This year, India and the United Nations (UN) are jointly hosting the global World Environment Day celebrations, with ‘Beat Plastic Pollution’ as the central theme. There is no reason to celebrate, rea
Replace the ducks with plastic flotsam and you get the drift. We all have heard of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a collection of plastic floating trash larger than the size of the US, discovered around 1985. Current research from Scientific Reports, collating data from multi-vessel surveys, show 80,000 tonnes of plastic floating inside an area of 1.6 million sq.km in North Pacific Oce
Image by Courtesy- marinedebris.noaa.gov
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Substantial amounts of marine debris from the patch washes ashore on the beaches of the 2.4 sq km long Midway Atoll. Of the 1.5 million Laysan albatrosses that inhabit Midway, nearly all are found to have plastic in their digestive system.The birds eat brightly colored plastic, mistaking them for marine animals (such as squid and fish). Approximately one-third of their chicks die, being f
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At least 8 million tonnes of plastic ends up in the oceans each year, the equivalent of a full garbage truck every minute. In the ocean, it can take hundreds of years to degrade and break down into microparticles (smaller than 5mm). These are consumed by marine animals, finding their way into the human food chain. The danger isn't merely in their toxicity, but its presence that impedes fu
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Bales of plastic waste collected by fishermen from the Tyrrhenian Sea await recycling. As part of the ' Arcipelago Pulito ' project in Tuscany, fisherman bring the plastic they collect, ashore for recycling at Revet Recycling, a specialised plant in Pontedera near Pisa, Italy. The project is the result of an agreement between the Tuscan Region, the Ministry of the Environment, Unicoop Fir
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Microplastic pollution arguably poses a bigger threat to life on land, according to UN Environment report. Sewage sludge - which contains upto 80 percent plastic particles - is often applied to fields as fertilizer, ends up affecting fauna’s health and soil functions. Additives from plastic particles can disrupt the hormone system of vertebrates and invertebrates. Nano-sized particles may
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The World Health Organisation (WHO) is looking into potential risks of plastic in drinking water after a new analysis by the State University of New York’s scientists (commissioned by journalism project Orb media) was carried out. It found that more than 90 percent of world’s most popular bottled water brands (including India’s) contained tiny particles of plastic. The scientists “found r
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Thermocol plates, discarded by a passersby after a free meal at a bhandara (religious food offering) float about in the Ganga river. Strewn garbage - entwined with plastic that collect around nooks and corners of public spaces, a no-mans land - are so common a sight now that we accept it as an inevitable part of our landscape. A Central Pollution Control Board data shows that India genera
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What can I do? Plastic is ubiquitous in our lives in the modern world. The wings of the plane you fly in uses carbon-fibre reinforced plastic, glass-fibre reinforced plastic and quartz-fibre reinforced plastic extensively. We have produced more plastic in the last decade than in the whole last century, 50 percent of it is in the form of single-use or disposable products, says a UN Environ
