There May Soon Be More Plastic in the Oceans Than Fish
Environmental pollution is a worrying issue, and we have seen a continued worsening in the situation from the time this issue was first brought to public attention. Just recently I read this article that predicts that in less than 40 years, there will be more plastic bags in the ocean than there are fish!
Treating the ocean as a dump site will have severely detrimental consequences. We have all read the news of how a dolphin almost died in captivity when it accidentally swallowed a piece of plastic. Although that dolphin was saved from a painful death, the same cannot be said for the many beings in the ocean that suffer then die due to pollution in the ocean and sea.
It is important for all of us to reflect and be mindful of the consequences of our actions. For many, discarding a small piece of plastic in the drain may not look too harmful, but these pieces of plastic will make their way into larger water reserves. Just because the piece of plastic we discarded is out of sight doesn’t mean it does not bring harm to other beings. It is important for us to think beyond what’s in front of us.
I want to share this article to raise awareness about this issue. Although many people have actively stepped up to make a change for a better environment, real change can only happen if we all take responsibility to care for the environment by first changing our attitude and educating ourselves on the best and safest ways of garbage disposal. I hope you will share this article and help raise awareness about this issue in your own ways.
Tsem Rinpoche
There May Soon Be More Plastic in the Oceans Than Fish
By Gregory Barber | Fri Jan 29, 2016
Discarded plastic will outweigh fish in the world’s oceans by 2050, according to a report from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. That is, unless overfishing moves the date up sooner.
The study, a collaboration with the World Economic Forum, found that 32 percent of plastic packaging escapes waste collection systems, gets into waterways, and is eventually deposited in the oceans. That percentage is expected to increase in coming years, given that the fastest growth in plastic production is expected to occur in “high leakage” markets—developing countries where sanitation systems are often unreliable. The data used in the report comes from a review of more than 200 studies and interviews with 180 experts.
Since 1964, global plastic production has increased 20-fold—311 million tons were produced in 2014—and production is expected to triple again by 2050. A whopping 86 percent of plastic packaging is used just once, according to the report’s authors, representing $80 billion to $120 billion in lost value annually. That means not only more plastic waste, but more production-related oil consumption and carbon emissions if the industry doesn’t alter its ways.
The environmental impact of plastic waste is already staggering: For a paper published in October, scientists considered 186 seabird species and predicted that 90 percent of the birds—whose populations have declined by two-thirds since 1950—consume plastic. Plastic bags, which are surprisingly degradable in warmer ocean waters, release toxins that spread through the marine food chain—and perhaps all the way to our dinner tables.
Most of the ocean’s plastic, researchers say, takes the form of microplastics—trillions of beads, fibers, and fragments that average about 2 millimeters in diameter. They act as a kind of oceanic smog, clouding the waters and coating the sea floor, and look a lot like food to small marine organisms.
In December, President Barack Obama signed a law banning microbeads, tiny plastic exfoliaters found in toothpaste and skin products that get flushed into waterways. But the MacArthur report urges plastic producers to step up and address the problem by developing products that are reusable and easily recycled—and that are less toxic in nature—and working to make compostable plastics more affordable.
The 2050 prediction is based on the assumption that global fisheries will remain stable over the next three decades, but a report released last week suggests that may be wishful thinking. Revisiting fishery catch rates from the last 60 years, Daniel Pauly and Dirk Zeller of the University of British Columbia found that the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization drastically underestimates the amount of fish we pluck from the seas. The United Nations relies on official government data, which often only captures the activities of larger fishing operations. When the British Columbia researchers accounted for smaller fisheries, subsistence harvesting, and discarded catches, they calculated catches 53 percent larger than previously thought.
There was a glimmer of hope in the findings, though: The researchers write that fishing rates, after peaking in 1996, declined faster than previously thought—particularly among large-scale industrial fisheries. Whether that trend will hold is another story.
Source: http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2016/01/more-plastic-than-fish-oceans-gyre
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Thank you Rinpoche for sharing the article. It is indeed very worrying if human continue to pollute sea like that. Dolphin is one of the most intelligent animal in the world. It is really sad to hear that they suffer from human irresponsibility. 72% of earth is covered in water, if human doesn’t care about the environment and continue throwing rubbish into the sea, according to the chart, by 2050 we’ll be surrounded by dirty water, and all the living beings in the sea will be vanished. Sea and sea living beings play one of the main role in our life eco system, if the sea living was destroyed, it will cause a big impact in our eco system. Really hope more and more people out there learn about the gravity of sea pollution, and start to do something about our environment. We don’t want dolphins to extinct one day. _/\_
Just like what Lucas has commented, humans are parasites of this world. Yes, although this might seem harsh to certain people but this is the truth and the truth hurts. If you do not agree with what I said, then you should totally stop yourself and your friends from polluting the environment.
It is such a shame to know that the world is becoming a mess to live in. Imagine this, the Earth has existed for more than 4 billion years, living beings such as animals and plants have been here for the last 600 million years and they have kept the Earth clean with no pollution at all. But humans have only existed for only 6 million years and we are literally killing the Earth with our selfishness.
If we do not take care of the Earth well, it is going to fall apart and then we will have to say goodbye to our selfish human race.
Mankind has been abusing the environment for centuries mainly in the name of development. This is not to say hence we leave it as it is since we are living in the comfort provided by development. I don’t think when plastic was created, we foresaw what the impact to environment would be. The application and use for plastic simply escalated beyond our expectation.
As consumerism grows, inevitably so does waste. In the past decades, global warming and climate change were hot topics. Most people finally bought into it, that if we do not collectively as a species do something about it, we may lose our habitat faster than we can evolve. Environmental issues are not new, many of us who cared know something about climate change. For the more enthusiastic, we follow other concerning issues like radioactive contamination, extinct species, endangered ecosystems, etc. Not to be forgotten because it is not going away are the piles of waste that are growing around the world.
Waste management or garbage industry is fast becoming a ludicrous money making sector. More and more companies are making wealth out of waste. Greed and money has never served us well in human history. While these companies started out saving the environment from waste devastation, human greed may turn the favor against environment.
To counter this environmental degeneration, society as a whole has to be educated and habituated into greener and more eco-friendly lifestyle. This may take generations and we may never catch up with the pace we are destroying the planet. But it does need to start now and it starts with you.
When we flick that cigarette butt, that candy wrapper, that plastic bag we become part of the chain of events that lead to destroying nature.
It is very true that humans are ruining this planet. They kill it’s other inhabitants and they ruin the land and seas. Humans are a parasite to this world and that is the truth of the matter because there are so many things that they do to the planet that is so bad because they do not live for the future. They don’t think for the children or the next generation after that. The people that kill the planet are the lazy ones, the selfish ones and the ones that would make money through a polluting industry.
The common excuse I hear from people to stop me from complaining that they are eating meat is “it is only one piece/life, what is the difference?”. The people that that say that it is only a small thing are the ones that kill, the planet and other lives. Same like being vegetarian, every small bit counts. Every life eaten is “just one” but billions of “just ones” kills billions. It is the same with littering, “its just one bag, it won’t do that much”, then a billion bags are littered.
We are killing the planet. I wish all people could just see this. Every good bit counts too. If we don’t eat that piece of meat and if we don’t throw that plastic bag there is what can save us. because at the end of the day, every little bit counts and every step counts. So lets start.
It is certainly not a rumor nor is it untrue that we are polluting our rivers/seas/oceans everyday with our rubbish and it is really getting to be a serious problem now.
Plastics are basically chemicals in a more solid form and they can be really dangerous to animals in the sea as they might mistake it as food and swallow it which could lead to them suffocating.
As humans, we need to be more responsible with our actions.
We need to clean up after ourselves and make sure that we dispose our rubbish properly and not just be lazy and throw it in to the ocean/sea or likewise as innocent animals living in the sea could die because of our ignorance
Plastic in the oceans and rivers is a danger to fishes, waterbirds and other marine life. As a result of consuming plastic objects, they starve to death. Unless drastic measures are taken, especially in developing countries, it may be too late to save the planet.
Dear Rinpoche, thank you for sharing this article with us. It is very obvious that we humans are the most selfish organism on earth. Whatever we do is motivated by ego and we do not think about the consequences as long as we get what we want. We had been exploiting the earth’s resources and polluting the environment with all sorts of nonsense such as plastics and chemicals. Little to our knowledge that we are actually killing ourself very very slowly. We seems to forget that we need mother nature to live. We keep occupy ourselves with the advancement of technology and forgot about the basic needs to survive which is a clean and safe environment to live in.
Global warming and holes in the ozone layer are perfect examples of the damages we had done. These damages will soon worsen and we will have to suffer, or to be exact, our next generation will suffer. If everyone have a little dharma in their life, so that they will understand the importance of independent arising. The situation will be different as we will take care of each other and the environment around us as well. The world will be a different place.
Humbly,
Chris
dependent arising*
We humans have been used to being irresponsible for most of our lives, but little did we know, even a small action such as littering contributes towards such a serious phenomenon. It’s serious not just because the oceans are filled with rubbish and it’s an eyesore to us, obviously these reasoning do not convince us.
We have read about how whales are trapped in fishing nets, how birds and turtles died because they accidentally consumed plastics and etc. To most of us, it doesn’t hurt for a few of them to die. But the death rates are increasing day after day, month after month, if we do not buck up now and do something about, it will reach a point where it’ll be too late for us to do something.
It is really sad to read the alarming statistic on how polluted the ocean has become and that it will eventually turn worse. There are many of types of ocean pollutants that endanger marine life, plastic waste is one of them. While some of them are more obvious than others, all contribute to a very unhealthy ocean and the death of its inhabitants. We may think that the death of the marine lives would be the end of the story. Well, no. Pollutants usually find their way to the sea bed where bottom feeding organisms reside. They ingest these chemicals and contaminates the food chain; the smaller fish is eaten by the larger fish, which is then eaten by human. As human consume the sea creatures laced with harmful chemical, toxins build up in the tissues of the people that lead to illnesses and short or long term health problems. It is a vicious cycle created by human that causes sufferings to other sentient beings, yet at the end of the day, human beings pay for the price.
Thank You Rinpoche for the informative blogpost that remind us to live simple, reduce waste and be a responsible citizen of the planet.
Humbly, bowing down,
Stella Cheang