Urgent action must be taken on plastic
The ubiquitous use of plastic in modern society is invading the food chain and puts people’s health at risk. But with consumers often having little choice but to use products containing plastic, government intervention is necessary
News reports about plastic contaminating a type of fish consumed in local meals is not just unappetising. It turns the spotlight on how the ubiquitous use of plastic in modern society is invading the food chain and putting people’s health at risk.
A 2013 study from the United States found that detectable levels of plastic were found in the urine of 95 per cent of the adult population.
In a study published in Scientific Reports in Nature, the 21 types of tested table salts were all found to contain plastic.
It remains unclear how plastic affects the human body, simply because researchers are unable to find participants who are not already exposed for comparison. But if the wastes we discard are hard for the Earth to swallow, they cannot be good for our bodies.
A staggering 12.7 tonnes of plastics are washed into the sea every year, equivalent to one garbage truck of plastic per minute, according to the United Nations. Earlier, a study found that Hong Kong beaches recorded an average of 5,000 pieces of microplastics per square metre – 2.4 times more than the concentration in the US.
We can pretend there is no problem, defer it to future generations, or change our lifestyles and habits today. The latter is obviously the way to go, but it is easier said than done. Consumers often have little choice because the market is flooded with products containing hard-to-recycle plastic and over-packaged produce.
That makes policy intervention necessary. Government efforts in education and regulation in responsible manufacturing and recycling are minuscule compared to an ocean of plastic waste. Urgent action to ban or reduce the use of plastic is called for.
