Recently I watched a extremly interesting and eye opening documentary on plastic waste and how its effecting our environment. The documentary was truly heartbreaking and does leave you feeling particularly depressed about the way we treat the environment. Wildlife biologist Liz Bonnin works with some of the world's leading marine biologists and campaigners within the series on BBC iPlayer.
They explore the current plastic pollution in our seas and how many marine animals are effected by our waste levels and the methods we have with disposing of them.
Liz also visits the Citarum River in Indonesia where each day, an estimated 2,000 tonnes of plastic flows downstream and is so polluted that the number of fish in the river has declined by 60% over 20 years, and the fish that do live there are unsafe for human consumption. The people from the village are no longer fishing for fish and food but now are fishing for plastic that they could sell on to factories for cheap to get money to help fund and feed there families. Most. of the families are too sacred to eat the fish from the sea as regularly they float to the surface dead through pollution.I can't believe thats what a river can look like, the Citarum has a particular problem due to the way the country deals with there waste, they full dispose of there waste into the rivers because the government doesn't provide any methods of dispoisble. Due to the poverty in Indonesia it also showed how many small plastic goods sold at markets for people to live and have the same amenities as us in the west, for example shampoo, spice and soap. They import cheaper goods in sachets so that people don't struggle to have basic essitainals even if they can't afford the bigger full sized goods. I think this is a problem that there government has to try and resolve because it would be cruel to take away peoples rights to have basic essentials.
So many plastics are purely just one time use and then people just throw them away, the brutal programme will hopefully have impacted on how people use plastics and people start to make a large effort to cut down on plastic usage.
Scientists aren't sure why marine life are attracted to plastic and waste in our oceans, some thing they think its food due to the chemicals it gives off in the water and the shapes and smells are thought to confuse them.
Everyone needs to make a huge change, this programme opened my eyes to the harsh reality of pollution and how much damage we have already created as a planet.
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