We have seen the world making a big noise over the past year with charities, networks like Sky News Ocean Rescue, individuals and many small businesses in South African doing their bit to clean up beaches from all these single-use plastic bags that are washed up on our shores.
It seems like an endless task with the more you pick up, the more there are… and yes it is an endless job, but the planet needs every country to get involved in the mass clean-up of our oceans, etc.
I go to the shops almost every day and take a reusable bag for this very reason, but I see all the local stores are still selling single-use plastic bags without a care in the world and unfortunately, these plastic items are either discarded of or put in a bin which is sometimes blown away. In most cases, simply not using the bins provided. Thus end up littering the streets or land up harming wildlife by polluting the ocean.
Plastic is a man-made non-bio-degradable product, which means that these plastics stay in the seas for a long time. However, they do break up into smaller bits called “microplastics” which becomes even more dangerous and troublesome to clean up and or get rid of or find a use for through recycling. Some great initiatives have been introduced to look out for and become an endorser of.
Last week a whale died because it had ingested these plastic items. 30 plastic bags were found along with many micro plastics inside its stomach.
This is not a once off thing either, it is happening all the time. The cycle goes: Sealife are eating these microplastics, fisherman catch these fish and are sold to the retailers where we the consumers end up buying and suffer the consequences. It has not yet been proven what the exact after effects and long-term damage will be by consuming this affected food group, but it is very unlikely to have a good outcome!
It is sad that no one is taking a big enough initiative to stop using these single-use plastics… We at Mutha love our planet and want to make a difference by trying to make the South African retailers see what they are doing to the environment by creating AWARENESS about this global problem as it’s getting worse every day.
One of Mutha’s legs is our N.P.O. called MUTHA CARES where we have actively gotten involved by helped communities in many walks of life in Cape Town, and will now be doing our part to create awareness to everyone affected (all of us).
Watch Sir David Attenborough Sky News video about what is happen to our planet below:
10 ways – to stop using single-use plastics
Here are some of the global charities already involved in this clean up crises:
https://news.sky.com/ocean-rescue
