World Environment Day is observed on June 5th every year to raise awareness of the issues that are currently affecting our environment. This year’s theme “solution to plastic pollution”, focuses on the need to end plastic disaster which has turned into critical world health issue.
However, it is very common today to witness most of our communities littered with unwanted or unnecessary plastic waste. Our streets, rivers, schools, markets, and even roadsides are witnessing the indiscriminate dumping of plastic. This trend adds to the world environmental pollution.
The campaign against issues affecting our environment does not start today. It is an awareness campaign which began since 1972 when the United Nations (UN) lunched it. Despite these decades of sensitizations, yet, the world witnesses many issues and contaminations leading to health problems, water pollution, climate change, soil degradation, economic impact among others.
It is important to note that as we celebrate World Environmental Day this year; with focus on “Plastic pollution” the planet still experiences contaminations from plastic waste. According to UN, more than 8 million tons of plastic waste goes to our seas and rivers, a development that leads to deaths of millions of fishes yearly.
These statistics however show that we must do a lot to address plastic related challenges. What can we do to support the campaign?
(1) We must all participate in taking the campaign to our nook and cranny about the effect of the plastic pollution in our environment and ensure that other people are encouraged to join the programme.
(2) We must all participate in campaign against single-use plastic to refuse so as to reduce the degree of daily plastic pollution in our environment.
(3) We must all involve in plastic-free initiatives to ensuring that our environment is free from Plastic waste.
(4) We must all encourage using of plastic items such as bags, bottles, containers among others for many items before discarding them. The reuse of the items is also helping in fighting the menace.
(5) We must all encourage recycling of other plastic waste to other new items. This will also reduce the degree of the plastic waste often littered in our environment.
In this regard, let us be loyal and dedicated to the world community to achieving a sustainable future for all and sundry. All hands must be on deck to succeed on this programme.