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ave you ever thought that the plastic garbage you carelessly dispose of on the streets could return to your stomachs?

It may sound like nonsense, but the fact is — according to recent research — street litter is swept by rainwater into rivers and seas, where the fish that you eat live.

Arifsyah Nasution, an oceans campaigner from the environmental organization Greenpeace Indonesia, said according to the research, the accumulation of plastic particles in fishes’ bodies has increased due to the increase in volume of plastic waste in oceans.

“Plastic pollution is very critical nowadays because the plastic particles have already entered the food chain,” Arifsyah told The Jakarta Post on Saturday, adding that Indonesia was second only to China as the largest contributor of plastic garbage in oceans every year.

Yearly, almost 1.3 million tons of plastic garbage originates from the Indonesian archipelago, with around four percent of it coming from the city of Jakarta, considered by Arifsyah to be a significant number.

He, therefore, called on Jakarta citizens to wisely organize waste by sorting out the plastic garbage before submitting it to garbage banks in the city so that it could be recycled into useful things such as handicrafts.

Arifsyah was speaking at an event, Festival Laut (Sea Festival), held annually by Greenpeace Indonesia to raise Jakartans’ awareness of sea sustainability.

Visitors at the event conducted at Krida Loka Park in South Jakarta learned from participating communities about topics relating to the protection of the sea.

Terangi community, whose concern is about coral reefs’ safety, volunteer Intan Destianis Hartati said many people were not aware that reefs were very fragile and easily broken.

“The coral reefs can break simply by being kicked by divers’ feet,” Intan said, adding that the community has been incessantly voicing the importance of protecting coral reefs — the sea’s biota — at schools across the country since 1999.

Greenpeace Indonesia and several of the communities that participated in the sea festival had also committed to making oceans free from plastic garbage through the #BreakFreeFromPlastic movement, which was discussed at the event.

Among the declaration’s principles include the raising of global awareness on reducing waste, supporting the activities of picking up and recycling garbage and becoming less dependent on final waste processing sites by processing garbage as individuals — either by recycling reusable waste or by burying organic waste.

Whulandary Herman, Miss Indonesia 2013, said the sea festival was important in raising awareness among Jakartans about the importance of sea sustainability.

She also stressed the need to introduce garbage management awareness to younger citizens.

“I really support this kind of event and I hope that the organizers will maintain such activity in the future. Hopefully many more visitors will come to the next event so that more and more people know how important it is to protect the nature that we live in,” Whulandary told the Post. (vny)