HOW YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE
Millions of whales, birds, seals and turtles die because they mistake plastic bags for food or because they become ensnared in nets, packing bands and other items. Trillions of microplastics end up in the ocean, with seafood eaters ingesting an estimated 11,000 tiny pieces annually.
Plastic doesn’t decompose, but photodegrades into small bits. These bits look like food so are eaten by the small fish at the bottom of the food chain in oceans. Then the bigger fish and other mammals eat these plastics and the associated toxins accumulate in them. These plastic bits eventually end up in people’s food or contaminate salt Hive is the first zero waste store in Malaysia. At their stores in Ampang, Bangsar and Petaling Jaya, Hive offers over 300 bulk whole foods from nuts, seeds, butter, reusable lifestyle products, cleaning products, personal care products and more!
As a social enterprise, they work with local organic farmers, the Orang Asli community and charitable organisations. The Hive offers solutions to live sustainably. wHere: 92A, Lorong Maarof, Bangsar Park, KL; 1F, Hock Choon Supermarket, 241 Jalan Ampang, KL www.thehivebulkfoods.com NUDE encourages the community to live by the Japanese principle of which conveys “a reason for being”. Products such as the biodegradable soaps, shampoo bars, and cloth cotton pads at NUDE can help minimise your carbon footprint. They sell everything from foods to home care to personal care, absolutely package-free. wHere: 3G, Jalan 19/29, Seksyen 19, Petaling Jaya CONTACT: 03 7498 0488 | hello@ nudezerowaste.com | FACeBOOK: NUDE The Zero Waste Store
extracted for human consumption.
The floating bags accumulate and add to other plastic items that form gyres. There are five huge garbage islands in the Pacific. These are growing in size over the years; in 2016 “The Great Pacific Gyre” was 999,735 sq km wide, with a periphery or outer circle of 3,499,073 sq km according to The Guardian.
Plastic fibres have also been found in tap water around the world; in one study, researchers found that 94 per cent of water samples in the United States were affected. The impact on human health from direct exposure to microplastics is unknown.
Much of our resource-intensive consumerism is still mindless, despite rising awareness of the impact of our plastic waste. Amid the hustle and convenience of a grocery store, it’s hard to connect our own behaviour to the distant problems in the depths of the oceans.
But the dozens of perfectly-intact plastic bags pulled from the stomach of a dead Cuvier’s beaked whale in the Philippines in March could have been from any of us. The juvenile Cuvier’s beaked whale died of “gastric shock” after swallowing 40kg of plastic bags, according to marine biologists at the D’Bone Collector Museum, a natural history institution in Davao City. Closer to home, a whale shark was found dead in waters off the Tanjung Aru beach with a big plastic bag stuck in its stomach in February this year.
It’s estimated that in 2010 Malaysia produced 940 million kilogrammes of mismanaged plastic waste, of which 140370 million kilogrammes of plastic waste might have been washed into the oceans. Thirteen per cent of Malaysia’s solid waste is plastic, of which 55 per cent is mismanaged. TheMalaysianPlasticsManufacturers Association said in April 2018 that every Malaysian throws away 300 plastic bags a year on average.
One of the most direct ways to begin to address this problem is by taking on the single-use plastic bag. The problem with plastic bags has been created by its overconsumption in the last four decades. People managed well enough before its advent. To maintain living standards, new commercial innovations could easily replace it, in the same way that alternate fuel cars are replacing the old gas models.
The war on plastic bags isn’t new by any stretch. In 2002, Bangladesh became the first country to ban the use of thin plastic bags after it was discovered that a build-up of the bags choked the country’s drainage systems during flooding. In almost two decades since then, more countries and individual cities have taken action, including taxing the use of the bags or following Bangladesh’s lead and outright banning them.
And the scope of the war is expanding beyond bags. Plastic straws, bottles, utensils and food containers are all fronts in this ongoing battle, as the convenience and low cost of single-use plastic items is outweighed by the negative impacts they cause.
In an unprecedented move against plastic pollution in Southeast Asia, Malaysia has announced that it will eliminate single-use plastic by 2030. The Selangor State government has taken the step to enforce a ban on single-use plastics at all departments and agencies under the state’s administration effective next month.
The cultural impact can be gamechanging. As was the case with smoking indoors, the use of plastic bags will become less socially-acceptable over time once the government moves to restrict them. Reusable bags will become the norm quicker than one might imagine, and shoppers will seamlessly adapt their daily routines to the new reality.
When achieved, these small changes to our daily routines can be surprisingly empowering. We can do this and we must! This is Plastic-Free-Living 101. Take your own shopping bag with you whenever you visit the grocery store, shopping malls or pharmacy. Better still, carry one you could fold and fit into your bag so you don’t “forget” whenever you decide to make a purchase.
elena@nst.com.my