Plastic is close to our daily lives. Every day we often see and use it both as a food and beverage packaging, grocery items to containers, packaging or light snacks such as fried foods. Once finished, biasannya the plastic bags we dispose of it. But did you know the dangers arising out of plastic waste?
Plastic waste takes a long time in order to unravel. A plastic bag takes 10 to 12 years, a plastic bottle takes a longer time i.e. it took 20 years, whereas sterofoam takes 500 years to disintegrate naturally. Due to the length of time this destruction too, certainly could pose a serious problem for the environment. Plastic waste is steadily growing in numbers with a slow rate of decomposition giving rise to penumpukkan garbage. Plastic waste can release harmful chemicals that can contaminate water sources, either groundwater or surface water that pose a danger to living beings that drink it. Remember water is vital to support the needs of survival, when contaminated it will cause very serious problems.
In addition to cause pollution of the environment, plastic waste is also harmful to animals, especially animals that live in the sea. Many of the cases occurred the death of animals due to plastic waste. Sea turtles are one of the affected animals directly due to the plastic waste in the oceans, turtles consuming plastic waste because it is often thought that the trash is a jellyfish. Studies conducted by the Queensland University and published in The Journal Conservation Biology shows that 30 to 50% green turtles ingesting plastic garbage that exists in the oceans in the year 2012. Plastic waste is also responsible for the death of millions of seabirds every year. Wilcox and his colleagues assert that in 2014, 90% of the 80 species of seabirds consume plastics. The plastic that has been ingested cause blockage in the digestive tract of birds and result in death. One of the shocking news of the world the result of this was the ditemukanya of plastic waste bins and plastic car parts in stomach sperm whales that were stranded near the town of Toenning in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany in 2016.
Given the harmful plastic waste, so from now on let us wiser use and make use of plastic. Don't waste plastic trash carelessly, parse-pilahlah in accordance with the type of place the garbage, recycling and do. Let us take care of the Earth for the future.
Read more: 10 Photo Tragic animal Stomach full of plastic waste
Reference:
- Indonesia Indah Tri, CNN (accessed March 8, 2017)
- Schuyler dkk, 2014, Conservation Biology 28, 129-139
- Wilcox et al, pnas, 2015 112 (38), 11899-11904
- Helena Horton, The Telegraph (retrieved March 8, 2017)
