Companies Producing Plastic with Less Than 20 Micron Thickness Have Been Ordered to Close Down

Consumerism has grown rampantly with the plastic covers promoting the concept of `purchase anything at any time'. We have forgotten out culture of conservation and are replacing it with the western ways of consumerism. Materialism modern man, caring only for comforts, has become overwhelmingly dependent on plastic. When children go to schools, holiday makers to tourist places, everybody carries plastic carry nags. Milk sachets, water, eatables and soft drinks are all carried in plastic bags. These re littered everywhere after use. This has led to severe hygiene and solid waste challenges.

Plastic challenge

We are recklessly producing tons of waste in our cities everyday. Plastic is major component of it and it is not bio-degradable. When large amounts of plastic covers are produced, used and dirtied, they are disposed of by burning. Smoke from burning these dirty plastic bags causes cancer. It generates poisonous gases called dioxins and furans when burnt. Stray cattle eat plastic, which chokes their intestines causing suffocation (breathlessness) and death. In the recent floods in Mumbai, many sums and houses were under water because the drainage was blocked by plastic carry bags and covers.

Ban on use of plastic packages

Companies producing plastic with less than 20 micron thickness have been ordered to close down. The government has been particularly firm that factories manufacturing and recycling thin plastic should be shut down. Our Andhra Pradesh ban thin plastic.

About sixty years ago, a drop of phenyl was added to a bucket of water taken to clean the floor. Twenty years later, a teaspoon -full was used. At present, there is no dilution before using it. Now, any disinfectant germicides are being used directly, without dilution. This is not protecting but affecting human and aquatic health. Such excess use chemicals lead to pollution.

Pollution is the undesirable change in the living, non-living and chemical environment.

Yet again, sixty years ago, the bicycle was the most common vehicle on the road. Now, petrol and diesel- guzzling vehicles zip around on our roads polluting our town/city.

Sixty years ago, solid waste was very little, and it disintegrated into soil easily, mostly by itself. Presently, with most waste being plastic, it strangulates the soil.

It was a quieter world before the machines came in noise pollution is at unbearably high levels. The peace of the past has given way to the din of the present. Let us understand all these issues/problems in some more detail.

More people called for more food farmers resorted to the uncontrolled use of synthetic chemical fertilizers and pesticides to grow more food to meet the demand. These chemicals entered the seeds, leaves, plant, tree, bird and animal, thus getting into the food chain itself.

Alongside, the soil has lost its fertility due to the overuse of chemical pesticides. This is how our rural environment stands degraded today. Barren lands, unnatural humidity in the air and rising temperatures, all these changes in our surroundings followed. Depending on temperature and humidity, the intensity of the effect of pollution is felt.