The rest goes to incineration or landfill, where about 50,000 to 60,000 tonnes leaks into the ocean.Each year, Thailand generates about 2 million tonnes of plastic waste, only about 25 per cent of which gets recycled...".According to Ocean Conservancy, 60 per cent of the debris comes from China and the four ASEAN nations. Of 300 million tonnes of plastic waste the world produces annually, 8 million ends up in the oceans, killing marine life and entering the human food chain, it says.ASEAN members Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand are among the five countries throwing the most plastic waste into oceans, according to a 2015 report co-authored by environmental campaigner Ocean Conservancy. "This declaration will be a new milestone, but it will be just words on paper if there is no change in policies," Tara Buakamsri, director of Greenpeace Thailand, told Reuters.

If things are piled up somewhere, they can leak into the ocean," he said. "It’s a good step as this is the first time ASEAN formally acknowledges the issue of marine debris," said marine biologist Thon Thamrongnawasawat.China is the worst offender.CP All, which operates over 10,000 7-Eleven convenience stores across the country, said it has saved 464 million bags from circulation since December, donating more than 92 million baht saved from the process to public hospitals around the country.A summit for leaders of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) being hosted by Thailand this weekend is expected to adopt the Bangkok Declaration on Combating Marine Debris in ASEAN Region. "There is no other way," Tara said. "Every ASEAN country agrees that marine debris is a common problem that we must address urgently," Wijarn Simachaya, permanent secretary of Thailand’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, told Reuters.The declaration will come ahead of next week’s G20 summit in Japan, which assembles 20 major economies and will also aim to tackle marine plastic pollution. "There should be designated places for every single item to go.Thailand’s largest retail conglomerate Central Group said last month it aimed to reduce plastic bags by 150 million this year by giving customers rewards incentives..Bangkok: Thai zero-waste advocate Thanaboon Somboon never leaves his home without what he calls full "weaponry" of reusable shopping bags, coffee tumblers and stainless steel straws for his daily battle against single-use plastic.He said ASEAN countries should urgently all ban single-use plastic first for the declaration to be effective..sea animals dying from eating plastic. This might make them think twice about producing single-use packaging..I felt I must do something," says the 48-year-old entrepreneur, who leads an online community of more than 20,000 people seeking to practise a waste-free lifestyle. "Producers should also be made responsible for taking back the single-use plastic they produce .He also said ASEAN should aim to significantly improve its waste management schemes, as well as hold producers of consumer goods accountable.Unlike the European Union’s central bans and targets, Wijarn said the ASEAN declaration will outline broad ideas but it will be up to each country what it would take home to implement.Governments should "act more drastically" by introducing immediate bans on single-use plastic so that more businesses follow suit, said Nattapong Nithi-Uthai, who leads volunteer network Trash Hero that cleans up the Gulf of Thailand in southern Pattani province.

Words on Paper?Environmentalists welcomed ASEAN’s move to adopt the joint declaration, but there are worries that implementation will be a challenge, because the group has a code of non-interference that would leave necessary policymaking in the hands of individual member countries.Thailand, the current chair of the group, has lauded the declaration as a "big step" for the region, whose coasts have seen whales and sea turtles wash up dead in recent years with large amounts of plastic rubbish in their stomachs.But individual efforts alone can’t fully stop the 8 million tonnes of plastic that make their way to the ocean each year, and with four of the five worst ocean polluters in Southeast Asia, the region’s governments must take action, he says.Globally, up to 5 trillion single-use plastic bags are used each year, according to the United Nations Environment Programme."I saw news of trash overflowing the world.Environmentalists commend initiatives by some major retailers to cut back on plastic bags, but say most businesses will not take action Plastic Injection Molding Machine Factory unless there is a stricter push from policy initiatives. "Policymaking to address the issue must be treated with urgency as well," said Thanaboon.

"As a result of the growth Injection Machine Manufacturers in single-use consumer plastics, it’s estimated there are now 5.After a further comprehensive survey of the washed up waste, a staggering 414m pieces of plastic waste weighing 238 tonnes was discovered on one of the most remote places on earth. Previous surveys conducted only assessed the garbage present on the surface, thus drastically underestimating the scale of it." "The scale of the problem means cleaning up our oceans is currently not possible, and cleaning beaches once they are polluted with plastic is time consuming, غير مجاز مي باشدtly, and needs to be regularly repeated as thousands of new pieces of plastic wash up each day. Plastic pollution is now ubiquitous in our oceans, and remote islands are an ideal place to get an objective view of the volume of plastic debris now circling the globe," Lavers said.

A study published in the journal ‘Nature’ revealed that the exponential increase of global plastic pollution was due to the use of single-use plastic products. "In the absence of rapid and meaningful change, anthropogenic debris will accumulate on beaches, with impacts increasingly felt by biodiversity and marine plastic mitigation will remain a perpetual game of catch-up," the report also stated.7m tonnes of plastic entered our oceans in 2010 alone, with around 40% of plastics entering the waste stream in the same year they’re produced," another report said."Our excessive and unrelenting demand for plastics, coupled with ineffective policy and waste management, has resulted in myriad negative effects on marine, freshwater, and terrestrial environments, including entanglement and ingestion of debris, and subsequent exposure to plastic-associated chemicals," the report statedUnfortunately, the situation on the Coغير مجاز مي باشد Islands is not unique. "Mitigation initiatives, including policy, should be mindful of the challenges faced by remote islands, and the communities that reside there. The remote Henderson Island in the South Pacific was one of the places most affected by plastic pollution.25 trillion pieces of ocean plastic debris."Despite the warning signs, global production of plastic continues to increase even today.Also Read : Antarctica’s ice is melting faster than ever before "Islands such as these are like canaries in a coal mine and it’s increasingly urgent that we act on the warnings they are giving us.The study’s lead author, Jennifer Lavers of University of Tasmania said remote islands with barely any human population are indicative of the amount of plastic waste that flows around in the earth’s oceans. The local people on the islands have struggled to find an appropriate place to dispose of the garbage washed ashore from the oceans.

The island has a population 600, but marine scientists have found 977,000 shoes and 373,000 toothbrushes on the island’s beaches.The study also revealed that the amount of garbage present was 26 times more than the visible amount. Significant quantity of debris on the island was attributed to single use plastics.Coغير مجاز مي باشد Islands, a small group of islands in the Indian Ocean, is slowly dying because of plastic. "An estimated 12. The islands and coastal areas around the Arctic and Antarctic Ocean also reflect the acute symptoms of an otherwise rapidly increasing environmental hazard."