Source: Spiegel TV, Manila
Who might recently visit rural beaches in around the world (so not the hotel resort privately owned daily cleaned swim friendly beaches you may see in the vacation adds) you may have noticed, rural and remote has gone… more less on each and every beach you see the left behinds of the consumer focused world? Plastic waste in all kinds and sizes bottles sheets bags shoes medicine packages mild containers, also industrial waste and fisher nets. How could this come to that?
We have been recycling and collecting for almost 20 years , separating waste to plastics, glass, paper organic…and companies rise and make money in collecting and recycling in the community , we pay more for every product to include the recycling circle. Many countries introduced these now in the community and more and more developing regions follow on this.
So what happened? Anyone might see the famous movie The Beach filmed in Thailand have a romantic vision of a perfect beach – just it isn`t there anymore. The short answer is: The amount of plastic rising.
The plastic used and thrown away has become more and more and more instead of recycling reducing and maybe avoiding to bring up new products in plastic. One may remember carton packages, glass bottles for soft drinks, milk return bottles. Nowadays you visit the markets only to find everything wrapped in plastic.
My late grandfather was passionate about repairing radios and TVs , after 15 years these might have material loss, these days you by new items all of mainly plastic and these last only 2-5 years if you are lucky.
You may have more examples of these, and a way to improve the consumer cycle please get involved give us you experience and suggestions do not give up in bringing new ideas and most important get involved in raising these.
The Ocean Robotics Project is one way to get this issue noticed, but only if we all work together, we have a chance to solve all our problems.
Jana Roider
great article thanks Jana!