With over 150 million tonnes of plastic floating in the oceans, Goa's shores would soon be swamped by microplastics that will not only destroy marine life but also enter the human body via the food chain.
Due to garbage dumped in the oceans, fish, birds and other marine organisms have already started ingesting microplastics in fibre, fragment and film form.
Polypropylene fibres found in packaging, fishery and textiles are the worst culprits as they are very rapidly assimilated in fishes and other marine organisms.
Humans depend on coastal resources for survival and livelihood but the rapid degradation of the seas would have an extremely adverse impact on our lives.
Plastic debris has caused the death of millions of birds by choking, why fishes have also been found to have plastic in their stomachs. Roadside littering , dumping of food wrappers on the beaches and other activities have generated humungous amount of plastic waste which is next to impossible to be gotten rid off.
Coral reefs, mangroves, mud flats and sand dunes are fragile and critical ecosystems for marine life but the onslaught of plastic waste has destroyed these habitats too.
Microplastics are derived from petrochemicals extracted from oil and gas products and have both carcinogenic and mutagenic (damage to human DNA) properties; they can take thousands of years to decompose and in the meantime wreak irreversible damage on the environment.
It is time we woke up to the dangers of plastic and acutely restricted its use.
