The harmful effects of plastic are well known to each one of us and despite being so knowledgeable, we still tend to use it in some way or other. Whether you are taking a home delivery from a restaurant or you are buying groceries, this substance is omnipresent through out the market. I have returned to Dhaka just few weeks ago and the wide use of plastics is really disturbing me and thus I am forced to pen down my opinions. What I’ll be sharing is something which we read daily while scrolling down our Facebook news feed or while deleting those unnecessary messages we keep receiving on What’s App about health hazards. Now to be precise, plastic is said to cause almost 52 types of cancer. The most dangerous form of plastic arises when we store hot food items inside it. As a child, putting plastic bags in bonfires made out of wood during winters pleased me a lot. I would always find amazement in seeing a plastic bag cripple and finally vanish into the fire. That is what exactly happens when we keep something hot in plastic, just that the effect might not be up to the scale for human vision to observe. In reality, plastic starts burning slowly and the toxic gases it releases in this process can prove to be fatal for human consumption. It can be worse if one keeps hot liquids like tea in a plastic polythene, a regular sight at bus stands and train stations.

One thing that many of you might not be aware of is, the non-stick coating on your frying pans is a form of plastic called poly-tetra-fluoro-ethylene or better known as TEFLON. So even the non-stick coating on utensils is hazardous for your health, especially because you use it on flame to make the food items even hotter than usual. Melamine is found in every home all around Bangladesh. People eat hot rice and drink hot tea in melamine crockeries.

That was about the health effects of plastic. Let’s talk about its disposal. How can you discard plastic?

Way I – You burn it.
Burning plastic releases toxic gases in the atmosphere which are harmful for all forms of life on the planet. So now you are not only putting yourself at risk but millions of other species as well. These fumes are extremely harmful for your respiratory system and pulmonary circulation.
Way II – You bury it in the ground.
Plastic is non-biodegradable in nature, something we have learnt in school in Class III or IV. You cannot bury plastic, it will never decompose. Instead, it will restrict infiltration rate of the soil, promote soil erosion and make soil loose. Plants around will face acute shortage of water due to it being a barrier in their water channel. So basically, if you bury a piece of plastic in your backyard, there is a huge possibility that all your future generations will find it right there without any change. It will be their inherited danger.
Way III – You just throw it anyway.
Plastic can block up your sewage line resulting in overflowing of garbage on streets during the monsoon, a common sight in many parts of Bangladesh. We belong to an agrarian country where each home in the village has at least one cow and few hens loitering around and if by any chance, an animal happens to chew plastic, it will die on the spot. It will be choked to immediate death.

So you can see that if all of us use plastic at this rate, there might come a day when this planet would be inhabited by plastic bags and containers. I may sound far-sighted but what I say can be a possibility. By this article I intend to jerk up your conscience a little. I feel that each one of us is capable of creating a change around us and I have tried to make one just now.