“Only we humans make waste that nature can’t digest.”– Captain Charles Moore

Many parts of the globe are floating in scrapped plastic, which is damaging wildlife and conceivably human health. The increase in plastic use has become one of the major hazardous problems for the environment, as the fast and excessive formation of disposable plastic material conquers the world’s competence to handle them. Plastic pollution is majorly found in developing nations like Asia and Africa, where garbage accumulation management is normally not effective or not present. 

On the other hand, the advanced or developed world, specifically in countries where there is less recycling process available, also has trouble properly collecting wasted plastics. It is a major concern for every nation or country in the world.

How does it materialise?

Plastics made from traces of fuels are just over a century old. The formation and progression of thousands of new plastic materials stimulated after World War II, so changing the modern age that life without plastics would be unimaginable today. Plastics reconstructed drugs with life-saving equipment, made space travel achievable, lightened cars and jets, preserved fuel and pollution, and cured viability with helmets, incubators, and equipment for clean drinkable water.

The conveniences plastics offer, however, led to a throw-away culture that reveals the material’s dark side: today, single-use plastics account for 40 per cent of the plastic formed each year. Many of these products, such as plastic bags and food wrappers, have a shelf life of only minutes to hours, although they may remain present in the environment for hundreds of years.

Calculation of plastic - Some important facts:

• Half of all plastics ever manufactured have been made in the last 15 years.

• Production rate enhanced exponentially, from 2.3 million tons in 1950 to 448 million tons by 2015. Production is assumed to double by the year 2050.

• Each year, about 8 million tons of plastic garbage escapes into the ocean from coastal nations. That’s the parallel of setting five waste bags full of trash on every foot of coastline around the world.

• Plastics frequently include additives, making them stronger, more flexible, and durable. But many of these additives can prolong the life of products or materials if they become litter, with some calculations ranging to at least 400 years to break down.

How do plastics migrate all over the world?

Most of the plastic waste in the oceans, Earth’s last sink, flows from land. Trash is also carried to sea by major rivers, which behave as conveyor belts, picking up more and more waste as they travel downstream. Once at sea, much of the plastic waste remains in coastal waters. But once caught up in ocean currents, it can be travelled all over the world.

On Henderson Island, an uninhabited atoll in the Pitcairn Group isolated halfway between Chile and New Zealand, scientists found plastic items from Russia, the United States, Europe, South America, Japan, and China. They were carried to the South Pacific by the South Pacific gyre, a circular ocean current.

Small particles of plastic

Once at sea, sunlight, wind, and wave action degrade plastic waste into small particles, most frequently less than one-fifth of an inch across. These generally known as microplastics are distributed all over the water column and have been observed in every corner of the globe, from Mount Everest, the highest peak, to the Mariana Trench, the deepest trough.

Small particles of plastic are degraded further into smaller and smaller particles. Plastic microfibers, in between, have been seen in municipal drinking water systems and drifting through the air.

Dangerous effects on wildlife

Millions of animals are died from plastics each year, from birds to fish to other marine species. Almost 700 organisms, including endangered ones, are called to have been affected by plastics. Almost every organism of seabird consumes or eats plastics.

Plastics are killing our marine life

Many of the deaths of animals are caused by entanglement or starvation. Seals, whales, turtles, and other animals are strangled by abandoned fishing gear or discarded six-pack rings. Microplastics have been found in more than 100 aquatic species, including fish, shrimp, and mussels destined for our dinner plates. 

In many cases, these tiny bits pass through the digestive system and are emitted without consequence. But plastics have also been seen to have blocked digestive tracts or pierced organs, leading to death. Stomachs so packed with plastics decrease the willingness to eat, leading to starvation.

Plastics have been taken by land-based animals, which include elephants, hyenas, zebras, tigers, camels, cattle, and other large mammals, in a few cases resulting in death.

The examination has also proved liver and cell damage and disruptions to reproductive systems, prompting few species, such as oysters, to produce fewer eggs. 

A new study reveals that larval fish are eating nanofibers in the first days of life, raising new doubts about the effects of plastics on fish populations.

Emerging plastic trends

Once in the ocean, it is hard, if not impossible, to recover plastic waste. Mechanical systems, such as Mr Trash Wheel, a litter interceptor in Maryland’s Baltimore Harbor, can be effective and useful at taking up large particles of plastic, such as foam cups and food containers, from inland waters. 

The solution is to take preventive action regarding plastic waste from entering rivers and seas in the first place. Many researchers and conservationists, including the Government authorities, accept the same. This could be accomplished with development in waste management systems and recycling process, better product design that takes into action the minimum life of disposable packaging, and reduction in the production of unwanted one-time use plastics.

“I realised that plastic had become such a part of my life that it had become invisible to me. I just did not see it until it was pointed out to me, and I was told it was causing specific problems. And then I saw it everywhere. I saw it between my toes when I was on the beach. I saw it in the seaweed. I saw it floating between my legs while I was surfing. Once you see it, when you start to look at the problems it causes; when you investigate the human health consequences, you cannot unsee it.” – Craig Leeson, award-winning journalist and director of A Plastic Ocean. 

“For your temporary comfort, don't permanently kill the innocent life of all living beings on the earth, the plastic”

― Sir P.S. Jagadeesh Kumar

Come together and join “Project Global Cure” to save our globe, not only for ourselves but also for our coming generations.

Contact us

Request a Proposal