What Goes Around Comes Around

A good action or intent creates good karma, while a bad action or intent creates bad karma. Karma refers to the actions driven by intention, a deed done deliberately through body, speech or mind, which leads to future consequences. For instance, in the animation, the irresponsible attitude of humans causes marine pollution, which leads to humans' health problems. Karma is not an external force, not a system of punishment or reward dealt out by a god. It is a natural law similar to gravity. Buddhists believe that we are in control of our ultimate fates. Hence, we should always be kind to everyone including our environment to avoid suffering.

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We Are Responsible For Our Action

Since we are creating the conditions ourselves through our actions, we can not shirk the responsibility to anyone else. We are personally responsible for our actions, and we cannot undo the outcome of our completed actions. One can overcome suffering through growing insight and wholesome behavior. Buddha can only provide us with advice, and we have to take complete personal responsibility. In Buddha's teachings, nobody including god will serve as the cause or aim for our actions. We should always remind ourselves that wholesome actions can change us and the world in a wholesome direction.

How Litters End Up in the Ocean

Even if you live hundreds of miles from the coast, the plastic you throw away could make its way into the sea. Once in the ocean, plastic decomposes very slowly, breaking down into tiny pieces known as microplastics that can be incredibly damaging to sea life. 80% of plastic in our oceans is from land sources, and there are three main ways the plastic we use every day ends up in the oceans. Firstly, when we transport our rubbish into the landfill, plastic is often blown away because it’s so lightweight. From there, it can eventually clutter around drains and enter rivers and the sea this way.

 

Also, litter dropped on the street doesn’t stay there. Rainwater and wind carry plastic waste into streams and rivers through drains. Drains lead to the ocean! Besides these, we always flush the products we use daily in the toilets, including wet wipes, cotton buds, and sanitary products. Microfibres are even released into waterways when we wash our clothes in the washing machine. They are too small to be filtered out by wastewater plants and end up being consumed by small marine species, eventually even ending up in our food chain.

 

Whether we mean to litter or not, there's always a chance the plastic we throw away could make it into the sea, and from there who knows? Maybe as far as the Arctic. Huge changes start with small steps, and everyone has the power to make a difference. What will you do to start cutting the plastic in your life?

 

External Link:

• Marine Litter

• How Does Plastic End Up in the Ocean?

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Plastic and Plastic Pollution

Plastic is everywhere. It has only really existed for the last 60-70 years, but in that time plastic has transformed everything from packaging to product design and retailing. One of the advantages of plastic is that it is designed to last, but this same blessing is a curse as nearly all the plastic ever created still exists in some form today. Alarmingly, up to 130,000 tonnes of that plastic will wind up in the ocean as plastic pollution each year. Plastics can take hundreds of years to break down. The energy use in the production and transportation of plastic bottles could fuel an estimated 1.5 million cars for a year, yet approximately 75% of them are not recycled and end up in landfills, litter roadsides, and pollute waterways and oceans.

 

Plastic pollution is everywhere, from Atlantic beaches to Arctic sea ice to huge swirling vortexes of trash in the Pacific Ocean. And you can find it in every shape and size, from microscopic particles to whole refrigerators full of plastic parts. But plastic itself isn’t the enemy. It’s the way we handle it that needs to change. Ocean plastic has harmed hundreds of species in a variety of ways, such as entanglement old fishing nets or six-pack rings, choking bottle caps, straws, plastic bags and blocking their digestive tracts. Also, as microscopic particles on the seafloor interfere with how ecosystems function, it causes habitat degradation. 8.8 million tons is the amount of plastic that enters the ocean every year. That’s the same as a garbage truck dumping a full load of trash into the sea every minute.

 

External Link:

• Plastic Pollution

• Plastic Pollution in the Ocean

• Stop Marine Plastic Pollution

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Recycling vs Upcycling

Recycling is the process of collecting and processing materials that would otherwise be thrown away as trash and turning them into new products. Recycling helps in reducing the amount of waste that sent to the landfills and incinerators, it also conserves natural resources and prevents pollution. We can recycle glass bottles, plastic, paper, and electronic wastes. Recycling can benefit our community and the environment.

 

Upcycling is different from recycling. It is known as the process of converting old or discarded materials into something useful and often beautiful. For instance, stretching out a wire clothes hanger then tying strips of a plastic bag around it to make a wreath. Recycling takes consumer materials like plastic, paper, metal, and glass, and breaks them down so that their base materials can be used to produce a new consumer product, often of lesser quality. When we upcycle an item, we aren’t breaking down the materials. We use the same materials and refashion it, like cutting a t-shirt into strips of yarn.

 

Also, the upcycled item is typically better or the same quality as the original. Upcycling is simple, and it makes a positive impact on the environment. When we upcycle, we remove items from the global garbage stream. Recycling requires energy or water to break down materials while upcycling only requires our creativity and elbow grease.

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External Link:

• Recycling

• Fix it! Reuse it! Upcycle it!