Plastic

Hey guys, welcome to my blog. Let us begin our communication and information exchange by addressing something that I feel passionate and is also extremely important to all of us. Let’s talk Planet Earth.

Living in a place like New York City it baffles me daily at the lack of ecosystem awareness that exists in the city where over 12 million people live. I specifically mean “PLASTIC” and it’s effect on the world we live in.

With a city-wide ordinance requiring all residents to recycle and/or lessen it's use, there are millions of people who still neglect to recycle. Most of the folks who don’t opt to recycle either don’t know or perhaps don’t care about the repercussions it imposes.

My shock extends itself each time I enter a store and watch how the cashiers automatically set up the purchases with several plastic bags and even double and triple them without a care in the world. After refusing their bags and pulling out my own shopping bag I am responded to with looks of shock and disbelief almost as if I had just insulted them.

I am sure New Yorkers still remember hurricane Sandy in 2012. I recall walking and driving by my local beaches in Brooklyn and seeing just garbage composed mostly of plastic and all trees covered with shopping bags. There were plastic bags floating in the water or stuck on the tree branches as colorful leaves.

To be honest that was too depressing to watch. It took months to clean up the Sandy mess. Sorting out the garbage seemed endless and monumental but it was done in time.

I wonder if people ever wonder for a moment about the sea creatures who always bite and swallow plastic items mistaking the plastic for food. The water denizens then attempt to digest the undigestible which then ends up in our stomachs broken down into small fragments.

Well guess what? This plastic cause damage even to our DNA foundations upon ingesting them. I should also mention that cooking or microwaving in plastic can also damage our bodies but thats another whole other blog folks.

I spent my early years in a poor country where it wasn’t uncommon to see people dump their garbage unto any street corner. I also saw these same people throw any refuse they had into water ways. My country of Bangladesh is surrounded by water and this dumping had tremendous implications on the ecosystem there.

This resulted a definite eyesore and smelled awful and it also prompted me to wonder, “why isn't there a system for trash?” This is all so troubling because all they have to do to begin the process of cleaning up is just sorting out the garbage, the decomposing organic garbage and plastic and other recyclables.

The argument here is that it should not matter where you were raised or whatever your socioeconomic status is in life or on Earth. Certainly, if I can learn and feel concern about the land we live in at a such young age then so can you.

If this post touches your consciousness even a tiny bit then let's act on it together. Let's recycle, plan ahead and carry a reusable grocery bag. Pass this message along, educate someone who is unaware of it. Let's return some love back to this planet.