PLAGUE OF PLASTIC IN POIGNANT PICTURE
A HAUNTING cover image on the June issue of National Geographic suggests the plastic pollution we see is just the tip of the iceberg.
Such is the extent of Earth’s mind-boggling plastic problem that scientists recently found a plastic bag 11km deep in the Mariana Trench, the deepest point of Earth’s oceans.
The Nat Geo cover image was shared by the magazine’s senior photo editor Vaughn Wallace on Twitter yesterday, calling it “one for the ages” and has already been shared more than 6000 times and liked 13,000 times.
The magazine has committed to delivering its issues in paper rather than plastic wrappers.
It reports that one million plastic bottles are bought every minute around the globe and most of them end up in landfill where they take a significant time to break down, or in the ocean where they kill marine life.
If it’s not bottles, it’s plastics bags and other plastic-based packaging that can find its way into our waterways and harm wildlife. Some experts warn that the plastic crisis is as bad as climate change.
A report last year found the equivalent of a garbage truck worth of plastic bottles was being dumped into the ocean every minute.