I read a news today which was shocking, at the same time very painful. A veterinary doctor performed a surgery on a cow and removed around 98 Kg of plastic and other deadly waste from its stomach. The waste included nails, screws, wire, socks and clothes along with lots of plastic covers. The cow was in immense pain and was unable to walk when it was brought in. This news disturbed me a lot. What are we humans doing to this earth? What has happened to us? Why have we become so insensitive? Why have we become so selfish? All these questions started boiling inside my head.
Plastic is the most useful, but the most dangerous substance as it is not bio-degradable. Hence when it is disposed of in the open it just keeps piling up and they stay, maybe forever. It just does not biodegrade. We use plastic for everything. From bags for carrying stuff to plastic boxes for storing things at home, from a small clip to big electronics everything is made of plastic. None of these is bio-degradable. Hence every bit of it has to be collected and treated specially. This is a costly as well as a time-consuming process. It has to be a systematic process. Hence plastic just piles up everywhere, on the roads, fields, in the forests, in the river and also in the sea. Everywhere they just live forever polluting this planet. Some people do try to dispose of it by burning it, but that too is a risky thing to do as the fumes pollute the air and breathing it for a longer time can cause severe illness in humans.
The most affected by this use of plastics are the animals. They are not aware of this substance and when we throw food waste and other things in plastic bags, animals like cows gobble them up thinking it is some kind of food. This plastic it just stays inside their system. Neither does it get digested nor does it get excreted. It just stays. Imagine a plastic bag stuck in your stomach for 2 days. It is shuddering. But these poor things don't know what they have swallowed. They don't know what is the problem with their stomach. Perhaps it just pains and they have to live with it until one day they collapse. Does it sound sad? To me, it sounds horrible. It makes me hate people who produce plastic, it makes me hate people who use it so carelessly. It makes me hate all those who either don't know what they are doing or who intentionally do it. It is so selfish of us to think only about us.
Plastic has been banned in many places most recently in Bangalore where there was a blanket ban. There are strict rules in the country which say plastic below 50 microns should not be manufactured. But how strictly these rules get implemented is a big question. None of the citizens who use plastics has any idea where the discarded plastic items go. We never bother to think where all the plastic waste is taken and what is done with them. We complain about clogged sewage and water logging but we turn a blind eye to the fact that it mostly the plastic bags that we discard which is the cause of this problem. They are so light that they just fly around in the air and land up anywhere. They are not only sour to eyes but also very dangerous pollutants.
The manufacturers seem to have no accountability what so ever in this matter. They manufacture it in mass and earn huge profits. But aren't they accountable too? In the case of plastic bags I understand, it is difficult. Because they have to be collected in bulk and recycled or else it is cumbersome work. In that case, the citizens have to be educated on the ill effects of using plastic bags. They should be educated on how to recycle it and also government/outsourced organisations should set up collection centres in towns where people can bring in collected plastic bags and give it for recycling. The manufacturers should pay some amount to the government for recycling purpose which the government can use in setting up collection points and recycling units. It is the responsibility of each person to leave this world a better place for the future generation. Steps should be taken to educate the uneducated and also to provide them with affordable eco-friendly alternatives to plastic bags.
Right now we are in a period where the life of holy cows are much dear and precious than human lives. But even among all this drama, the real pain of these animals go unseen and unheard of. There are no Gau-rakshas who can save these animals from this kind of silent cruelty. It is a great irony that the same people who kill humans for slaughtering cows cannot make any arrangements for making these animals eat safely. So much of hypocrisy in the name of politics and development.
We cannot completely avoid plastics but we need to learn to use them responsibly and as a system, define steps and actions to process them.
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