Plastic pollution and World Environment Day 2018

Abstract

We are celebrating the World Environment Day (WED) on 5th June 2018 to encourage the alertness for the protection of our envirome. The world environment day is the great day to celebrate about the awareness among the common people about our environment and its significance in term of sustainability, effects of changing climate, impact of various pollution and various activities done by the scholars in the world towards the environmental protection. The world environment day is widely celebrated across the world and it was first established by United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) in 1972. Each WED is organized about a theme that emphases the consideration on a predominantly persistent to environmental apprehension. This year, India is the host country. The theme for this year 2018 is beating plastic pollution. Plastic is synthetic substance made of organic polymers that can be molded into different shapes. Plastic is used everywhere in different form start from our house to ships, aero planes, even the healthcare industry would not be possible without use of plastic material. Natural plastic is also found from rubber tree. Jambeck1 reported that ~8,000,000 tons per annum of plastic goes into the ocean.1 Eriksen et al.,2 estimated that 525,000,000 pieces of plastic are present in the sea.2 It is estimated in 2010 that approximately 1% of global plastic waste enter in to sea.3 This plastic adsorbs deadly chemicals like PCBs and DDTs, increasing their concentration (accumulation) by a million.4 These stubborn pollutants enter into biomass and hence bioaccumulation takes place in the food chain which results higher concentration of pollutants in fish5 including other species which ultimately reach to humans.