Tens of thousands of whales, birds, seals and turtles are killed every year from plastic litter in the marine environment as they mistake plastic bags for food such as jellyfish, or become entangled in plastic “six-pack rings”. Plastic bags, once ingested, cannot be digested or passed by an animal so it stays in the gut, preventing food digestion and often leading to a very slow and painful death. Six-pack rings can also kill by gradually strangling an animal as it grows. As plastic can take up to 1,000 years to break down, once an animal dies and decays after ingesting plastic, the plastic is then freed back into the marine environment to carry on killing other wildlife. Plastic makes up 60 to 80 percent of ocean debris; there’s 3 million tons of it in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch alone. In parts of the ocean this means there is six times more plastic than plankton, the base of the marine food web. The same durability we value in plastic makes it a persistent pollutant. The problem of plastic is not confined to our oceans, plastic bottles and grocery bags litter the countryside, and many creatures are unable to easily differentiate trash from food, especially if it’s a something that once contained food and still retains the smell. As well as being hazardous to many animals, it can also attract animals that could be potentially dangerous to people as they come to associate the scent of humans with food. Get Involved - Take Action! We can all do our bit by recycling wherever we can, by taking the time to reduce the potential harm our trash could cause - by snipping the plastic rings that are used to connect soda cans for instance, and by never dropping litter. But what can we do to reduce our consumption for plastic bags (and other plastic packaging)? A great first step would be to purchase a few of the reusable bags that most grocery chains sell - and to use them. Plastic bags are a relatively new phenomenon - our grandmothers had shopping baskets, and old-fashioned grocers used brown paper to wrap produce. Try to avoid pre-packaged vegetables, meats, fish and other produce wherever possible. The loose fruit and vegetables sold in the grocery stores are usually cheaper and fresher - and you get to pick out the ones that look the nicest. And remember to avoid additional packaging yourself - in most cases it is unnecessary to use plastic bags for loose fruit and vegetables. Buying meat and fish at the deli counters allows you the pick the exact cuts you would like and is usually fresher. Better still, check out your local farmers market as buying local helps the environment in another way, by reducing food miles - the energy consumed transporting produce from where is grown to your local store. You can find out more great recycling tips here – bit.ly/l4L7S4 and read about an exciting project to harvest waste plastic to reduce poverty here - bit.ly/12taMBd Hermit crab spotted by DiuvsDeJesus projectnoah.org/spottings/11627241
Posted on: Sat, 14 Sep 2013 08:37:51 +0000
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