestion of plastic can lead to blockage in the gut,
ulceration, internal perforation and death; even if their organs remain intact,
turtles may suffer from false sensations of satiation and slow or halt
reproduction. Tragically, the most current research indicates that half of sea
turtles worldwide have ingested plastic.
Hundreds of thousands of seabirds ingest plastic every year.
Plastic ingestion reduces the storage volume of the stomach, causing birds to
consume less food and ultimately starve.
It's estimated that 60 percent of all seabird species have
eaten pieces of plastic, with that number predicted to increase to 99 percent
by 2050. Based on the amount of plastic found in seabird stomachs, the amount
of garbage in our oceans has rapidly increased in the past 40 years.
Marine mammals ingest and get tangled in plastic. Large
amounts of plastic debris have been found in the habitat of endangered Hawaiian
monk seals, including in areas that serve as pup nurseries. Entanglement deaths
are severely undermining recovery efforts of this seal, which is already on the
brink of extinction. Entanglement in plastic debris has also led to injury and
mortality in the endangered Steller sea lion, with packing bands the most
common entangling material.
Dead sperm whales were found stranded along the California
coast with large amounts of fishing net scraps, rope and other plastic debris
in their stomachs.
CHEMICALS AND TOXINS
As plastic debris floats in the seawater, it absorbs
dangerous pollutants like PCBs, DDT and PAH. These chemicals are highly toxic
and have a wide range of chronic effects, including endocrine disruption and
cancer-causing mutations.
The concentration of PCBs in plastics floating in the
ocean has been documented as 100,000 to 1 million times that of surrounding
waters.
When animals eat these plastic pieces, the toxins are absorbed into
their body and passed up the food chain.
As plastics break apart in the ocean, they release
potentially toxic chemicals such as bisphenol A (BPA), which can then enter the
food web. When fish and other marine species mistake the plastic items for
food, they ingest the particles and pass toxic chemicals through the food chain
and ultimately to our dinner plates.
Plastic pollution affects economies, costing untold monies
spent in beach clean-ups, tourism losses and damages to fishing and aquaculture
industries.
Beaches and oceans have turned into landfills.
Prime tourist
destinations are littered with garbage.
The best way to eliminate the amount of
trash in our landfills is to recycle all glass, plastics, papers, and aluminium
products. 80% of the trash that can be found in our landfills is recyclable.
This is a staggering number than can be drastically decreased if more people
made effective recycling a part of their everyday life.
From the above it is clearly a fact that plastic pollution
doesn't just hurt marine species.
Plastic pollution of the oceans and its marine species is ultimately harmful to people through the consumption of contaminated seafood.
CONCLUSION
Five of the G7 nations have agreed to an ocean plastics
charter. The leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom pledged
to combat ocean pollution through a G7
Ocean Plastics Charter. The United States and Japan declined to put their
names on the resolution.
But will such non-binding measures be enough for the world's
industrialized countries to beat plastic pollution together?
The charter outlines a "resource-efficient lifecycle
management approach to plastics in the economy," which includes working
toward making all plastics recyclable by 2030, reducing single-use plastics and
promoting the use of recycled plastic. It also pledges to build out recycling
infrastructure, and innovate around more sustainable technologies.
Many are welcoming the initiative; however, it won’t be the
first time world leaders have expressed good intentions around tackling the
issue. In the past, it hasn't gotten much further than that — an intention. Governments
must now move beyond voluntary agreements and legislates binding reduction targets
and bans on single-use plastics, invest in new and reuse delivery models for
products, and hold corporations accountable for the problem they have created.
NATIONAL EFFORTS FIRST, BUT NOT ONLY
Despite the elusiveness of a global plastic pollution
charter, nations have already begun to battle the problem.
More than 60 countries around the world have introduced bans
and levies to curb single-use plastic waste, the UNEP report shows.
Kenya and
Rwanda are two of 25 countries having introduced national bans on plastic bags
in the African continent, which is home to most countries with such a ban.
"We don't need more non-binding agreements, we need
legally binding rules," Farrah Khan, Greenpeace Canada plastics
campaigner, told DW. "Oceans cannot wait," she emphasized.
"In nature's economy the currency is not money, it is
life." – Vandana Shiva,
Indian scholar and environmental activist
In the final analyses action begins at home. Parents,
schools, retailers, fast food outlets – all users and consumers of non-biodegradable
throwaway plastic products have an obligation to participate and become part of
the resolution.
But We CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE. RETHINK PLASTIC. RE-USE.
RECYCLE.
Plastic or PLANET - You Decide.
Do YOUR bit, PLEASE!
As Intu-Afrika
Business, we support biodegradable alternatives to throwaway plastics.
Adapted and penned by-
Johan Bester
