Everyday plastics spell doom for the oceans

The ubiquitous plastic that is easy to use and easy to discard and forms part of our everyday lives is unwittingly spelling doom for the oceans and its myriad creatures.

It is not only the littering by water bottles, wrappers, bags, nets and industrial waste that is causing havoc, but the smaller broken down components of these plastic components, called 'micro plastics', that are becoming a new and hidden menace.

Dr SWA Naqvi, director of the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO), Goa, says "plastic pollution is a very big problem and pollution of the global oceans with micro-plastics is only now being estimated in times to come it will become a huge-huge problem that will dog humanity for centuries since plastics outlive humans by a factor of ten."

Fishes, whales, seals and turtles mistakenly eat the larger objects like plastic bags and bottles and these objects then choke their guts. The degraded pieces of larger plastic refuse also pose a problem as they are ingested in smaller biota from where they enter the food web, often finally ending up as part of food for humans.

Striking an alarming note on the pollution caused by plastics, Dr Mahua Saha, a scientist who works on marine pollution at NIO, reports that the world population now produces close to its own weight in plastics every year.

A 2015 global study published in well-regarded American journal 'Science' estimated that 275 million metric tonnes of plastic waste was generated worldwide in 192 coastal countries with as much as 12.7 million metric tonnes entering the oceans as waste.

A 2015 report from the Worldwatch Institute, Washington DC, finds that "approximately 10–20 million tonnes of plastic end up in the oceans each year. A recent study conservatively estimated that 5.25 trillion plastic particles weighing a total of 268,940 tons are currently floating in the world's oceans.This plastic debris results in an estimated USD 13 billion a year in losses from damage to marine ecosystems".

Every year, each Indian uses about 8 kilograms of plastic according to an estimate by the Central Pollution Control Board (CBCP), meaning annually India consumes a whopping 8 million metric tons of plastic.

A 2013 study by CBCP revealed that about 15,340 tonnes per day of plastic waste was generated every day and carry bags made of low-density polyethylene make up a bulk of the waste.