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[av_heading heading=’DALMING | The problem with plastics’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY ROMA GONZALES
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Wednesday, June 7, 2017
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IF YOU’VE been up and about around six o’clock in the morning, chances are you’ve seen from the Atrium to Jaro Plaza area people in dri-fit shirts running around with green plastic bags, stopping now and then to bend their waists and bow to the ground.
No worries. They haven’t lost their minds yet. It is not even a new cross-training fad. They were picking up garbage at this segment on a weekend as part of the nationwide “Basura Run”, a volunteer work initiated by the Five Pieces Daily Habit movement that encourages people to pick up and throw at least five pieces of trash every day.
Sportswoman and TV reporter Miss Rena M. Dagoon led Iloilo’s decent gathering of athletes. The activity will hopefully take place every first Saturday of the month, not to replace street sweepers but to raise awareness.
A few decades back, plastic must have been a revolutionary wonder. It still is — kind of. Imagine a material so durable it could outlive you and your children. It could be molded and formed into different shapes, thickness and sizes when hot, and is solid enough to hold other substances when cooled.
Along the way, our forefathers must have realized the consequences that could come with plastic’s seeming immortality. However, they probably thought that the solution was something for the future generations to solve as no negative impact was still then apparent. Perhaps it was a lack of foresight, being distracted with military and economic wars and the technological revolution of their time.
All the living generations now (Millennials, iGeneration, Baby Boomers) could not afford to offer our solid waste problem with the same careless shrug of shoulders. In urban areas, plastics lurk in every corner. Sadly, you could not even walk around Iloilo City without seeing pieces of trash despite the local government’s efforts (e.g. plastics are still used in public markets despite the ordinance).
During the “Basura Run” the sidewalks were littered with a lot of cigarette butts — ironic for a city that claims to be smoke-free. It is not the government that we should solely blame for this or the paid street cleaners. Proper garbage disposal should be as personal as one’s hygiene habits. If each person only minds his own garbage, there would be no need for cleanup runs.
Furthermore, it may be just as bad or worse in our waters. Because plastic do not decompose, they just disintegrate into tiny particles called microplastics that gets carried away by the ocean currents to form gyres of trash. For instance, the Pacific trash vortex (also called the Great Pacific Garbage patch) is comprised of a “soup” of plastic and is reportedly the size of Texas. According to a National Geographic article, it holds a curious variety of garbage that seems to depict a tapestry of human activities — fishing nets, sneakers, computer monitors and LEGOs. Most of this marine debris comes from disintegrated plastic bags, bottle caps, water bottle and Styrofoam cups.
These microplastics could be eaten by marine animals which are also eaten by us. This means those microscopic and toxic, non-biodegradable particles enter our bodies. Would it be so illogical to theorize that they could cause these mysterious diseases like cancer which is basically abnormal mutations of the cells or autoimmune disorders which means the body is attacking itself?
What do we do? This is exactly the kind of question “Basura Run” hopes to elicit from those who have witnessed and heard the preaching put into action because nowhere do we go and never will we move forward if we do not acknowledge that we have a problem.
Solid wastes do more damage than just being eyesores. We have a grave problem, one that we inherited, and one which we should be careful not to so carelessly pass to unborn humans without an effort to resolve, or at least, mitigate.
What do we do then indeed? (rr_gonzales316@yahoo.com/PN)
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