Save sea life with plastic ban by supermarkets

I AM disgusted with humanity. While some of us reach for the stars, others have sunk to the depths of depravity.

Once we hunted the whale almost to extinction, killing them to make a vast array of products that ranged from candles, cosmetics and perfumes to oil, meat, animal feed and strings for tennis racquets. With modern methods of hunting, the killing orgy of the gentle giants of the ocean reached a frenzy in the latter half of the 20th century.

Aghast at the senseless massacre, environmentalists and animal right activists, with the help of the media, began a worldwide campaign to save the whales. Though whaling often took place in the remote parts of the oceans, away from public glare, they managed to photograph and film the gory aspects of whale hunting and show them to the world.

They succeeded. Commercial whaling was banned in 1986, but three countries – Norway, Iceland and Japan – still defy the international ban.

The different species of whales made a remarkable recovery and their numbers continued to grow, but now whales face a new threat, not from whalers with deadly grenade harpoons, but from a more sinister source – plastics, modern man’s wonderful invention.

Nearly everything we consume is wrapped over and over in plastic. To satisfy our insatiable appetite for our ever-growing human population, we rape the oceans with our trawlers, then dump plastic in the oceans.

It’s so thoughtful of us to feed plastic to the marine life.

A six-metre, distressed whale was stranded in one of the fjords in Norway. Fishermen tried to nudge it into the open sea, but it kept coming back. Finally, to put it out of its misery, they shot it and hauled it away to the marine research station, where it was dissected and examined. It had lost half its weight. On examining its stomach, scientists found it had consumed a bagful of plastic. It had been killed by plastic.

How many more sea creatures must be eating plastic and dying? The oceans are full of plastic.

Hopefully, the tide is turning against this new menace to the environment. All of mankind is not as thick-skinned as US President Donald Trump.

There is a growing awareness around the world, especially in Europe, of the harmful effects of plastic on the environment. Chile became the first South American country to ban plastic bags. Why can’t South Africa do so?

If the government is not interested, at least the supermarkets can kick-start the anti-plastic campaign. Spar in

Kloof has done so. Why not the other supermarkets?

T MARKANDAN

Silverglen