Weareagainstplastics@gmail.com

Hi,

Just let you know that WAAP has an email ID now.

Weareagainstplastics@gmail.com

Also I intent to go one step ahead from words to a program. Propose to initiate an action plan to reduce/eliminate the plastic pollution from this village. This program may be launched in the coming summer. The program will be launched with active participation of the villagers. Appreciate if all of you can send-in suggestions, guidelines etc. for consideration. Your bouquets and brickbats are expected through comments or email.

There was a beautiful river in my village!

I grew up in a beautiful village named 'Aimcompu' in the Indian state of Kerala. This state is at the southern part of India. Through the middle of the village flows a charming river like a village maiden. The river was always full of water. We never took bath at home in a bathroom. Every morning and evening children of the village jump in to the river for their customary swimming and bathing. All the village people took bath in the river. There was no bathroom in any of the houses in the village.

I travelled to the village from the city where I am settled now during last monsoon. The nostalgic memories of my childhood prompted me to go for a river bath. I was very saddened to see the pollution of the village river caused by plastic and other pollutants. The photos shows the present condition of the river.

Uncontrolled use of plastic causes havoc to the environment. There are hundreds of such rivers all over India carrying plastic waste in to the sea. As seen in the photograph river banks are full of plastic waste. Some studies reveal that India is second in the use of plastic among all other countries. It is high time we need to act to control plastic pollution. Unless and until it is absolutely necessary do not use plastic. Short lived carry bags are a strict no no!

Allow me to quote one preventive proposal. In the upstream part of the river there exists a 'Beverage Corporation' outlet, where liquor is sold in plastic bottles. Majority of the bottles ends up in the river. The authorities may put up a plastic bottle collection facility in front of the store. If the connoisseurs are still not in a blissful state of mind, the plastic bottle may be deposited in the facility provided.

Please do not accept/buy plastic carry bags and other products. They cause irreparable damage to our environment.

Banish The Bags! Thank you Mr. Prime Minister.

Daily Mail reported that British Prime Minister gave an ultimatum to Briton's supermarkets to bring down plastic carry bag usage drastically. He is concerned about loss of focus by supermarkets in bringing down the usage of 'single use' carry bags. This was earlier supported by 'Daily Mail' of UK with a 'Banish The Bag' campaign.
Some excerpts from the report of 'Daily Mail' today:
(Courtesy - Daily Mail)

"Britain’s biggest supermarkets are today given an ultimatum by the Prime Minister: Radically reduce the number of plastic bags you hand out by choice, or I will force you to by law.

David Cameron warns that unless stores deliver ‘significant falls’ over the next 12 months, they could either be banned outright from giving out single-use bags or be legally required to charge customers for them.

The Prime Minister says it is ‘unacceptable’ that the number of single-use carrier bags rose last year by 333million – a 5 per cent increase from the previous year. Environmental campaigners say the bags, used for only 20 minutes on average, take up to 1,000 years to degrade.
As well as causing serious harm to marine animals and birds, they blight the coastline, with 70 bags littering every mile"

Hope leaders of other countries including India walk through the footsteps of Mr. Cameron.

Some Facts!

According to studies by the Plastic Development Council under the department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals, India will emerge as the third biggest consumer of plastics in the world by this year end.

Every year, around 500 billion (500,000,000,000) plastic bags are used worldwide. So many that over one million bags are being used every minute and they're damaging our environment. India's plastics consumption is one of the highest in the world. Yet, precious little has been done to recycle, re-use and dispose of plastic waste. Plastic bags are difficult and costly to recycle and most end up on landfill sites where they take around 300 years to photo degrade. They break down into tiny toxic particles that contaminate the soil and waterways and enter the food chain when animals accidentally ingest them. But the problems surrounding waste plastic bags starts long before they photo degrade. Plastic bags and plastic waste are also the biggest contributors of  Environment Pollution in India.  Our planet is becoming increasingly contaminated by Plastic pollution and by our unnecessary use of plastic carry bags. Big black bin liners, plastic carrier bags carrying advertising logos, clear sandwich bags, vegetable bags and a variety of other forms used to carry our daily food items and other items are all polluting our environment. Just take a look around you. Plastic bags can be seen hanging from the branches of trees, flying in the air on windy days, settled amongst bushes and floating on rivers. They clog up gutters and drains causing water and sewage to overflow and become the breeding grounds of germs and bacteria that cause diseases.    

Animals and sea creatures are hurt and killed every day by discarded plastic bags - a dead turtle with a plastic bag hanging from its mouth isn't a pleasant sight but mistaking plastic bags for food is commonplace amongst marine animals. Plastic clogs their intestines and leads to slow starvation. Others become entangled in plastic bags and drown.   Because plastic bags take hundreds of years to break down, every year our seas become 'home' to more and more bags that find their way there through our sewers and waterways. Given India's poor garbage collection facilities, tons of plastic bags litter the roads, preventing rainwater from seeping into the ground. Hundreds of animals die every year when they choke on plastic bags while trying to eat vegetable waste stuffed in the garbage.

Every bag that's washed down a drain during rainfall ends up in the river/sea every bag that's flushed down a toilet ends up in the sea - every bag that’s blown into a river will most likely end up in the sea. Besides choking drains, plastics are highly toxic. When burned they release cancer-causing gases. Lying in the garbage, polythene bags also find their way in gut of cattle, asphyxiating the animals. The cheap bags contain chemicals such as cadmium- or lead- based chemicals that are harmful to health. They leach into vegetables, meat and food. The decomposition process of a non-biodegradable plastic bag takes up to 400 years and even then, they remain toxic after breaking down.      Plastic bags collected in landfill sites take around 300 years to photo degrade.

The facts presented above does not give any pleasant feeling, on the contrary it is very scary. Look at the photograph, do you want your neighborhood and surroundings of your house to be like this. If this continues like this we will have the top of the earth and the water bodies including oceans full of plastic waste.

Some local governments of Indian metros and other cities have come out with some half hearted measures. Some of the supermarkets and malls in Ahmedabad have introduced a price for the plastic carry bags under a government guideline. The production and distribution of plastic carry bags with a thickness below 40 microns are prohibited. But this is not being implemented very strictly. The neighborhood grocery store and vegetable vendors still hands over the purchases in such low thickness plastic carry bags.

Who can put a stop to this, WE, only we can put an end to this and help our environment to recover and sustain.

Do not accept/buy plastic products and carry bags which are not environment friendly.

The Alarming Effect of Plastic Pollution!

(Source ‘Wikipedia’)
“Plastic is polluting the oceans. There are an estimated 46,000 pieces of plastic per square kilometer of the world's oceans. Much of it is concentrated in a gyre of marine litter in the central North Pacific Ocean called Great Pacific Garbage Patch, killing a million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals yearly”

“Plastics are durable and degrade very slowly; the molecular bonds that make plastic so durable make it equally resistant to natural processes of degradation. Since the 1950s, one billion tons of plastic have been discarded and may persist for hundreds or even thousands of years. In some cases, burning plastic can release toxic fumes. Burning the plastic polyvinyl chloride (PVC) may create dioxin. Also, the manufacturing of plastics often creates large quantities of chemical pollutants”

“Unfortunately, recycling of plastics has proven to be a difficult process. The biggest problem is that it is difficult to automate the sorting of plastic wastes, making it labor intensive. Typically, workers sort the plastic by looking at the resin identification code, although common containers like soda bottles can be sorted from memory. Typically, the caps for PETE bottles are made from a different kind of plastic which is not recyclable, which presents additional problems to the automated sorting process. Other recyclable materials such as metals are easier to process mechanically. However, new processes of mechanical sorting are being developed to increase capacity and efficiency of plastic recycling.”

“While containers are usually made from a single type and color of plastic, making them relatively easy to be sorted, a consumer product like a cellular phone may have many small parts consisting of over a dozen different types and colors of plastics. In such cases, the resources it would take to separate the plastics far exceed their value and the item is discarded. However, developments are taking place in the field of active dis assembly, which may result in more consumer product components being re-used or recycled. Recycling certain types of plastics can be unprofitable, as well. For example, polystyrene is rarely recycled because it is usually not cost effective. These un-recycled wastes are typically disposed of in landfills, incinerated or used to produce electricity at waste-to-energy plants.”

“The biggest threat to the conventional plastics industry is most likely to be environmental concerns, including the release of toxic pollutants, greenhouse gas, litter, biodegradable and non-biodegradable landfill impact as a result of the production and disposal of petroleum and petroleum-based plastics. Of particular concern has been the recent accumulation of enormous quantities of plastic trash in ocean gyres.”

The above information is very alarming, all of us should do our might to control the highly polluting use of plastic and items made of plastics.

Say no to plastics! Please do not buy/accept plastic goods if possible. Always look for alternatives. Yes there are lots of alternatives available. About that later.

Where are we heading with plastics?

Hi guys and gals out there!

This is my first post. World Environment day went by again. Some celebrated by planting trees, others organised functions and made speeches. Most of the two legged inhabitants of this planet not bothered. This is a small attempt to play my small part in the process.

As they always say 'prevention is better than cure', we should help and reduce the impact of plastic usage.

A recent visit to my hometown made me take note of the menace of plastic all around. Travelling on the train on the Konkan route is a delight, the view on this stretch is marvelous. But alas, all over the rail line and around huge quantity of discarded plastic items are thrown by the passengers. I am sure this is happening all over India. It is high time we as passengers and The Indian Railways as service providers take some actions to prevent this menace of plastics and other things. For a change railways must provide bigger scrap collectors on coaches with arrangements to empty and dispose of them at major stopping stations. Will somebody in the Railways take note of this.

Each one of us can contribute to lower the use of plastics all across. Just think for a moment before you buy/accept items made of plastic. If you have an option available do not buy/accept plastic. I will try to give you helpful hints on this subject in future posts.

Please come back and read this blog, spread the word; help me, help yourself

Say, We Are Against Plastics!

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