Collect… before it is too late!!!

Connect the Dots # 2

Today we will explore three dots which are based on the central idea - The need for a clean-up drive. The first story is from the WSJ (20-11-2018). The article opens with the question - 

Who is littering my playground?” The speaker is Lauren Deeley who is  as ‘a new type of eco-warrior who practices ‘plogging’ – picking up litter while jogging. Th term plogging was coined in 2016 by the Swede Erik Ahlström.  She started plogging 10 years ago while living in Costa Rica. She says that when people walk on a mountain trail they spend lot of time looking at the ground. She used to get annoyed at the litter strewn around on the ground. She would comb the area for ‘microtrash’ which is normally found under rocks and behind bushes. Deeley worked quietly tidying up the trails of the Green Mountains in Vermont. 

Laura Deeley maintains a blog at http://laurendeeley.wixsite.com/tp-is-gross. She says that the act of plogging has helped her to slow down “I’m in more in tune with nature and my body, “she says. “I notice the way the sun comes through the trees, the different types of mushrooms on the forest floor, how my body is feeling. It’s a very meditative workout. “Even when she travels, she hikes and runs with a trash bag and recycles her finds. “It physically pains me to see something and not pick it up, she says. “You can also learn a lot about a city or culture based on what you find on their trails". 

The second dot is from Science Illustrated (AU) where there is an article about a small satellite that is trying to catch the orbiting waste by means of nets and harpoons. Space junk has become a serious problem for the astronauts and especially to the ones manning the International Space Station. It was in July 2015 that the ISS was threatened by huge piece of space junk that was travelling at a speed of 50,000 km/h – 20 times faster than a bullet. The junk is not a threat just to the astronauts but also to the network of satellites which may get pulverized and block our access to space. To prevent untoward incidents the scientists from the University of Surrey, England launched a satellite which will remove the dead satellites. On June 20, 2018, the RemoveDEBRIS satellite was launched into orbit from the International Space Station. This satellite will release a small nanosatellite which it will try to catch the junk satellite in a net. If this old fishing method can work in space, the net could prove to be the most versatile method for cleaning up. As part of the next step, RemoveDEBRIS will also use harpooning to bring the junk satellites to the atmosphere where eventually they will burn. In 2023 the e.Deorbit mission will for the first time try to remove space junk from Earth’s orbit. 

The third dot is about the sperm whale which got washed up in eastern Indonesia which had a large lump of plastic waste weighing 6 kilos in it's stomach, including flip-flops and 115 plastic drinking cups. Two statements from the Indonesian officials are worth quoting here.

“Although we have not been to deduce the cause of death, the facts that we see are truly awful,” Dwi Suprapti – Marine Species conservation coordinator at WWF Indonesia. 

“It is possible that many other marine animals are also contaminated with plastic waste and this is very dangerous in our lives.” – Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan – Minister of Maritime Affairs.  

How do we connect these dots and what is the action plan that we have for the future?