After a long and winding week, Friday night may often end up with Netflix and ordering in. As we finish off our meal and toss the plastic containers in the bin, somewhere far away a seal might be choking on one such product disposed by someone unaware of this issue.
The festive season has begun in India. For the next four months, there will be plenty of fun, mayhem, and music all around us. That we see; but there will also be an equal if not a larger impact of such celebrations taking place parallel to this that we do not see. The mountains of plastic products disposed and forgotten about.
These are just a couple from a hundred examples of how we continue to live our protected and leisurely lives while several species across land, air and marine suffer. This is not to say that humans would be spared, it means that when we are hit eventually, the impact will be catastrophic and no amount of locked doors and big walls can protect us.
Images like the ones below hit home this fact and if this is not going to make us more responsible towards our actions and careless lifestyles, it is hard to find what else will.
1) Deforestation (99%) in National Willamette Forest in Oregon, US
2) Death by plastic - an albatross in Midway Islands, North Pacific
3) Starving polar bear in Baffin Island
4) Seahorse near Sumbawa Island, Indonesia
5) Campaign by Greenpeace Canada on plastic straws suck the life out of marine life
6) Melting ice waterfall in Svalbard, Norway
