An insightful webinar on microplastic pollution.

Awareness of Microplastic in Water Bodies Webinar

Estimated read time: 1:20

Summary

In a webinar by The GLOBE Program for the Asia-Pacific Region, the pressing issue of microplastics in water bodies was discussed. The session highlighted the importance of awareness and actions needed to combat microplastic pollution in our environment. Notably, the webinar featured successful initiatives from different countries aimed at mitigating plastic waste, particularly microplastics, which pose significant threats to marine ecosystems and human health due to their pervasive presence and persistence in the environment.

Highlights

Microplastics pose a significant threat to marine life and human health. 🐟
The GLOBE Program aims to raise awareness and reduce microplastic impact. 📢
Plastic waste management is crucial in Asia due to high production rates. 🌏
Countries like the Maldives are banning single-use plastics. 🏝️
Educational activities can inspire eco-friendly initiatives among students. 📚

Key Takeaways

Microplastics are tiny particles causing big problems for oceans and health. 🤯
There's a pressing need for awareness and action on microplastic pollution. 🌍
Initiatives like tree planting and reducing single-use plastics are vital. 🌱
Plastic production is high in Asia, emphasizing the need for better waste management. 🏭
Countries are taking steps to ban single-use plastics to reduce pollution. 🚫

Overview

The GLOBE Program held a webinar focusing on the dangers and prevalence of microplastics in water bodies across the Asia-Pacific region. This session kicked off with discussions on the challenges faced during 2021 regarding environmental meetings and activities, which mostly shifted online.

Participants from various countries shared insights and reports on initiatives they've undertaken to battle plastic pollution. Thailand, India, and Vietnam were noted for their significant contributions. The session also emphasized the damaging effects of microplastics, tiny particles that endanger fish, water quality, and ultimately, human health due to their indestructibility.

The webinar concluded with discussions on actionable steps to mitigate plastic pollution, including promoting awareness campaigns and banning single-use plastics in some regions. This proactive approach aims to engage more participants and foster innovative solutions in reducing the environmental impact of microplastics.

Chapters

00:00 - 01:00: Introduction and Recap The chapter titled 'Introduction and Recap' begins with a reflection on the year 2021, describing it as hectic. The summary highlights the numerous webinars, meetings, and interactions that took place throughout the year. However, it also points out the downside of not being able to meet each other in person, which left a negative impression.
01:00 - 03:00: Call to Participants In 'Call to Participants,' the chapter discusses the challenges and adjustments faced due to the inability to organize face-to-face activities, likely due to pandemic-related restrictions. It expresses a hope and expectation for the year 2022 to allow more face-to-face interactions and activities, indicating a transition or return to normalcy where participants can meet more frequently.
03:00 - 05:00: Discussion on GLOBE Stars The chapter discusses the importance of identifying the roles of participants in the GLOBE program's webinars. Participants are requested to indicate their roles by adding 'country coordinator,' 'teacher,' or 'student' to their names. This helps the organizers, specifically Gio, understand the composition of the audience in terms of number of teachers, students, and countries involved.
05:00 - 07:30: Invitation for Regional Meeting The chapter titled 'Invitation for Regional Meeting' begins by highlighting the success of the last webinar, which saw participation from 95 attendees. This high number reflects the active engagement within the region. It is requested that participants provide their status, such as whether they are a country coordinator, teacher, or student. Plans for upcoming activities in the months of November and December are also hinted at.
07:30 - 08:30: Introduction to Microplastic Video The chapter titled 'Introduction to Microplastic Video' discusses various environmental initiatives contributed by different countries and schools. It highlights Thailand's activities and a project by a school in India called 'One is One Tree,' where they aim to plant 25 trees.
08:30 - 15:00: Student Video on Microplastic This chapter discusses the urgency of contributing to Globe's Star program. The speaker urges country coordinators to make contributions before the end of the month or the year. They emphasize the process is quick and stress the importance of timely participation. Glovietnam has already submitted their contribution.
15:00 - 15:30: Encouragement and Request The chapter titled 'Encouragement and Request' discusses a set of tasks that need to be completed, which includes answering three questions, providing information, and submitting selected photographs. Additionally, there is a request to country coordinators to send the control report, which is necessary for an upcoming regional meeting.
15:30 - 58:00: Presentation on Microplastics The chapter titled 'Presentation on Microplastics' discusses the planning for a presentation scheduled for the last week of January 2022. It mentions that invitations have been sent out by Globe Thailand, and there is confirmation of receipt from the attendees, specifically someone named Bill. Additionally, there's a request for the attendees to send their country reports.
58:00 - 60:00: Global Microplastic Problem The chapter titled 'Global Microplastic Problem' begins with a discussion reflecting on past activities and planning future ones. It highlights a pause and the need for greater understanding due to a loss of face-to-face interactions. There is an intention to involve 'road' (likely referring to a person or entity) in the future activities if available, suggesting a collaborative approach in addressing the issues surrounding global microplastics.
60:00 - 73:00: Plastic Consumption and Impact The chapter titled 'Plastic Consumption and Impact' includes a transcript discussing logistical planning for hosting a regional meeting related to plastic consumption. The location and partners involved are mentioned, including a possible collaboration with the Philippines. There is a focus on initiating discussions early to finalize the program successfully. The content suggests an emphasis on preparation and coordination for the upcoming regional event. This part of the transcript suggests organizing efforts and preliminary talks to ensure effective planning.
73:00 - 80:00: Participant Interaction The chapter titled 'Participant Interaction' involves a two-minute video on microplastic prepared by a participant's friend from India. During this session, participants are encouraged to play the video and engage by posting any questions in the chat box for further discussion.

Awareness of Microplastic in Water Bodies Webinar Transcription

00:00 - 00:30 2021 has been very hectic for us uh we had a number of webinars meetings and also interactions lot of activities so this was a but we we had very bad taste in the sense that we could not meet each other all our activities has
00:30 - 01:00 online we could not organize activities face to face so we hope in 2022 we will be able to have more face-to-face activities programs and also we will be able to meet each other more frequently in 2022 i hope so first of all
01:00 - 01:30 now i like to request all the country coordinators here and all the participants if you are a country coordinator please write country coding data if you are a teacher write teacher in front of your name and if you are a student writer student because gio is very interested to find out that how many teachers how many students and how many countries joining our webinars
01:30 - 02:00 because the last webinar we have 95 participants that was great and the participation number is very high in our reason because our reason is very active okay please do write your status like if you are a country coordinator you are a teacher or a student okay please do that and this year uh in the month of december and november
02:00 - 02:30 we submitted three globe stars that is really great one was on what was done by thailand on their activities and one was contributing by the school in india for one is one tree where they plan to [Music] plant 25 trees
02:30 - 03:00 by before the end of the month or this year you can say and glo vietnam has submitted one group star thank you if you are around here for doing this and i request all the country coordinators please please please contribute to globe's star before the end of the month where i can say end of the year we have around two years it takes very little time there is a format
03:00 - 03:30 they ask you three questions couple of lines and the information which you have to provide and some couple of selected photographs please do that and send a glob star and i have i have sent a request to the country coordinators to please send the control report because the country report is required for our original meeting which is going to
03:30 - 04:00 happen in the last week of january next year 2022 and i'm sure that all of you have received the invitation sent by globe thailand i hope have you received it yes or no did you have your invitation yes bill yes yo okay please do send the country report
04:00 - 04:30 so that we can compile as we have done like last time and you also have received the program and the link for the website and so and so okay that's great then next year we plan to understand really because really we have been missing a lot of face-to-face activities and i will be requesting road if he's around here
04:30 - 05:00 to host the regional gle next year in along with the regional meeting sometimes in philippines then we will start at least we start discussion now so that we can finalize the program and okay this is what i wanted to have a discussion with you and i requested we have a
05:00 - 05:30 two minutes video on microplastic prepared by his friend from india can you please play that video i just and please if you have any question please put in the chat box so that we can have some discussion on that so here is the video
05:30 - 06:00 plastic waste in the following seconds we'll present an unique idea which can contribute to our mother earth as whole schools are full of potential hub which can create or execute any idea on a large canvas being one of many brushes let me show you how the waste generated by the school bodies
06:00 - 06:30 or any professional institute is really being recycled the number says that there are 5 000 schools with 20 lakh of students studying in classes between 6th to 12th in only delhi we take use of one thing per head consumed within one month this will give us 240 lakhs of pen in a year
06:30 - 07:00 yes you got that right we do have this mount everest of waste have you seen this you can find it if you will pass through the nh24 gazipur [Music] my
07:00 - 07:30 [Music]
07:30 - 08:00 so [Music] yes it is easy to throw the used pen and say i have completed my job but the real journey of that pen starts when we
08:00 - 08:30 dumped it in a wrong way the moment we throw the pen into rows drain or any such places where it get difficult to recycle it or dispose it completely then it becomes hard to resist it from getting into our food chain food chain yes let me tell you all the pens and refills are made up of metal tips and are filled with ink which contain lead in it which is a harmful substance and when we throw it on our landfills or waterways its toxic
08:30 - 09:00 substance are usually consumed by an organism the question is how we can minimize this school waste to which the answer is first step is to replace the plastic with eco-friendly things as much as you can the step is to get the most out of age if you have used it already we have cleverly researched and worked on every possible strategy to find out
09:00 - 09:30 how we can apply all the five hours to create zero plastic face zone in our school let me conclude all that for you our aim was to create a zero plastic zone in our school we collected all the pins pen cap broken rulers use sketch pin file covers crack dvds now comes what we did with all that
09:30 - 10:00 plastic as following the hours we reuse them as much as possible we refuse to buy the new ones until they get completely exhausting we collected more like these as eco club representative to repurpose them and create duster base chalk box pen stand wall clock paper weights photo frame wall hangings and a lot of decorative
10:00 - 10:30 items the point is that if you will brainstorm a bit more you can create your next study tables with these as this was just a small percentage of how we can get rid of the already created and existing plastic while trying to stop the creation of new ones by refusing them
10:30 - 11:00 thank you very much the kid you have done wonderful activity and why we show you this because we want to encourage you all the students younger friends uh to take initiative and if you have anything to show please share with us so that we can learn from each other and the idea is to encourage the students
11:00 - 11:30 on these activities what they have been doing thank you very much and i will suggest this school to prepare a globe star and if you need any help from rco we will be happy to help you okay now we are going to have a presentation on how
11:30 - 12:00 okay can you see that oh yeah okay we have to have some definition on microplastic and this is awareness activity as you have seen in the video plastic is becoming a nuisance
12:00 - 12:30 and this has become a nuisance in most of the countries around the world and they say not only in india or in delhi this is almost around everywhere plastic has become a nuisance okay let me first of all explain you the micro plastic in water bodies is not a globe protocol but we are promoting uh this in the pacific region
12:30 - 13:00 because we found that microplastic is a serious issue in many of our countries here and we have started some of the awareness activities like one of them is the micro plastic mosquito soil water bodies and also the tree campaign and micro plastic is one of them as many of us in many countries are interested
13:00 - 13:30 on microplastic activities so maybe next few days next few years this will become a globe star globe program like uh one of the protocol but at the moment microplastic is not a glow protocol what we are going to discuss what is microplastic what is that risk why we should be concerned about this
13:30 - 14:00 what are the significant sources of this microplastic and the plastic and what can we do which is very important is that what we can do into this microplastic issue first of all let us see that what is microplasty microplastic are small like you we see
14:00 - 14:30 the micro plastic and the plastic the difference is that micro plastic is the small pieces of plastic we throw plastic around everywhere the bottles we use the toothpaste we use even the washing machine discharge a lot of micro plastic so that the teeny particles which are very small one to five millimeters length which
14:30 - 15:00 mean would be able to see with the neck die and we may have to use the microscope such small particles are the microplastic we can remove the plastic by physical activity but micro plastic is very dangerous in the sense that we cannot see even there may be micro plastic in the water and we may be drinking that water like the water bottles we are using may contain micro plastic
15:00 - 15:30 so that the micro plastic are very tiny very small plastic particles which are present in our oceans and aquatic ecosystems which are really making becoming sometimes very dangerous straight forward we can see they are the tiny plastic particles when we throw the plastic bags or any
15:30 - 16:00 plastic into the water bodies or throw into the roadside or anywhere by the activity they becomes they are crashed and become into smaller and teeny particles and they get into the water bodies and that is becomes a very serious issue which you are going to discuss some marine researchers defined them as being anywhere than one two millimeter to five
16:00 - 16:30 millimeter they are too small to be filtered you cannot filter them they are too small there are two types of microplastic primary and the secondary the primary one is the one which we throw into the water in the secondary or the one which are broken from the bigger particles to the smaller particles and which are more dangerous because we cannot see them
16:30 - 17:00 we don't have any idea like they are tasteless we cannot test them even the water which may drink we have microplastic what are the environmental risks there they will accumulate in the water bodies and also they will be there for a long time the micro plastic do not break very fast they will be in the water bodies for a
17:00 - 17:30 long time and the fish eat them thinking that is a phytoplankton and they get accumulated into the body of the fish so that is the fish consume microplastic and many of the other animals they understand that get into the marine food chain and they ingest they digest they may not be able to digest them and
17:30 - 18:00 they are there accumulating in their bodies so that they are affecting the water quality the quality of the fish and the marine animals which are eating them taking into their bodies understanding that is the food we cannot see these phytoplanktons of the fish she can see the phytoplanktons half of the plastic in the marine environment is beyond
18:00 - 18:30 but others are the one which are getting settled into the sea flow affecting the sediment dwelling species some of them get into the water but some of that most of that also get into the sediment settle into the water bodies which change the soil quality which change the ecology of the water bodies the water really gets changed and also the bottom of the water bodies get
18:30 - 19:00 accumulated with a microplastic plastic debris serves to transport different organisms outside the natural habitat because they will be coming out of the water bodies and we can see that the problem is not only to the water problem is the chemical composition also
19:00 - 19:30 change of the water the marine life also change the soil at the bottom of the which support the plant life also get changed so that is the environmental risk they are there due to the microplastic the chemical risks when plastic is exposed to the
19:30 - 20:00 when plastic is exposed to the ultraviolet rays in water it releases harmful chemical compounds
20:00 - 20:30 not found in the nature the ultraviolet rays they change the quality of the water due to the decomposition and the change of the micro plastic in the water otherwise the substances which are not present in the water they get accumulated they get dissolved into the water and that change the chemical composition of the water and becomes very harmful
20:30 - 21:00 a common component of food containers has a negative effect on both fatal development and the adult hormones levels this not only change the chemical composition but also the human for the animals or whatever the composition of the body is also changed because the hormones level get changed due to the micro plastic in the water
21:00 - 21:30 bodies carcinogenic carcinogenic is very dangerous that is agent directly involved in causing cancer sometimes if we take hot food and that whole food we take into the plastic container then we have been told that oh this is harmful because due to the heat some cardio carcinogenic material get dissolved into
21:30 - 22:00 the food and that becomes very serious and may cause sometimes cancer which is very serious issue which we have to really realize persistent organic pollutants organic compounds resist to environmental degradation they are pollutants that do not deteriorate means they do know to decompose
22:00 - 22:30 and they're them biomechanically and bioaccumulate like sometimes they get accumulated mercury and so and so get into the fish and that becomes very harmful and have the effect on the human health harmful chemicals may also attach to the plastics in the water
22:30 - 23:00 so they become the carrier of the harmful chemicals into the water bodies chemicals can leach into the organisms that in digest the plastic so that plastics micro plastic change the ecology of the water body the bottom of the sedimentation they change they have the effect on the animals the fishes and other organisms which are growing there
23:00 - 23:30 and they carry with them the harmful chemicals like mercury attached to the microplastic neatened by the fish to the human body becomes very serious issue and if the water contains mercury then i am sure that if you have had a is like mini matter disease a mini matter disease happened in japan and that is like a environmental movement
23:30 - 24:00 we are quite a number of people maybe hundreds of people they died some of them they had paralysis some of them they had genetic disorders and so and so then we realized that mercury is one of a serious pollutant ethyl mercury in the water and micro plastic can be responsible carrying mercury with them into the water bodies which becomes a serious issue and that
24:00 - 24:30 is why we have been looking microplastic as a environmental issue in our system never wonder how much plastic is in our oceans have have we really thought of this one we had a discussion road said that um via manila is full of
24:30 - 25:00 microplasty so it is quite a large amount of micro plastics are there in our water bodies oceans are being bearing the brunt of our own having quite a large number of plastic and we have been told that something like eight million species of plastics pollutants
25:00 - 25:30 find their way into our oceans every day so that is quite a large number 12 million tons of plastic are powered into oceans every day like microplastic and the plastic 5.25 trillion micro and microplastic pieces are floating in the oceans
25:30 - 26:00 have quite a easy look like very easy way to dispose the micro plastic but we can see that the amount of plastic pieces and the plastic floating into the ocean is really quite serious issue and that is how we have to sometimes understand that how to really mitigate our oceans from the plastic waste
26:00 - 26:30 the life cycle of the microplastic is the same as like the what we have going to [Music] rain in the snow water cycle when there is a water cycle in the atmosphere like what we learn in the classroom they carry so they also carry with the micro plastic and then the micro plastic
26:30 - 27:00 coming to the ocean coming to the land land to the ocean so this cycle continues and that becomes quite a things to understand and needs investigation at the moment there is not much of the studies that how much micro plastic get into the ocean and then how much get back to the land again and so and so on so this picture shows the life cycle of microplastic
27:00 - 27:30 how we can solve this problem now we try to understand this is a problem serious problem and how we can solve this problem i am very sure some of these items which you see here are very familiar you can see water bottles fresheners juice bottles containers so and so
27:30 - 28:00 air oil bottles and so on so like these are some of the you know the containers where the water that is here domestic use of microplastic they are found in toothpaste body wash shampoos and also primary micro plastic is in toothpaste
28:00 - 28:30 body wash eventually washed from the wash from the body carcinogenic anagen to directly involved in causing cancer secondly or containers any broken down small pieces and which
28:30 - 29:00 get broken into the small pieces harmful chemicals may also attach to the plastics in water chemicals can leach into the organisms in just the plastics we can see that how this plastic is being attached to the food and how that is being affecting the environment
29:00 - 29:30 now we look into micro plastic production in asia industry asia the most populous continent in the world we are the most populous and most asian countries are the developing countries which are facing serious environmental issues problems we are the maximum number of people on the globe and we have many serious environmental
29:30 - 30:00 problems according to the data from plastics europe world production of plastic is small and that is the europe is producing more and more plastic which is around in 2014 and then it was 111 million
30:00 - 30:30 and we found that in 2004 and 2014 there is a 38 increase of microplastic in europe china and japan are the two leading countries with the highest plastic protection in asia unfortunately many of the countries we don't have the data like for example in india we don't have a data
30:30 - 31:00 china and the japans are the most the producing two leading countries producing the highest plastic production in asia after counting for 26 percent and four percent of the world's total production in 2013. like in 2014 it was something like 26 percent of the total produce in the
31:00 - 31:30 world plastic production in the rest of the asia accounting for 16 percent of the world production and all together asia produces nearly half of the world's plastic materials which was in 2014 the information and the data which we have is 2014 and we have been producing around 16 percent of the total world production of the plastic
31:30 - 32:00 which is quite high among the top 20 countries ranked by the mass of mismanaged plastic waste all of them are developing countries except the usa most of the plastic produce which are not managed the mismanaged is by the developing countries except usa also
32:00 - 32:30 there is lot of mismanaged plastic waste which has the highest waste generation rate but the lowest percentage of mismanaged plastic waste 12 russian countries were on the list with china indonesia and the philippines ranked the top so these three countries like china indonesia and the philippines have been
32:30 - 33:00 producing quite a lot of microblast plastic and then the microplastic the percentage of mismanaged plastic waste among these asian quantities varied from one percent to 27. around 28 which is quite high as a result the environmental release of plastic waste is more likely in these asian countries
33:00 - 33:30 and the maldives has been the highest level of microplastic pollution on the planet that is what the studies shows that microvaldo the micro maldives is a very small country with many of the islands countries and then and according to the article in general signs that total
33:30 - 34:00 around maldives is the most like here the two countries polluting the oceans is like china indonesia philippines egypt thailand malaysia nigeria bangladesh brazil united states we don't have information for many other countries like for india for example we don't have we don't have information
34:00 - 34:30 australia new zealand and many of these countries we don't have but we can see these are the top countries polluting the oceans with a mismanaged plastic waste entering into the sea philippines vietnam sri lanka thailand share of ocean plastic that comes from the largest in making the river
34:30 - 35:00 the rivers the plastic waste and here we see the river in philippines this road around here will join okay and we see one river here who loves river in india which is a very small river it's not even is not even a river it's a very small like very well that or something it's not a very big river but there are number of industries are
35:00 - 35:30 there and that also contain carries lot of waste like that is number three one is in philippines then malaysia india philippines philippines philippines philippines the philippines is really very high then the ganges which we consider to the very pure water the worship we worship this water and so on so again philippines and philippines so these are some of the rivers which are really
35:30 - 36:00 emitting microwaves into the ocean distribution micro plastic in near shore sediment along connect murray coast 2020 that is the place in indian ocean unlike on the the what do you call the last southern southernmost part of india that is kanyakumari which is close to sri lanka
36:00 - 36:30 and then we can see that how the microplastic is near the shore how it is being distributed like we can see that how it is increasing and decreasing and now it is becoming a serious issue and serious problem into our oceans distribution of microplastic here we see that the microplastic
36:30 - 37:00 if you look into asia we find only that is near the japanese ocean that is there and most of the portions they don't show like some of the arabian area and then number of microplastic 250 milliliter like in sediment like this is the distribution and then how this distribution is shown here
37:00 - 37:30 how we are consuming microplastic which is very important that how it get into our body and how we are using this the most common sources of plastic ingestion are our drinking water seafood sea salt and beer those who drink beer
37:30 - 38:00 they are consuming more microplastic so we have to be careful for that then with the water it goes into the seafood and so and so it is estimated that we consume between 4 to 121 000 microplastic particles per year and drinking bottles bottled water could add an extra 90 000
38:00 - 38:30 particles to that number so those we will drink water like anywhere we go we drink bottled water but this study shares shows that we are adding microplastic to our body like i remember in india at the railway station when they were we went and wanted to drink the water there used to be a arthron port
38:30 - 39:00 where the water was available and we used to drink that water now when we go to the railway station or to the airport or to the market the first thing what we do we buy a bottle of water and even when we go anywhere we buy a bottle of water and we drink the water and but that water may contains how many number of micro plastic pieces you can see here
39:00 - 39:30 the second largest source of micro plastic is shellfish those who eat fish micro micro plastic are now found in the wide range of sea animals which can often mistake plastic for food as i mentioned before the fish they understand that this is a micro plastic pieces as a they are food like micro organisms
39:30 - 40:00 and that is get get that get accumulated into their bodies and then when we consume that micro plastic get into our body and research shows that our land and agriculture are receiving a significant dose of micro plastic from improper composting due to mainly tolerant composting
40:00 - 40:30 at the individual's level plastics are ending up into our compost which goes on to become fertilizer for our food supply how this from through the soil from the agriculture like [Music] get microplastic and get into our fortune is also very significant
40:30 - 41:00 and we have to understand that how dangerous it could be and these plastics then break down and we are left with micro plastics get accumulated in our bodies and that really becomes very harmful for us how much plastics we are consuming
41:00 - 41:30 the research is still in the early stages we don't have much of the information that how much one bottle of water for example contain micro plastic or how much you get through the food chain how much you get through the soil so but the research is still in not complete and while the recent study placed consumption at approximately 5 gram per week the amount of plastic in the credit card
41:30 - 42:00 it only looked as eight items that make app approximately 15 percent of our caloric intake like fish shellfish salt sugars alcohol water and yeah so there are small micro plastic issues pieces in the there also in water alcohol of course has beer the other eighty percent of our diet
42:00 - 42:30 we are looking and waiting for the studies to be completed so we getting microplastic how much it goes into the body how it goes what effects are there still some studies are going there what can you do this is very important as a citizen as a like
42:30 - 43:00 human being which reflect our soul badly what we can do well there is no doubt that large scale change in advancement or necessary to properly tackle our global plastic crisis there are still many individual changes we can make are the individuals we can do
43:00 - 43:30 and then we have to develop some activities some action and some like even we are not sure how to make it like when it comes to your personal consumption a logical first step is to reduce intake of the top microplastic
43:30 - 44:00 culprits like we have to reduce the intake of the luck individual i have to really understand how micro plastic going into water body and higher to reduce that sort of activities maybe stop drinking water water i'm not sure okay so how to reduce the intake of the microplastic in my as an individual that is very important and i have to
44:00 - 44:30 understand that that we can also we can also take steps to reduce the amount of plastic we consume the reduction of your classes reduce the plastic we start in the morning use the toothpaste contains plastic
44:30 - 45:00 we have breakfast in a plastic plate we eat with a plastic spoon so many things like we take out the bread out of the plastic bag we take the milk out of the plastic you know plastic bag so the plastic has become a part of our life but also we have to understand that this plastic is you know too healthy for us it may uh some of the teeny particles the micro plastic what we call
45:00 - 45:30 get into our bodies get accumulated one unexpected culprit of micro plastics is synthetic synthetic clothings have i mentioned that the clothes we are wearing nylon curly they are also contains a lot of microplastic when into they are washed into the washing machine we can take some example of the washing
45:30 - 46:00 machine water coming out and then see under the microscope and can see the plastic fibers there and then these are also some of the issues which we have to really address we and this synthetic clothing releases micro plastic into the water during production and when you wash them into the laundry switching
46:00 - 46:30 to natural material like organic cotton and lining lemon is a great way to minimize your plastic use and carbon for free but how much like cotton we can use khadi what we call in india and also we can see that environmental friendly clothing if we can start using then we can reduce the plastic intake into our body
46:30 - 47:00 we are in the early days of understanding the effect effects of micro plastic on our health and our environment and there is still a lot of work to be done before we have a clear idea of the true impacts as i mentioned before also we need more and more research we need more and more activities to be done so that we can see that how
47:00 - 47:30 this impact of this microplastic whenever human health and the environment can be reduced we need to have some more research to be done on this however asia pacific regional office is taking it as a positive that the impact important issue of important issue is beginning to get the
47:30 - 48:00 awareness and research with the jobs we feel that people have started realizing that microplastic is an issue which is really have a great concern and we feel that some activities some research and then some uh catalytic role which we can play in minimizing the impact of
48:00 - 48:30 microplastic and the use of micro plastic can be done and then we can start some activities in our reason and that is one of the reason that we have started microplastic as one of the awareness activity as i mentioned we have microplastic mosquito which has also very healthy issue very you know required actions swine
48:30 - 49:00 tree campaigns like in the microplastic we have been taking it as a positive note in the sense that we have started awareness activities on this microplastic and i am sure that many of our countries they will have is starting awareness activities trying to realize that this is a issue which really needs to be addressed and then we will be very happy to help
49:00 - 49:30 you participants or the people in our region on this issue well and also if you have any question you can please ask me and we hope that we will be able to uh discuss and then continue our activities awareness activities on microplastic one more thing i wanted to add to this
49:30 - 50:00 that all our awareness activities have been generating quite a lot of interest and the participation of our activities is very high and we hope that this will continue we have to send you one uh you know this information regarding the poster competition we only wanted to have a poster competition on
50:00 - 50:30 uh awareness activities where one could contribute the posters we have received number of posters from philippines from thailand from india and from nepal and we request all other countries also to contribute and send the posters so that we'll send the posters so that we can
50:30 - 51:00 uh use them into our activities and then also use them into our website and so on so okay if you have any question to ask please any question chat box i cannot see the chat box here
51:00 - 51:30 okay any question hi everyone okay uh i will mail the presentation uh to all the parties friends today hi emma how are you hi happy to see you and you know that is very
51:30 - 52:00 maldive is a place where a lot of microplastic is accumulating okay hello any question any well how is the situation in australia regarding microplastic uh pretty much the same as you guys have we csi have done a lot of research in microplastics and what they're doing is they're tracing it back to the source so we
52:00 - 52:30 basically now are encouraging people not to buy plastics not to throw plastics in wastewater streams and that that's the probably the most common approach but nearly all the large stores and supermarkets now have banned single-use plastics so and even for fruit and vegetables now they're going down that line so if you want you know a bag for your groceries you need to buy a paper bag or buy one that you can use frequently
52:30 - 53:00 sorry how is the situation you are in the environment department how is the situation for the plastic in maldives uh microbiology has been a major issue in moles and we are also going towards uh banning of single-use plastic so since
53:00 - 53:30 last uh mistaken last year july or this year july i think so the government has banned certain kinds of plastic but now we are in the grass period of uh things that already had been imported we have we are using but we cannot import it anymore like the single-use plastic bags and there is a face-out procedure going on for plastic bottles also so the thing is uh the government has come up with a plan that uh certain
53:30 - 54:00 sizes of plastic bottles will be banned from the middle of next year so to reduce the amount of plastic waste so but the thing is uh from all these we we depend on import for everything except fish i think fish also we do import now so there's a lot of plastic coming in and there's no no place that
54:00 - 54:30 there is a limitation of the plastic that's going into the ocean but still we have a lot of plastic and there are studies carried out involving by different parties regarding on these microplastics and number quite number of work has had is been going on okay another thing sean you have to send
54:30 - 55:00 me the country report this year at least about this some of the activities of the globe yeah i'll send it in but next week i won't be in at office i'm leaving on sunday i'll be back on around 31st or maybe the 2nd of january i've been feeling