A Bizarre Experience : Not True Yet True

By Barnali Bose, Editor-ICN

KOLKATA: The waiter hands you the menu card.You scan the items. You rub your eyes in disbelief. “No this cannot be true”, you say aloud.

The menu reads,

Plastic vegetable soup

Plastic soya with plastic rice

Plastic paneer wrap

Plastic bamboo shoot curry

Many more supposedly savory dishes are on offer. However, in all this the common ingredient is plastic.”This can’t be true”,you scream at the waiter. Then trying to keep your composure, you request for a ‘proper’ menu card. You check the calendar on your cell phone.No,it’s not April Fool’s Day.

You look up at the waiter and are horrified to see that the countenance is that of a turtle.Shrieking in disbelief, you are quickly on your feet and dash for the door.You are badly shaken. As you look over your shoulder to cast a last glance, you are horrified to see that there are carcasses of turtles strewn all over.

Your eyes are transfixed on a large poster on the wall. It has a gigantic figure of a turtle that says, “Spare me. Do not feed me microplastics. Let me breathe.Let me live freely in the ocean.” A fish with tears trickling down its eyes says, “ Me too.”

You start running. You do not dare to look back. Suddenly, a shrill sound pierces through the deafening silent accusation. It is the alarm.You realise you had been having a nightmare. Bathed in perspiration,you quickly sit up. You are relieved to find that it was a mere nightmare, but pause for a moment.

The nightmare that is but true:

Is it really merely a nightmare? Unfortunately it is not. If only turtles and fishes could speak ,they would say much more.

We,human beings have indirectly and  perhaps unknowingly become assassins of marine life by our recklessness over the years. To quote an instance, turtles mistake microplastics for jellyfish and gobble them, thereby suffocating to death. More than 8 million tonnes of plastic waste enter our oceans every year.Plastic accounts for around 90% of all ocean trash with 46,000 pieces of plastic covering every square mile.

One hundred thousand marine animals are killed by plastic annually. The stomach of fishes are often found to be lined with plastic and when we consume the fish,we too eat plastic indirectly.

Microplastics are making way into our food cycle through the water we drink and the food we eat.

World Sea Turtle Day :

Today, June 16  is World Sea Turtle Day as declared by the UN Environment. Marine litter and plastic pollution  threaten these precious creatures.

Turtles and Plastics: An attraction that is often fatal

Jellyfish is the favourite food of the Galapagos green turtle, so wherever jellyfish are aplenty, turtles are found in abundance. Unfortunately, plastic bags afloat the ocean replicate jellyfish  and if a turtle ingests a plastic bag, it forms a fatal blockage in the gut,resulting in inevitable death.

This warning comes from the Galapagos Conservation Trust based in the United Kingdom and supporting turtle conservation projects since 1995.

The Trust is launching a new multi-year program to reduce plastic use in the Archipelago, where a ban on single-use plastic straws, bottles and bags will enter into force on 21 August 2018. The ban was promoted by the Governing Council of the Special Regime of the Galápagos.

Plastic debris ingested by turtles can cause intestinal blockage resulting in malnutrition, reduced growth rates and even death. Perhaps most distressingly, turtles can starve to death because they feel full after swallowing plastic debris.

A 2015 survey, led by Qamar Schuyler of the University of Queensland and published in Global Change Biology, estimated that 52 percent of sea turtles worldwide have eaten plastic debris.

The survey, covering 43 countries, found turtles are being tangled up in lost fishing nets, plastic twine and nylon fishing line, as well as six pack rings from canned drinks, plastic packaging straps, plastic balloon string, kite string, plastic packaging and discarded anchor line and seismic cables.

Non- biodegradable lost or discarded fishing gear, too is a serious threat to marine turtles.It has been  found, based on beach strandings, that more than 1,000 turtles are dying a year, after getting entwined with plastic, but this is perhaps an under-estimation. The actual numbers would indubitably be far more alarming.  Young turtles are particularly vulnerable to entanglement.

In recent years, global turtle population  has been dwindling , the fishing industry being  a serious threat. Notwithstanding the fact that turtles are fast swimmers, they often become fatally entangled in fishing gear. Weighed down by heavy nets, they are unable to surface and subsequently drown. Other threats include invasive species and pollution.

Every minute we dump the equivalent of one garbage truck of plastic into the ocean. If we carry on as usual, this is expected to increase to two per minute by 2030 and four per minute by 2050. By 2050, this could mean there will be more plastic than fish in the world’s oceans.

UN Environment’ s Clean Seas Campaign was launched in February 2017. It aims to increase global awareness of the need to reduce marine litter. The need for measures differs in different parts of the world. Proper waste management infrastructure is lacking in some areas, while in others the challenge involves public awareness of the impact litter has on the environment.

World Turtle Day on 23 May, sponsored annually since 2000 by American Tortoise Rescue, aims to bring attention to, and increase knowledge of and respect for, turtles and tortoises, and encourage positive  human action to enable them survive and thrive.

World Sea Turtle Day on 16 June, is sponsored by the Florida-based Sea Turtle Conservancy, which was founded in 1959.

World Environment Day on 5 June 2018 was hosted by India and focuses on the theme of plastic waste. This aligns with, and further develops, the December 2017 UN Environment Assembly’ s “Beat Pollution” watchword.

Among the highlights from the national celebrations was the Prime Minister’s commitment to join UN Environment’ s ‘Clean Seas’ campaign, which seeks to turn the tide on marine litter. India has 7,500 km of coastline – the 7th longest in Asia. As part of the commitment, the government will establish a national and regional marine litter action campaign as well as a program to measure the total marine plastic footprint in India’s coastal waters.

The Indian government, in collaboration with UN Environment also launched a joint World Environment Day Report: “Single-use Plastics: A roadmap for Sustainability”. Presenting case studies from more than 60 countries, the report analyzes the complex relationships in our plastics economy and offers an approach to rethink how the world produces, uses and manages single-use plastics.

My #Beat Plastic Pollution campaign:

This year, I was at Bryant Park in New York on June 5 and I had the privilege of celebrating the day at the Art and Craft Centre. I sat there and depicted my concern about plastic invasion through a simple poster I made spontaneously and the man-in- charge requested permission to display it for the public.I, though hesitant initially(since from an artistic point of view,it  was not great) gave in as he assured me that the message conveyed was loud and clear. I, a nature enthusiast was glad to be part of the #Beat Plastic Pollution when away from home too.

Food for thought:

A bad habit, they say, is difficult to eradicate unless replaced by a good one. Let us strive to replace the convenient plastic bag with a cloth or a jute one.To the three R’ s of Reduce, Recycle and Reuse let us add the fourth one of Refuse. Let us begin by refusing to use one-time plastics. Give up plastic to get back a cleaner ocean- the lifeline of the earth.Plastics may be convenient to use but ‘Convenience cannot be an excuse for Assassination of marine life.’

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