Jharkhand to become plastic free, ban on polybags less than 50 micron thick

It is a welcome move taken by Jharkhand because it plans to ban polybags from the markets. It wants people of Ranchi to start carrying their own bags to the market and not depend on the shopkeepers and vegetable vendors to provide them with bags.
Ranchi Municipal Corporation has is gearing up to enforce the ban on polybags of thickness less than 50 micron which are used to pack groceries and in the poultry, fish shops as well as vegetable markets.
This is reported in telegraphindia.com dated 13 July 2017.

Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) has issued a notification through a few vernacular dailies and indicated the seriousness to make the state plastic-free. According to the notice, the residents of the city must adhere to Plastic Waste Management Rules, 2016, which stipulate the minimum thickness of plastic carry bags as 50 microns for ease of collection and recycling.
The polybags lead to long-time soil pollution, short-time clogging of drains that in turn leads to waterlogged roads during the monsoons.


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Evils of plastic packaging and its effect on environment must be realised

In order to curb the use of plastics in our everyday lives, supermarkets in Britain could set an example by creating a plastic-free aisle in every store. That could be a positive action to eliminate tons of waste packaging finding a grave in the oceans of the world.
The magnitude of the problem can be understood from the fact that around 300 million tons of plastic are produced globally each year and, only 12 per cent of it is recyclable while the balance is washed into the seas where it is toxic to wildlife.
This has been reported in nzherald.co.nz dated 11 February 2017.

Britain's major supermarkets will be urged to allow shoppers to buy food packaged in biodegradable materials. The government has plans to charge a nominal charge for every plastic bottle which can be reclaimed when they are recycled. That is expected to cut down waste. A similar charge which had been added to plastic bags in October 2015 has seen use of such bags drop by 80 per cent.
A film 'A Plastic Ocean', which is backed by the Plastic Oceans Foundation is at present being shown at special screenings across Britain - the aim is to highlight the sheer scale of plastic pollution in the sea. As Sir David Attenborough has said - the whole of the ecosystems of the world are built on healthy oceans and if that part of the planet becomes dysfunctional and goes wrong the the whole of life on the planet will suffer."


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Microplastics ingested through sea food is a major health hazard

Seafood eaters are unknowingly absorbing tiny pieces of plastic into their bloodstream and these have effects that are yet to be established. This is as per a research carried out by University of Ghent in Belgium. Such plastics that measure less than a millimetre across, are widely found in mussels, oysters and other shellfish.
Scientists have calculated that more than 99% of the microplastics pass through the human body - but the rest are absorbed by body tissues.
This has been reported in news.sky.com dated 24 January 2017.

As per the findings of researchers, Europeans currently consume up to 11,000 pieces of plastic in their food each year and fewer than 60 of these are likely to be absorbed and accumulate in the body over a period of time. However, the amount of plastic absorbed from our food will keep going up as plastic pollution in the ocean gets worse.
Incidentally, mussels feed by filtering around 20 litres of seawater a day and ingest microplastics by accident. Most of these are excreted, but, still, on an average each mussel contains one tiny fragment lodged in its body tissue. With the increase of plastic pollution in the ocean that will increase.
It has been predicted that by the end of the century, those who regularly eat seafood could be consuming 780,000 pieces of plastic a year, absorbing 4,000 of them from their digestive systems.


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Plastic waste in the oceans a major threat for mankind

#plasticwaste #globalwarming #oceans #plasticpollution The amount of plastic wastes in the form of plastic debris such as food packaging and plastic bottles in the oceans is a matter of great concern for mankind because as per estimates, by the year 2025 there would be 100 bags of plastic per foot of coastline in the world. This has been reported in nzherald.co.nz dated 14 February 2015.
And – that is certainly not good news because the world's oceans are being filled with enough plastic waste to thickly line every coastline in the world. This is as per the first detailed global assessment of the problem.
In the estimate of scientists nearly 7.25 million tonnes of plastic debris get washed into the waters of the oceans every year - and these will add up to a tenfold increase in the total amount of plastic in the sea by 2020.
As Dr Jenna Jambeck, assistant professor of environmental engineering at the University of Georgia, has said – this amount of waste can be considered to be the equivalent to five grocery bags filled with plastic for every foot of coastline in the world.
She has gone on to add that in 2025, the annual input would be about twice the 2010 input, or 10 bags full of plastic per foot of coastline.
It is known that plastics can clog water lines and, therefore, the need of the hour should be to control plastic pollution and focus on how best to destroy the plastic wastes on land itself instead of allowing them to flow into the oceans. If unchecked, it could pose a major problem when coupled with global warming and corresponding increase in level of water levels of oceans.