Activists warn of growing microplastic risk
(CNS): Young local environmental activists from Protect Our Future and Plastic Free Cayman teamed up last weekend for another beach clean-up and collected almost 300lbs of trash from Smith Cove. Noting that the bulk of the debris was plastic and microplastics and that much of it is now becoming micro-environments for various species, the groups are warning that the amount of microplastics on the Cayman Islands shoreline poses an increasing risk to marine life.
“Bottle caps are now homes for marine species,” the activists said after the latest clean-up. “Even baby mangroves are growing through and around plastic bottles. This problem is made worse by the vast amounts of plastic which inundate Cayman’s shores after hurricanes or tropical storms.”
Protect Our Future is working with Plastic Free Cayman to survey different locations in an effort to track the amount of plastic pollution being removed from various sites. Both groups are continuing to push for a plastic ban policy similar to those that have already been rolled out on other Caribbean islands.
The government has committed to implementing a limited ban that would apply to some single-use plastic items, such as bags, cutlery, straws and food containers. Over the years several target dates to implement the policy have come and gone. However, Premier Wayne Panton announced earlier this year that he intended to roll out a ban by October 2022.
“What I have indicated to my team is that I want to have single-use plastic bans in place in the third quarter. That is the target we have,” Panton said in May. “We’ve got to change the way we do things. We can’t just go for convenience to get things done. We got to go and do things deliberately and recognise that we have a planet and an environment and an ecosystem to respect and protect because it enables us to survive.”
Local activists have said they will continue to campaign on this issue and it will be a focus of the upcoming Climate March in George Town, on 4 November.
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Category: Environmental Health, Health, Land Habitat, Science & Nature
These articles always bring out the same excuses by those who are too lazy, too cheap and too selfish to be very slightly inconvenienced by a single use plastic ban. Yes Cayman is tiny and yes we will only make a tiny difference to the problem but EXACTLY the same argument can be made for an individual Haitian throwing their water pouch in the gutter. One person doesn’t make a difference, obviously, people make a difference in numbers but if the richest island in the region can’t be bothered how the hell is anyone ever going to get Haiti to stop?
Surely Leo Baekeland and his family should be cleaning this up?
Ah yes. Pick up hundreds of pounds of plastic, place into plastic bags, then transport them to the landfill, only for the same plastic to wash right back up, yielding a net negative.
Microplastics have been detected in human breast milk for the first time, a new study has found. The study, first published in the journal Polymers in June by Italian researchers, analysed breast milk samples from 34 new mothers a week after they had given birth
https://www.1news.co.nz/2022/10/12/microplastics-discovered-in-human-breast-milk-raises-alarm/
We all have to take responsibility. Yes there are other countries that put more plastic waste in the sea, but we can’t justify dumping our plastic just because they dump more. (We don’t say it’s OK for a few people to be shot here, because more people are shot in the USA).
As well as reducing plastic use here we should encourage the UK to campaign for plastic reduction at an international level.
Cancer is the risk, not the certainty of microplastics. 100% of our water is delivered via PVC pipes, some of it over 30 years old.
Humans have really screwed up this planet. We’re an absolute blight.
Regardless of where it originated, the plastic in the ocean is just ridiculous. Regionally, We’re one of the better places in terms of trash, but we still have plenty of disgusting, ignorant idiots who ruin the place by littering.
I really don’t understand Wayne, and I’ll concede the quote is somewhat selective, but one week it’s ‘we have got to change the way we do things’ and then another week it’s rezoning SMB for 10 story development. PACT wears sloppy slosh mongling shoes 👞 👢🛼
*Barcadere
Cove. Always has been, always will be
So says Johnny Come Lately
Yeah, only 43 years of swimming there. Driftwood for sure
Micro plastics are in everything. There’s no getting away from it. The average human consumes the same mass as a credit card in micro plastics every year. It’s in bottled water it’s in everything.
Fear not, the nukes will fly soon and none of this will matter.
what planet Earth needs is 1-2,000 years without humans.
Half those plastics will still be here!
Looking forward to the single use plastic ban. Completely pointless, but no more picking up after my dog!
there are biodegradable bags.
That your hand goes through while picking up the shit.
Excuse the pun but garbage. They are more expensive but work just as well. Stop with the lame excuses.
20 thousand years of this, 7 more to go.
well it’s October 2022 now isn’t it?
It’s somewhat illogical to protest the third world’s chronic municipal waste failures/corruption/theft and their population’s ritual gully dumping, on a recipient island hundreds of miles down current. Banning single use here, won’t stop ocean plastic and trash dumped from third world. 2 separate issues. Like the third world, there are “homes” in Cayman without potable water, and maybe that should be a focus.
Protesting Cayman’s reliance on single use – less plastics. There’s plenty coming from the island. No need to look any further than your backyard.
I appreciate the clean up efforts, but a local single use plastics ban is just plain ignorant. Yes, there is a crazy amount of plastic in the ocean. If anyone doesn’t know where it all comes from, Google it. Lots of countries around here basically dump all their garbage into rivers that wash into the ocean. Very ugly videos on Youtube. Stop being brainwashed to chase after my straw when other countries dump hundreds of tons of garbage straight into the ocean.
Just ban them now, no waiting, ban them!
it’s worse than that. micro plastic are found in bottled water.
In mother’s milk