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Children are our nation’s future and spreading awareness among this age group plays a vital role in stirring love and curiosity for nature so that they become aware of the environment and feel motivated to take action to preserve it. Thanks to the teacher like Ms. Sibelia from St. Mary’s high school – Ponda and Ms. Eldrika from Parvatibai Chowgule college, Margao who heard about our #NoSUP campaign and invited us to come and help their students understand how important it is to cut down the amount of plastic trash we add to our environment each day.
Ms. Gaitri Naik and Mr. Shivcharan Gauns with faculty and students of St. Mary’s High School Ponda.
The opportunity was used in best way By Ms. Gaitri Naik and Mr. Vighnesh Shinde to spread the message that Only 7% of the plastic generated world-wide is recycled and rest of it either is leeching into our ground-water or floating around in our oceans, Every year approximately EIGHT MILLION TONNES of plastic gets into the oceans worldwide and most of it is single-use plastic! It takes 200 years for a plastic straw to break down 30-1000 years for a plastic bag that we bring back from markets, while a plastic mineral water bottle or soft-drink bottle takes 350 years and breaks down doesn't mean gone! Plastic always remains in the environment and when they break down, they turn into invisible toxic substances called microplastics! Now microplastic is ingested by marine life on a regular basis, for example, various species of crabs, fishes, seafloor living mollusk, sea cucumbers have been shown to have micro-plastics embedded in their respiratory and digestive tracks. Not only macrofauna, even micro fauna like zooplankton are the victim of micro-plastic accumulation. And as a result of Biological magnification in return humans are affected as we are dependent on marine fauna like fishes as a source of food. It was a satisfying experience to see the faces of the students as they learned about good and bad facts about plastic and greater joy were to hear the conviction in their voices as they excitedly explained how they are going to tell their parents and friends what they learned.
Mr. Vighnesh Shinde with students of Parvatibai Chowgule college, Margao