Of Garbage Islands in the sea and why we should carry our own cloth bags for shopping

Plastic Pollution has to be seen to be believed….

A few years ago, when we used to go shopping, we could never go without taking proper bags. Mostly it would be cloth bags and occasionally, even jute. And then, the plastic boom arrived, and now plastics have inundated the environment – in every conceivable way. 

Today, even traditional textiles and cloth merchants have shifted to plastics to pack the purchases. Plastic is cheap, weighs less, and is easy to use. Plastic, derived from the Greek word, Plastikos, are basically polymers of high molecular mass. One of the key problems of plastic is the disposal. They can’t be disposed easily and plastic pollution is the most terrible thing to have happened to planet earth. There are two basic types of plastics. Thermoplastics and thermosetting polymers. Thermoplastics like polypropylene, polyethylene, polystyrene, etc, are reusable again and again. But themosets do not undergo chemical change when heated and can take shape only once – and therein lies the problem.But due to the low cost of plastic and the easy availability of plastic, combined with its dynamic functionality, plastics have progressively displaced more traditional materials such as iron, steel, and wood in many appliances and machines.


But consider this : in the great pacific ocean, there is a huge garbage island, filled with plastics like bottles, plastic sheets, films, fibres, plates, tubes, boxes, cables, plastic gadgets, plastic machine parts, wires, and much more.Called the Great Garbage Island or the Pacific Vortex Trash, the floating island of plastic flotsam has confounded environmentalists and scientists alike. Spread over a huge area, the estimates of the size of the garbage island differ as it is not easily detected by satellite images.

The recycling of water and waste done by the underwater oceanic currents which has been going on peacefully and regularly for thousands of years, has suddenly developed a bottleneck: the floating garbage which refuses to leave.The floating plastic patch of the Great Pacific Ocean has an identical cousin in the Atlantic Ocean to – These floating plastic patches are made up of exceptionally high concentration of pelagic plastics and chemical sludge and other debris.

It is estimated that 80% of the pelagic plastic waste comes from the land mass of the 8 continents, and the remaining 20% of the waste comes from ships. Interestingly, the size of the patch is still being debated as the patch is not easily visible in satellite imaging and is constantly moving and shifting position. Even though a definite estimate is not available, some conservative estimates put the patch at 700,000 square kilometres. Something to set the scientists and environmentalists worrying.

Due to various effects of the water currents, the entire patch is characterized by a huge volume of  smaller plastic particles just beneath the floating plastic debris which are not easily visible.

The reason why we should go in for more biodegradable sunstances like paper wood and earthern ware, is that plastic disintegrates into smaller and smaller pieces in a continuous process till the molecular level, over a long period of time. These small particles becomes so small that they are ingested by the acqua/marine life in the seas. So, when we eat seafish from highly polluted waters, we could be unknowingly consuming the very plastics (in some form) we discarded in the sea! (The law of Karma at work!)

Just as Global warming is a phenomenon in which every one of us contribute in some small way, the oceanic pollution too, is a result of all of indiscriminatingly using plastics in our daily lives. Disposal of waste plastic becomes as important as usage of the plastic in the first place.

One of the simplest, easiest, and best ways that we can reduce this plastic pollution is by carrying our own cloth bags when we go for shopping and refuse plastic bags when given……