Three Bryde's whales were recently founded dead in the Gulf of Thailand in Samut Prakan, Chumphon and Surat Thani. After autopsies, the director of the Marine and Coastal Resources Research and Development Centre, the Central Gulf of Thailand found that fishing gear and marine debris were among the major causes of death. These endangered species must have come to the surface of the sea to breathe, getting themselves injured by fishing gear such as nets. Marine debris also troubled the whales' digestive systems, causing them to become sick, grow weak and die.
Last year, a short-finned pilot whale was found on a beach in Songkhla and later died. An autopsy found 8kg of plastic debris in its stomach. Not only whales but other marine animals are also threatened by ocean plastic.
According to Greenpeace, Thailand is the sixth-largest source of plastic pollution in the world, generating 1.03 million tonnes of plastic waste per year. Last year's statistics from the Department of Marine and Coastal Resources showed that the No.1 marine debris in Thai oceans was plastic bags. Straws came second, followed by bottle caps, rope and cigarettes. DMCR also said that different types of garbage take different periods of time to decompose. A fishing net needs 600 years to decompose, while plastic bottles and diapers take 450 years. However, glass bottles and tires won't decompose at all.
This massive amount of marine debris absolutely affects marine lives and us, humans.
Many marine animals mistake rubbish for food. Garbage ravages their digestion system and they die. Some debris injures marine animals. For example, hard rigid plastic often slices the legs of sea turtles or becomes entangled by rope.
Garbage that floats on the water's surface blocks sunlight from reaching phytoplankton and seaweed, which are sources of nutrients to zooplankton. Without sunlight, phytoplankton and seaweed can't grow and zooplankton starve. The fewer zooplankton that survive, the fewer marine animals (our food source) will survive. When marine animals are rare, their price on the open market rises. For example, Thai mackerel are almost extinct and cost higher than they used to.
Some people may think ocean debris isn't related to us. In fact, ocean plastics affect us directly -- especially microplastics, which come from larger plastics that have degraded over time. Plastic contains toxic chemicals, which can increase the likelihood of disease. And we obtain those microplastics as well as disease when we eat contaminated sea animals.
At the recent Asean Summit, the Bangkok Declaration was signed with an objective to combat marine debris in Asean.
The declaration mentioned several plans to reduce plastic, including banning single-use plastic and recycled plastic because of its difficulty to decompose. The plan looks great, but we don't have to count on authorities who want to save the world but waste paper by using boxy chairs that were made specifically for the conference.
We can start reducing plastic by ourselves. As everyone knows, you shouldn't accept a plastic bag offered in shopping malls or convenience stores, and you should reuse the plastic bags you have. Straws are often overlooked, but cause a huge problem because they're shunned by most recyclers over its small size and it take 200 years to decompose. We can reduce waste by using our own reusable straws, which are now available in different materials such as silicone, stainless steel, bamboo or glass.
In the US, Seattle and Washington DC are cities that ban single-use plastic straws. But some Thais aren't going to be happy if we have this kind of law. Last Wednesday (July 3), the Mall Group became the first retail chain to charge customers -- 1 baht -- for a plastic bag, a policy that was roundly criticised on social media. They claimed that the shopping mall takes advantage of customers because they will no longer get plastic bags for free, and at the same time the Mall Group makes more money from bags.
Sunscreen may not be a plastic object, but it can count as marine waste because some chemicals in sunscreen damage coral reef especially oxybenzone, octinoxate and octocrylene. Before buying sunscreen, look at the product label and pick one without these three main harmful chemicals.
While avoiding single-use plastic, we can support activities to preserve marine lives and clean oceans arranged by the Royal Thai Navy Sea Turtle Conservation Center and Thai Ocean Waste Free run by the National Research Council of Thailand. Or support the Ecoalf Foundation, which produces clothes from materials which are selected from marine debris.
Suwitcha Chaiyong is a feature writer for the Life section of the Bangkok Post.