Plastic is the silent killer

Though we know that we ingest plastic — the other species aren’t spared, so why would we — but to put a number or an image to the fact that we consume plastic is very disturbing as this makes the truth closer to home. The number is 5g per week and the image is the equivalent of a credit card. Other species besides humans, consume plastic unawares and this is known to cause their death, majority of which is undocumented and unreported. After all, one cannot expect the family of a dead whale or a bird to file a police complaint about the murder of their lives one by human beings.

Anyway, humans thought and believed that they were spared from consuming plastic; after all, they as the creators of plastic knew what to avoid. However, nature and karma always have their way — and whether humans like it or not, molecules of the dreaded matter make their way to the bloodstream. If it means five grams per week, that’s 240g a year — equivalent to a quarter kg of plastic ingestion! No wonder then that cases of lifestyle diseases are on the rise, the biggest of them being cancer.

Is it sad? Yes. But how could we think that we’d be spared the fate that we imposed on other creatures? If one looks from the perspective of karma, then it’s fair. Sad is the other creatures who suffer for no fault of theirs.

Abilasha Dias
By email