Death by plastic waste product

The carcass of a Green turtle later on government veterinarians failed to save it by intravenous feeding at the marine heart in Chantaburi province, Thailand. Plastic and other rubbish filled the turtle'southward intestinal track, leaving it unable to eat and caused its decease two days after. (Handout / Marine and Littoral Resource Development Eye / AFP Photograph)

Humanity's enduring dearest affair with plastic, a dear more pronounced in the Southeast Asian region, has claimed another victim. This time, the victim is so rare that it was in one case thought to accept been extinct 65 one thousand thousand years agone and is known by the moniker "living fossil". This calendar week, pictures accept surfaced of a dead Coelacanth taken by a fisherman in Indonesia in 2016 but only recently shared. Potential cause of death: Lay'due south Potato Chips plastic nutrient wrappers around its intestines. Only two out of 90 historical species of the Coelacanth are known to still be extant in the waters off Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Due south Africa, Republic of madagascar, Comoros and Indonesia.

The endangered Coelacanth at present joins a heart-breaking group of marine animals threatened by the increasing corporeality of plastic debris in our oceans. In Southeast Asia, a number of endangered marine animals killed with large amounts of plastic in their stomachs have been reported by the media. In June, a Airplane pilot whale was found beached in Songkhla, Southern Thailand, choked to death past lxxx pieces of plastic rubbish weighing eight kilograms in its stomach. In the same calendar month, a Light-green turtle was institute dead in Chanthaburi, Thailand, with plastic shreds from line-fishing gear, safety bands and other marine debris in its breadbasket. In 2016, a Sei whale and a Baleen whale were found beached in the southern Malaysian state of Johor. Although information technology was not a conclusive cause for their deaths, plastic debris was establish in their stomachs.

These cases highlighted in the media are only the tip of the iceberg. While cases involving large or iconic species such as whales, dolphins and turtles are given a lot of media attention, many other animals from less iconic species killed by marine plastic debris are oftentimes sadly overlooked. A marine biologist and lecturer at Kasetsart University, Thon Thamrongnawasawat, told the media that almost 300 marine animals die each year in Thailand every bit a result of ingesting plastic. Globally, information technology is estimated that over 100 million marine animals are killed each year by plastic waste. This include species mentioned above likewise as fish, seals and birds.

Marine death by plastic in ASEAN
Source:Diverse

Southeast Asia'due south ocean of plastic

In its reports, the Un Environment Program (UNEP) estimates that over 300 million tons of plastic are produced every year, one-half of which is used in making single-apply items such as shopping bags, cups and straws. Only 9 percentage of the 9 billion tons of plastic the globe has always produced has been recycled, with the remaining catastrophe upwards in landfills, dumps or in the environment. This includes at to the lowest degree 8 meg tons of plastic ending upwards in the oceans every year. Floating plastic debris is currently the most arable particular of marine litter, making up 80 percent of all marine debris.

Five Southeast Asian countries, namely Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia are amidst the top 10 countries worldwide ranked by mass of mismanaged plastic waste. The five Asean fellow member states collectively contributed 8.9 million metric tons of mismanaged plastic waste, defined as textile that is either littered or inadequately disposed in dumps or open, uncontrolled landfills. Mismanaged waste material could eventually enter the ocean via inland waterways, wastewater outflows, and transport past wind or tides.

Co-ordinate to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), marine plastic pollution has affected at to the lowest degree 267 species, near visibly and disturbingly by ingestion, suffocation and entanglement. Floating plastic waste product is ofttimes mistaken for nutrient past marine animals and once ingested, these animals will die slowly of starvation equally their stomachs are filled with plastic debris.

Death of a gentle giant

Divers would attest that a shark whale sighting is one of the near desired encounters of the marine kind. The irksome-moving filter-feeding gentle giants take been described equally purple and magical, putting many of those who are lucky enough to run into them in the wild into a trance with their gracefulness. This week, a whale shark was found beached on the Philippine shores of Tagum Urban center in Davao del Norte. Environmentalist Darrell Blatchley reported that in that location was plastic waste lodged in the gills of the 14-foot juvenile whale shark which had to be pried out, while more than plastic waste matter was constitute inside its stomach, blocking the fine filters of its intestines. He added the whale shark was besides underweight and emaciated.

The UNEP estimates that the economic damage caused by plastic waste in the Asia-Pacific tourism, fishing and aircraft industries is about Us$1.3 billion every year. This represents 10 percent of the total annual economical damage to the world's marine ecosystem caused by plastic.

Information technology is undeniable that plastic is a useful material in our everyday life. All the same, its utilise should not exist at the expense of the surroundings equally we conspicuously cannot cope with the amount of plastic waste nosotros generate. Unless we rethink our toxic relationship with plastic, our habit to information technology could evidence to be detrimental and fifty-fifty fatal to all life on the planet.