World unites on ocean pollution..

Plastic from a dead whale, picture courtesy Green Peace

On 28,29 June 2019 in Osaka Japan under the leadership of Shinzo Abe, the Japanese PM, leaders of 20 major economies (G20) of the world are getting together to come up with some thoughts on an action plan to contain the marine plastic waste that has been haunting the world's oceans. 

How serious is the global problem of marine plastic waste ?  

Of the 8.3 billion tons of plastic produced globally since its invention in the fifties, 6.3 billion tons has been condemned as waste. Only 9% of this has been recycled so far, 74% is either dumped in landfills or strewn around, 12% gets incinerated and the rest most probably lands in oceans .. 8 million tonnes of plastics ends up in oceans every year ..  (click here for the NG link)

And plastics take about 600 -1000 years to decompose into micro-plastics that enter our food chain. This is one of the greatest threat to humanity and animals in the form of foreign particles in the bodies leading to cancer and many other ailments.

Of the 34.5 million tons of plastic produced by US (13.4% of global production) in 2015, only about 3.1 million tons (9%) was recycled. All the rest has gone into land fills, incinerated, strewn around or entered water bodies .. Source : US Env. Protection Agency

Really shocking . The reason why G20 nations (click here for NY Times link) have taken it as top priority and have started working on containing the plastics entering global water bodies.

With the largest population, China produced the largest quantity of plastic, at nearly 60 million tonnes. This was followed by the United States at 38 million, Germany at 14.5 million and Brazil at 12 million tonnes.

Only 9% of the plastics generated by these 4 countries was recycled, these under developed countries caused the maximum plastic pollution by way of land fills, incineration and dumping in oceans .. (click here for the link)

In terms of plastic waste produced per person the under developed country of Germany tops at 0.5 kg /person/ day followed by the US at 0.4 kg/person/day .. Where do these wastes go, either to landfills (ground pollution), incineration (air pollution) or oceans (water pollution).

The reality is China, US and Germany are the greatest irresponsible plastic polluters on our planet .. (click here)

Regarding air pollution the picture is no way different, as pointed by this World Economic Forum Report. China's total CO2 equivalent pollution of air is about 29%, followed by US at 14% and India at 6-7%  (top 3 global air polluters).. China and US account for almost 45% of global air pollution, which is easily covered up again in statistics ..

Before the industrial revolution, levels of atmospheric CO2 were around 280 parts per million (ppm). By 2013, that level had breached the 400ppm mark for the first time. On 3 June 2019 it stood at 414.40ppm. For 300 years the industrialised world has been polluting the air and for the past 40 years, China and India too have joined in ..

Who is the biggest culprit in this game of global silent covered-up environmental pollution, it is very clear as daylight .. (click here)

Cancer Incidence : Overall, the sad part of this environmental pollution for air, land and water is revealed in this vital health statistic .. cancer incidence, from World Health Organisation Cancer Today website .. 

Cancer prevalence rates in top 3 economies of the world (as percentage of population)

China 0.55% (5.5 in 1000)

US  2.2% (22 in 1000)

India 0.17% (1.7 in 1000)

Cancer prevalence rates

US = 13x India

US = 4x China

China = 3.2x India

The heavy price developed countries have to pay for their under-developed thinking .. (click here)

If the world does not unite on fixing this ocean plastics pollution by the different countries of the world, it is going to be a serious issue not only for humanity but the animals on planet earth and all the sea living creatures and fishes swimming in our oceans. Click here for a video of a whale that was shot off the Norwegian coast which had a whole bunch of plastic waste inside its body.

Click here for the greenpeace article on the ocean pollution thats haunting the world.

Boyan Slat with the largest ocean cleanup project

One of the most suggestion is going to be increasing the percentage of recycled plastic globally from just 9% to double or triple that amount in the next ten years. This will ensure that more plastic, which is by now accepted as an important constituent of human development and culture, finds use in not just single use applications but reused and recycled in different forms and finally may be used even in mixing with bitumen to lay roads. The main focus should be to limit the plastics entering landfills, oceans and being incinerated with fumes entering the air. It can limit the spread of the scourge of the present generation - cancer ..

Boyan Slat, the ocean cleanup kid from Uty of Delft, Netherlands, 24 years old ..(click here for the video).     His Ocean cleanup project (click here)

George..