{"id":2817,"date":"2019-05-29T06:49:44","date_gmt":"2019-05-29T06:49:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=2817"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:30:19","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:30:19","slug":"plastic-used-to-be-the-future-in-the-present-it-is-killing-the-land-and-choking-the-seas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2019\/05\/29\/plastic-used-to-be-the-future-in-the-present-it-is-killing-the-land-and-choking-the-seas\/","title":{"rendered":"Plastic Used to Be The Future; In The Present, It Is Killing The Land And Choking The Seas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By JENERALI ULIMWENGU-The East African<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was the\niconic movie of the generation…think 1970s and The Graduate<\/em>.\nDustin Hoffman was simply riveting as this young college product who gets\nseduced by a woman his mother\u2019s age but ends up eloping with her daughter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Few people\nwho watched then remember this elderly man who comes over to a visibly bored\nBen (Hoffman), approaches him at a party and tells him confidentially, \u201cOne word\u2026\nplastics.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ben looks\nconfused and asks, \u201cExactly how do you mean?\u201d and the older fellow answers,\n\u201cThere\u2019s a great future in plastics\u2019, leaving the youngster even more\nbefuddled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plastics\nthen was something unreal, new-fangled, illusory, a passing fancy maybe, like\nthe Hollywood \u201cplastic smiles\u201d and the plastic cups in which ice-cream was\nbeing served. But plastic was catching on, and the world was in the process of\nbeing changed fundamentally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of\nthis had its origin in the combustive role played by oil in the affairs of\nhumanity. Oil is all around us, and plastics with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his\n2004 book, Crossing the Rubicon<\/em>, Michael C Ruppert gives us a glimpse of how much we\nhave been entangled in oil and its derivatives such as plastic:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe shell\nof your computer is made from it, your food is wrapped in it. You brush your\nhair and teeth with it. There is probably some in your shampoo, and most\ncertainly its container. Your children\u2019s toys are made from it. You take your\ntrash out in it…It makes your clothes soft in the drier. \u201cAs you change the\nchannels with the TV remote you hold it in your hands. Some of your furniture\nis probably made with it. It is everywhere inside your car\u2026\u2026\u2019 ad infinitum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No doubt,\nplastic seduced the world with its ability to look just like the natural thing,\nresembling wood, stone, ivory and tortoiseshell while being lighter, stronger\nand more amenable to manipulation into multiple forms, shapes and colors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nseduction has lost its pull, however, as the world has awakened to the destructive\nforce of plastics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So much of\nthe plastic produced on earth finds its way into our soils, creating landfills\nof dead material that in turn deaden the earth wherein they are lodged, while\nother articles, borne by ocean-bound canals, rivers and other waterways, carry\nup to nine million tons of plastic to the ocean every year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is this\nway that we have managed not only to disease the dry land on which we stand,\nbut also to choke life out of the seas on which we depend for a great part of\nour livelihood and survival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1997,\nCharles C. Moore, a marine scientist, discovered what has come to be known as\nthe Great Pacific Garbage Patch, between Hawaii and California, a solid\nflotilla of pieces of furniture, motor vehicle and boat parts, bits of furniture,\ntoys, chunks of everything and anything. It is estimated that the Patch covers\nmore than 1.5 million square kilometers, or three times the size of France.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If this\nsounds scary, it is because it is. Both land and ocean resources at our\ndisposal cannot be augmented, but they certainly can be degraded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is,\nat least as far as the scientific knowledge at our disposal today, absolutely\nno way we can contrive to add a few kilometres of land or a few buckets of\nfresh or salt water to our rivers and oceans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have\nseen the extent to which unfettered human activity can poison our soils, and\nexamples abound in terms of deforestation in some parts of the African\ncontinent. Many countries, through their governments and non-state agencies,\nhave raised the alarm over such nefarious activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But little\nhas been said about the evil that plastics can do, and even where something has\nbeen said, little has been undertaken by way of proactive measures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rwanda has\nshown the way in this area by banning the use of plastics in the past quarter\nof a century, and today you could win an award if you spot a piece of plastic\nfloating around the streets of Kigali.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tanzania\nhas dillydallied, first banning plastics a few years ago, then making\nexceptions, then forgetting about the whole thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But now\nTanzania has come back with a ban. From June 1, no more plastic bags, that is\nthe order. Kenya\u2019s ban is hopefully still holding, and that should strengthen\nTanzania\u2019s hand. Let us hope that this time the ban is here to stay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read original\narticle here>><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By JENERALI ULIMWENGU-The East African It was the iconic movie of the generation…think 1970s and The Graduate. Dustin Hoffman was simply riveting as this young college product who gets seduced by…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2818,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}