Plastic for bread

At one end of the world, leaders from different countries have gathered to discuss climate change and how to save the environment from further deterioration. At the other end, monkeys are having to eat plastic and polythene discarded by tourists of the Sundarbans in Khulna.

The devastating consequences of plastic pollution still seem to go over our heads. Land animals, more often than not, suffer from entanglements or accidental consumption, which causes intestinal blockages, starvation and ultimately death. Plastic pollution is slowly killing life not only on land, but at sea.

Photo: Habibur Rahman

Along with that, plastics are threatening the ability to keep the global temperature below 1.5 degrees Celsius – an objective of the COP conferences – as greenhouse gases are emitted throughout the plastic life cycle. The extraction, refining and manufacture of plastics are all carbon intensive activities and pose greater risk to the health of the Earth than one can imagine.

Hasn't time yet come for us to dream for a plastic-free world?