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lastic grocery bags are so resilient, pervasive and toxic that it has now come to a tipping point that the entire eco-system is off balance. The curious fact of plastic is that once manufactured it is here to stay with us permanently so to speak.

Tens of thousands of turtles, whales and other marine creatures and sea birds die each year from the ingestion of plastic materials.

Plastic is not biodegradable. Food scraps or paper and other organic material will finally break down to become carbon dioxide and water.

On the contrary, plastic is bio-inert, i.e. it is chemically solid and will not breakdown like other materials. Plastic will be progressively weakened by sun and sea to the point of being brittle and small but will not combust to carbon dioxide and water.

Plastics eventually find their way into the seas and oceans and in the water they masquerade as an animal'€™s natural food. When eaten by turtles and other marine creatures, not only is the plastic toxic, they clog up their digestive system causing them to starve or cause intestinal perforation, all leading to death.

As the dead marine creature decomposes it releases the plastic remarkably intact to be ingested by other marine life triggering off a chain reaction of death.

We are using way too much plastic. No one knows how much plastic we have with us now since its invention but the amount appears to be monumental.

According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, Americans use more than 380 billion plastic bags and wraps each year. It takes 12 million barrels of oil to produce this many bags. Worldwide, we are told that as many as one trillion plastic bags are used each year equating to a staggering 100 million barrels of oil!

Plastic toxins end up in fish, which end up on our dining tables, which end up inside our bodies.

We have to cut down the use of plastic in our daily life.

Plastic toxins end up in fish, which end up on our plates, which end up inside our bodies.

Our governments and manufacturers of plastics must be told in unmistakable terms that it is a mistake of Himalayan proportions to dump this poisonous material unceasingly to manage our food chain. We have to drum into their heads that it is perilous that a chocolate bar that takes 30 seconds to eat is packaged in a wrapper that will persist in the environment for hundreds of years.

And it is not acceptable that a disposable plastic bottle used to hold a drink that can be consumed in minutes will add to the already staggering millions of tons of plastic waste littering our countryside.

San Francisco was the first city in 2007 to ban petroleum-based plastic bags in supermarkets and pharmacies.

We have to seek and find alternatives to the plastic packaging way of life that dominates the market today to save the ecosystem and eventually ourselves from perdition.

A. Soorian
The Star/ANN/Seremban, Malaysia