Sonny Myerson, Oranjezicht,
The letter by Wendy Damerell (“Plastic crisis”, Atlantic Sun, January 10) cannot go unanswered. Seldom have I read something that is so poorly researched, it leaves readers with false information.
The plastic pollution of the seas comes in the main from discarded fishing nets, not from plastic straws or other plastic products. The oceans are so vast and deep that it is physically impossible to assess how much plastic pollution is in the sea and what type of plastic products. I can assure you, it’s tiny compared to the size of the seas.
Where is your proof that “only 9% of plastic that has ever been manufactured has made its way into a plastic recycling plant?”
That’s at best a thumb suck figure. Where is your proof that a polystyrene cup takes a million years to decompose? Selling bottled water when you were growing up did not exist?
Your facts are so wrong how can anyone believe what you write?
How does Damerell know that 6 billion people will use plastic take-a-way coffee cups and food containers this year? Where does she get these pie in the sky figures from?
Here’s another. “We have polluted the sea so much it has become virtually uninhabitable for those whose home it has become.” What rubbish. All kinds of sea life are thriving (and it always was their home, not become their home). Look at the population of the whales. Increasing.
Finally, she says: “Our health and our very lives depend on no more plastic entering the environment.” Heavens above. Pray tell me how will my health and my life be affected by more plastic. On the contrary, more and more plastic is being used in the medical field to save lives.
Please tell me, Wendy, if your life or the life of a loved one depended on a piece of plastic, would you deny yourself or your loved one the use of it?
If you want to fight pollution in all its forms, then go out and educate people, but educate with proper facts.
