A DEAD sperm whale washed ashore in Wakatobi National Park in southwest Sulawesi province, Indonesia, last Wednesday with six kilos of plastic waste in its stomach – 115 plastic cups, four plastic bottles, 25 plastic bags, two flip-flops, 3.26 kilos of string, and 19 other pieces of plastic.
The discovery caused consternation among environmentalists. It was the latest incident involving the growing problem of plastic wastes being dumped in the world’s oceans at the colossal rate of 1.29 million tons annually.
Five Asian nations account for up to 60 percent of the plastic waste that ends up in oceans, according o a 2015 report by environmental campaigner Ocean Conservancy and the McKinsey Center for Business and Environment. These are China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Thailand – in that order.
Last year, the United Nations said marine life is facing “irreparable damage” from the tons of plastic waste ending up in the world’s oceans every year. A pilot whale was found dead off southern Thailand last June after swallowing 80 plastic bags.
The danger may not be limited to marine life. One report said microscopic bits of plastic have found their way into the tissues of fish which end up in human diets. A team of Malaysian and French scientists recently discovered 36 tiny pieces of plastic – nylon, polystyrene, and polyethylene – in the flesh of 120 mackerel, anchovies, mullets, and croakers.
A worldwide movement has begun to mitigate this problem of plastic wastes, starting with a ban on single-use plastics such as straws used for soft drinks and stirrers for cups of coffee. Several fastfood outlets, restaurants, groceries, and hotels in the Philippines are now doing without these items in serving their customers. It is a small start but the hope is it will become a worldwide movement and that other plastic products like wrappers, strings, and bags will cease to be used, replaced by natural materials like paper, cotton, and abaca.
Sen. Loren Legarda, chairwoman of the Senate Climate Change Committee, has now filed Senate Bill 1946 to regulate the manufacture, importation, and use of single-use plastics. These end up as litter, she said, clogging drainage systems and polluting waterways. They are harmful to the environment, she said, cause flooding, and release toxic emissions when burned.
The discovery that the fish we eat may now contain bits of plastic that could affect human health should shake the entire world from its apathy to this danger. Today we have whales, found dead in waters around our islands with plastics of all kinds in their stomachs. Tomorrow it could be humans with microplastics causing new threats to their health and to their very lives.
