Readers Blog: We must educate to tackle plastic wastage
Our beautiful seas are being destroyed by plastic waste. As many as five trillion plastic bags are used worldwide every year.
This has to stop if we are going to save our eco-system.
Our world is being literally swamped with plastic.
Some 8m tonnes of plastic are dumped into oceans each year, killing marine life and entering the human food chain.
Discarded plastic is one of the biggest environmental threats facing the planet. If present trends continue, by 2050 our oceans will have more plastic than fish. Imagine a world with no beaches, just endless dunes littered with rubbish? How can we turn the plastic tide?
To combat the plastic problem, individual people can take responsibility for their trash in terms of choosing and using materials, as well as channeling those materials onward to waste management systems.
One way of convincing people that the effort is worthwhile: Putting the unsavory effects of plastic into the forefront of public consciousness. We must act decisively and every action must tackle the scale of the issue — from manufacturers to consumers and beyond. We would be horrified to discover just how much plastic we are using every week. Instead of plastic supermarket bags change to paper bags.
Educate people, starting in schools. Unlike issues such as climate change and deforestation, which seem too overwhelming to address, it’s in our power to figuratively and literally turn the tide on plastic pollution.
We can do this. Let’s save our oceans.
