The Midway Pollution
Shocking Article
I'm just so shocked. I have been thinking how to help other people this year. Volunteering? Donation? Helping the environment? You can click the title to see the link.
I chanced upon this article about Midway Island at Pacific Ocean. This place is very unique as the only inhabitants is birds. These species are very smart and amazing. Upon reading it, I was shocked. This island is 2000km away from any nearest coastal place. Yet, there are so much rubbish found.
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| A picture of an albatross bird. Look at the stuff digested! (Source: thepointshave.com) |
The birds are actually killed slowly by the plastic trash they found along the beach and the sea. When the birds die, the remnants are skeleton and the trash that they eat! Ranging from bottle caps to sharp rusty metal objects. I saw one with the cigarette lighters! My heart literally sank! All these stuff are man-made. Guess that these objects are stuck in their stomach because of indigestion.
Furthermore, the way the adult birds feed the babies is by regurgitating the food they picked up. And the babies also ate the bottle caps and small plastic items. What a food chain?! I wonder how I can help these birds...
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| Another picture of the stuff eaten by the birds (Source from mhcvoice.wordpress.com) |
Singapore Beach Coastal Clean Up
Zooming back to Singapore, they have an organization that helps the coastal clean up! And they have done a good job in consolidating the trash information!
For example: in Sungei Tampines, they have gotten 25 volunteers to do the clean up. Within 70m of the coast line, they picked up a whopping 371kg of trash!
There are 539 plastic bags, 434 stirrers, 341 1.5litres bottles, 334 styrofoam pieces and many more. All these statistics are from http://coastalcleanup.nus.edu.sg/results/2012/ne-ste-apoaa.htm
I'm not sure how long they did to pick up the trash, but the statistics is not so pleasing. We are not the ones living there, however if everyday we have trash at our homes, we will definitely be unhappy and die earlier man!
It may be from other places that comes to our shores. However, I feel as individuals, we should really take note of the usage of plastic items.
Usage
1. Before using the plastic items, think awhile whether do you really need to use it? Do you still have them at home?
2. Styrofoam boxes: is it a need to take-away? Or if possible, we can have our meal at the place itself.
Dispose
1. We should dispose our trash effectively. For example to place in bins, or even better, the recycling bins.
2. At home, group your trash into categories such as plastics, papers and clothes. And with some effort place them beside the recycling bins.
3. Do not discard things into the drains and water bodies. It may be ended up in the coastal beaches.
Be realistic
We can't stop fully the usage of plastics in today's society. However we can reduce the consumption and by accurately disposing them, I feel it will be a greener earth too!
21st September 2013! They are having a coastal clean up! I urge you guys to sign up and join! Josh and I are going! So exciting...
We can register through this website
http://coastalcleanup.nus.edu.sg/
