When we were kids and used to accompany our parents to the vegetable mart, our parents always had bags to carry the bought items back. Today with the advent of supermarkets we hardly do that as we have plastic bags to cater to our needs. The use of plastic bags in a year around the world is nearly 500 billion to 1 trillion. As most of us are aware that plastics do not biodegrade, we may not know what happens to them eventually? They “photo-degrade” – a process in which they are broken down by sunlight into smaller and smaller pieces, all of which are still plastic polymers, eventually becoming individual molecules of plastic, still too tough for anything to digest.
The largest landfill for plastics lies in the middle of the Pacific Ocean known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It consists of two large masses of ever accumulating trash known as the Western and Eastern Pacific Garbage Patches. The Eastern Garbage Patch floats between Hawaii and California; scientists estimate its size as two times bigger than Texas. The Western Garbage Patch forms east of Japan and west of Hawaii. Monk seals, the most endangered mammal species in the United States, get entangled in the debris; green sea turtles eat the debris, mistaking it for their natural food, as do Layson and Black Footed Albatross.
It’s not just entanglement and indigestion that are problems caused by plastic debris, however. There is a darker side to pollution of the ocean by ubiquitous plastic fragments. As these fragments float around, they accumulate the poisons we manufacture for various purposes that are not water-soluble. It turns out that plastic polymers are sponges for DDT, PCBs and nonylphenols -oily toxics that don’t dissolve in seawater. Plastic pellets have been found to
accumulate up to one million times the level of these poisons that are floating in the water itself. These are not like heavy metal poisons which affect the animal that ingests them directly. Rather, they are what might be called “second generation“ toxics. Animals have evolved receptors for elaborate organic molecules called hormones, which regulate brain activity and reproduction. Hormone receptors cannot distinguish these toxics from the natural estrogenic hormone, estradiol, and when the pollutants dock at these receptors instead of the natural hormone, they have been shown to have a number of negative effects in everything from birds and fish to humans. The whole issue of hormone disruption is becoming one of, if not the biggest environmental issue of the 21st Century. Hormone disruption has been implicated in lower sperm counts and higher ratios of females to males in both humans and animals. Unchecked, this trend is a dead end for any species.
A trillion trillion vectors for our worst pollutants are being ingested by the most efficient natural vacuum cleaners nature ever invented, the mucus web feeding jellies and salps (chordate jellies that are the fastest growing multicellular organisms on the planet) out in the middle of the ocean. These organisms are in turn eaten by fish and then, certainly in many cases, by humans. We can grow pesticide free organic produce, but can nature still produce a pesticide free organic fish?
So after all the scary talk we finally come to the crux of the discussion. What can we do to contribute a little towards improving the environment? It’s very simple let’s start following our parents, lets start carrying cotton bags to the grocery shops. If not at least start reusing existing plastic bags which are in good condition. A little guilt on our part every time we use a plastic bag can go a long way in making our planet beautiful.
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