We engage in
non-stop buying, non-stop throwing, but we do not realize our health and
environment have been greatly damaged during the process.
---
<The Story of Stuff >
Bad habit of “Dispose After Use”
It has become a natural habit for
people to dispose stuffs. However, you may not know that people were not used
to dispose stuff in the past. After World War II, merchants started to encourage
the use of disposable items in order to promote their plastic products... As of
today, almost 50% of plastic raw material is being used to produce disposable products.
Countless of plastic products are being
produced and disposed every day. The 'light-weight, strong and durable'
features of plastic have caused it to be a disaster after disposed.
Creature Killer
Plastic waste has caused at least
267 types of living creatures injured or dead; Plastic waste has become the
main cause of death for about 1,000,000 seabirds and 100,00 sea creatures every
year. Albatross for example, approximately 200,000 out of 500,000 Albatross
chicks die each year due to their mother bird mistakenly picking plastic waste as
food to feed them. Young birds die from starvation because they couldn't
consume any food or water with their stomach filled with plastic waste; Some
birds swallow the plastic wastes that perforates their stomach or blocks their
esophagus, leading to inability to consume food......
Plastic Soup
Ocean is the blue heart of our
earth, it is also an important marine habitat. Estimated 725,700,000 kg of
plastic items are being dumped into ocean every year! Day after day, the ocean
has become a big pot of “Plastic Soup”. Researcher from Japan discovered that
particles of plastic will act as a sponge for other toxins such as PCB and BPA in
ocean. Plastic waste is consumed by fish and many of these fish will be
consumed by humans. Is plastic waste in the ocean eventually coming back to us
by entering the food chain?
Health Hazards
Many plastic products contain
hazardous chemical addictives such as plasticizing agent, filler, dyes,
lubricant and many others. High temperatures can cause addictives to leach out
of the plastic. DEHP is the commonly use plasticizing agent. Research indicates
that DEHP often links to the following illnesses: Tumor, cancer, infertility,
hormone disorders, male feminization and genital anomalies.
Cause Flood
In Kota Kinabalu, for example, the
usage of plastic products per day has reached 150 tons, which 1/3 is from
plastic bags and polystyrene food containers. These plastic waste clog drains,
create breeding grounds for mosquitoes, cockroaches, flies and rats; they also cause
flood to happen in cities and suburban areas. Environment protection agency has
installed several garbage nets in local rivers to collect garbage floating on
the rivers. Each garbage net costs RM120,000.
Excessive Waste
Most of the plastic waste will go
to landfills, rivers and oceans; we found evidence of “wastages” and “pollution”
everywhere from bustling cities to remote villages. In 2012, the first, second
and third landfill of Bekenu in East Malaysia were saturated, while the fourth
landfill under construction costs around RM 24,000,000. Malaysia government
proposed several incinerators to process garbage, are we willing to bear a more
polluted air quality?
Consumer Awareness
However, the guilty ones is not plastic,
but the human who “use and dispose”.
“Cheap” plastic products brings
'heavy price' of damage to health and ecosystem.
“Convenient” plastic products
bring “inconvenient” consequences to health and ecosystem.
Plastic derived from petroleum. We
turn this million years old natural resources into something we use for only a few
minutes, then we dispose these non-biodegradable waste back to earth. A
responsible consumer will consider the cost and consequences of using and
disposing these products.
Learn to Reuse
Let
us review those “convenient products” which are commonly used in life, but are
actually harming the earth during the process of manufacturing and using, are
they necessities?
--- Li Wei-Wen (The Society of Wilderness,Taiwan)
Bring Your Own Bottle – A Must
I wish I could put it mildly, but
I have no choice but to say it frankly: “No more bottled water, please.”
Banning the sales of bottled water
has become a growing trend globally; Many environmental organizations and
cities have joined in. Few years ago, the mayors of New York City, San
Francisco and Salt Lake City have jointly declared their stand on “Boycott the Bottled
Water”; More than 100 cities voted to ban bottled water; Over 90 universities
have already or proposed to ban the sales of bottled water on campus.
Most of the bottled water
companies are unwilling to disclose their sources of bottled water, treatment process
and purity level of water. Labels of bottled water are often printed with
“Nature” name or logo, attempting to confuse consumers that their water source
is pure spring water. In fact, the source of nearly half of the brands are just
faucet water, but consumers have to pay 2000 times of the price of their house's
faucet water in order to purchase the bottled water.
It was found that many of the
bottled waters are no better than tap water in terms of sanitation; Some even
contains 38 types of pollutants or bacteria and 8 types of chemical substances.
Bottled waters are usually stored for some times, and the bottles are exposed
to heat during delivery, therefore heavy metals, chemical toxins, carcinogens (antimony,
phthalates, plasticizers, estrogen, nitrite…...) will be released into the water and then into the body of drinkers.
Scientists from the Pacific
Institute had estimated that 50 million barrels of petroleum have been used
globally to produce plastic bottles of the bottled water every year (the
energy and water being consumed during the process of manufacturing, delivery
and sales are not included yet).
The “Corporate Accountability
International” considers bottled water as a product of ‘corporate abuse’, which
drive public water resources into private hands. Some bottled water manufacturers
extract underground water from others’ lands, bottle it and sell to ignorant
consumers. Consequences of profitability come with depleted underground water
source, damaged rivers and lakes, ecosystem, agriculture……
* Tips for
everyone：
Buy either a stainless steel, ceramic,
glass or type-5 plastic water bottle; Fill it with filtered faucet water and
bring it wherever you go. Avoid drinking bottled water where the faucet water
is available.
* Note：
The commonly used large bottled
water dispenser in office is also considered to be the bottled water, which can
be replaced with drinking fountain that connected to the faucet water.
Bring Your Own Cutlery – Why Not?
There are 2 types of polystyrene
cutlery: Foam Type (Disposable plate/cup, take-away food container) , Solid Type (Disposable spoon/fork,
coffee cup lid, yogurt and margarine container). “Styrene”from
polystyrene is a carcinogen that causes genetic disease, affects the
reproductive system, destruction on fetal growth...... Styrene will be leaching
into food when under heat, or contacted with oily or acidic substances. We are
actually consuming “chemistry meal” when we use polystyrene as food container.
Many of us are aware that
polystyrene is toxic to human, yet we still tolerate it day after day. Can't we
just stop using the polystyrene without waiting for government to ban it? Do we
have to blindly accept anything provided by hawkers or buffet caterers? Why don’t we make some changes?
Bring your own cutlery, why not? ---
Bring your own food container when take away food from restaurants; Bring your
own cutlery when attend parties or feasts. With the same napkin you use to wipe
your mouth, wipe away the grease on your cutlery before you bring them back to
wash. If we bring our cutlery, we can
reduce half of the waste! Use the leftover food to make compost or bring it
back as dinner for your pets! 0% waste！
* Note:
Heat resistance degrees indicated
on plastic products simply means the product will not be deformed under certain
temperature, but it doesn't mean that no plasticizers or chemical toxins will
be leaching.
Bring Your Own Bag – It's Easy
Not all plastic products should be
banned, but some with their “environmental cost” is much higher than their usage
value, plastic bag is one of those.
In 2002, Bangladesh began to ban
all plastic bags after they discovered plastic bags are the major cause of
deadly flooding in 1988 and 1998. Republic of Ireland started to introduce
“plastic bag tax” or “Plastax” in year 2002, resulted in a 94% drop in
consumption, and plastic waste has been dramatically reduced. In Ireland,
carrying a plastic bag has soon become a nuisance like wearing a fur coat or do
not clean the pet's feces, it's unacceptable socially.
The “No Plastic Day” regulation
implemented by local government encourages people to bring their own shopping
bag. However, merchants distribute excessive “eco-friendly bags” to advertise
and to attract customer, or customers keep accept “eco-friendly bags” without
using it, this is also considered to be a waste in disguise. In fact, the
material of your own shopping bags, be it cotton, non-woven, linen, paper or
even plastic is not an issue as long as we “reuse” the bags over and over again.
We can save around 2 billion
plastic bags annually if every family in Malaysia consumes lesser plastic bag
every day. “Many a little makes a mickle” can lead to a considerable effect.
Small Acts, Big Impacts --- ‘Treasure our resources’ and ‘reduce
waste’ are actually ‘grand’ acts.
Hui-Zhi
*Main
references and sources: 1. <Plastic> -- Susan Freinkel; 2. Insight Sabah; 3. <Bottlemania>
-- Elizabeth Royte; 4. Tapped (movie)
