Plastic pollution is damaging natural as well as built environment by several ways and it is a major cause of inland and water pollution
Dr. Mahmood Laghari
The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) celebrates “World Environment” on 5th of June each year since 1973. So, this is fifty years of celebrating world environment day as a largest platform for awareness about environmental challenges. Each year, this day is celebrated with a theme to highlight the significance of a particular environmental issue. World Environment Day is a platform for environmental activists to help common people understand and help our nature.
Each year, any of the member countries hosts this day. Pakistan had hosted “World Environment Day 2021” on the theme of “ecosystem restoration”. While, this year, the World Environment Day is being hosted by West African country Cote D’lvoire in partnership with Netherlands and this year’s theme is “preventing plastic pollution” under the hashtag #BeatPlasticPollution. The world environment day was celebrated on this same theme five years ago by India where, the emphasis was made on production, use and disposal of plastic in modern world.
Plastic is more problematic due to the fact that it can take 20 to 500 years to decompose
Fully synthetic plastic was invented by Belgian chemist Leo Henridrik Baekeland in 1907. There are several types of plastic but Polypropylene, Polyvinyl Chloride and Polyethylene are most commonly used types of plastic today. Due to its abundant use, we can see plastic everywhere from the Arctic to Antarctica. Plastic is more problematic due to the fact that it can take 20 to 500 years to decompose subject to the types of plastic and environmental factors such as exposure to sunlight. Plastic pollution is damaging natural as well as built environment by several ways and it is a major cause of inland and water pollution. Very common examples are that plastic pollutes our streets, plugs our drain systems even disrupts natural flow etc. In our country open burning of garbage is very common and the burning of plastic releases toxic gases and chemicals to the air including Dioxin, Furans, Benzo (a) pyrene and Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) which are very harmful for human health and air pollution. The plastic is also killing the terrestrial wildlife and ocean life. Moreover, it is creating micro plastics, which can be digested by microorganisms and humans through food chain and causes health problems such as immunity disorders, respiratory problems, cancer, infertility and alteration in chromosomes.
This is very important for all of us to feel our environmental responsibility and reduce the use of plastic as much as possible. There are several ways to reduce the use of plastic such as to avoid single use plastic such as straw, take cloth bag when you go for shopping, buy more bulk food and fewer packaged products, etc. the governments can also introduce reforms and regulations on the use of plastic, while grocery stores can stop offering free plastics bags on shopping. The government and entrepreneurs can introduce easy mechanism for public for recycling plastics bottles and other wastes.
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Dr. Mahmood Laghari is Associate Professor and Chairman, Department of Energy and Environment, Sindh Agriculture University, Tandojam Sindh
