ASIA FACING PLASTIC CRISIS
There may be more garbage than fish in the sea by 2050 if nothing is done
AVIETNAMESE mangrove draped with polythene, a whale killed after swallowing waste bags in Thai seas and clouds of underwater trash near Indonesian “paradise” islands — grim images of the plastic crisis that has gripped Asia.
About eight million tonnes of plastic waste are dumped into the world’s oceans every year, the equivalent of one garbage truck of plastic being tipped into the sea every minute of every day.
More than half comes from five Asian countries: China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, according to a 2015 Ocean Conservancy report.
They are among the fastest growing economies in Asia, where much of the world’s plastic is produced, consumed and discarded — most of it improperly.
“We are in a plastic pollution crisis. We can see it everywhere in our rivers, in our oceans. We need to do something about it,” said Greenpeace Indonesia campaigner Ahmad Ashov Birry.
World Environment Day yesterday highlighted the perils of plastic with the tagline: “If you can’t reuse it, refuse it”.
But it is not just an issue of aesthetics, plastics are killing marine life. Last week a whale died in southern Thailand with 80 plastic bags in its stomach, an increasingly common sight alongside dead seabirds and turtles gorged on plastic.
Experts warn the greatest threat might be invisible.
Microplastics — tiny shards that easily soak up toxins after breaking off from larger plastic pieces — have been found in tap water, ground water and inside fish that millions of people eat across Asia every day.
Scientists still do not understand the health effects of consuming microplastics.
That worries Vietnamese fisherman Nguyen Thi Phuong, whose sleepy village on the South China Sea coast here has slowly transformed into a dump site.
In the nearby mangrove forest, her neighbours dig through warm, trash-speckled mud for snails or shrimp.
On average, only about 40 per cent of garbage is properly collected in the five plastic-addled countries that spit out most of the ocean’s trash, with few resources dedicated to proper waste management, especially in mushrooming megacities.
Plus, plastic consumption — and waste — continues to balloon along with growing incomes and dependence on plastic products.
At the current rate of dumping, the plastic trash in the world’s oceans is expected to double to 250 million tonnes by 2025, according to Ocean Conservancy.
That means there could be more plastic than fish in the sea by 2050 if nothing is done to turn the tide.