Over 800 million tons of plastic are produced every year, no less than 8 million tons end up in our oceans. 70% of that debris sinks into the ocean’s ecosystem, 15% floats and 15% lands on our beaches. Consequently, over 700 million marine species are documented to its risk and over thousands of them die every. Plastic has taken over all spheres of human life, it’s usage is undeniably inseparable from our day to day lives. On an average, a person consumes 70,000 microplastics each year which is hazardous to human health.
Recycling of plastic was seen as one of the solutions to this, but is it really the solution? Only 9% of the plastic is actually recycled. A plastic bag, which is the most used form of plastic, is used for only about 12 minutes. We are not even utilising a product’s utility properly and we talk about recycling!? We all know that plastic takes about more than 100 years to decompose, it does so much damage and we still use it for our convenience of mere 10 mins? We risk our lives, so many species are endangered because of the climate crisis and we still rely upon plastic?
“We have not inherited this earth from our forefathers, we have borrowed it from our children”. We must realise that this planet belongs to our future generation more than it does to us, but is there any way to pass on the earth to our future generation in a better state than what we received it?