BY SHAY CULLEN
THOUSANDS of dolphins, sharks, whales and turtles are caught in the drifting discarded plastic fishing nets of the commercial fishing industry.
What incredible damage we are doing to wild nature, ourselves and our children by such irresponsible I-don’t-care behavior.
Discarded one-use-plastic is a culture of death and destruction. Researchers have found items from almost every continent floating in the garbage patch and cast up on remote Pacific islands. They have been found in the deepest part of the ocean to the highest point on earth, Mount Everest, no less.
Europe and the United States have their garbage and plastic disposable and recycling challenges yet Asia is the source of most of the plastic garbage.
The plastic garbage monster is coming not only from the Pasig in Manila where most of it stays in coastal waters but mostly it is coming down the five major Chinese rivers and also from the Nile in Egypt, the Ganges in India, the Indus in Pakistan, the Niger in Africa and the Mekong River that passes through Laos, Thailand and Cambodia.
There is one way to solve this: a worldwide ban on single use plastics like plastic bags, cups, bottles, drinking straws stir-sticks, cutlery and food containers.
There are laws in place in some countries banning plastic bags. In the Subic Bay Freeport Zone, plastic bags are banned in stores and super markets.
More restrictions are coming in the US and the EU but not soon enough. The Philippines needs such laws to save our beautiful islands and rivers and beaches. Burying the garbage in the sand is not the answer.
Beach and environmental clean ups are good and we see youth cleaning up other people’s dirty environmental mess that is destroying the ecology. Speeches are important but action is more effective.
It will be so much better to prevent the plastic pollution by passing and implementing laws to get all stores, supermarkets, and food establishments to use only recyclable bio-gradable packaging and wrapping.
Each of us can do our part. We can always have your own reusable water bottle, demand restaurants give a glass, ceramic or paper cup and paper straw and refuse to order if they use plastic. Look for bio-degradable materials. We can bring a shopping bag to the supermarket and never use plastic that is not biodegradable.
At home or in the office, we separate all discarded materials and make a weekly trip to the recycling bins.
If we all did these things, it would make a big difference. Let’s make a start. But we have to persuade government to act and pass stricter laws to end the plastic pollution in the Philippines and elsewhere. (preda.org)/PN
