Plastic can be dangerous in many ways

Let’s be very careful what we throw away, and how we dispose of plastic.

We all have heard of the dangers of plastic – about how animals can ingest the plastic and can then die due to indigestion. But there are several other ways plastic can endanger wildlife, too.

Sometimes, the dangers are seen quite dramatically. Let me illustrate with two examples that I saw. At Nandi Hills, I saw this Black (or Common) Kite, with a big plastic bag entangled in its talons. It was flying about, desperately trying to get the bag off, but in vain:

Black Kite with Plastic Caught in Talon Nandi Hill

The Kite could not chase any prey while the bag was caught in its talons… I do hope that it was able to extricate itself speedily, otherwise, starvation was the fate it would face.

On another nature trail recently, my friends and I found, in the rain, that this carelessly thrown plastic cup was full of rainwater….and two insects which are called Bombardier Beetles, were swimming, literally, for their lives.

I video’d them and then rescued them… I hope this video will help raise awareness, and make each one of us stop to think how our carelessness could cause lives.  Let’s be very careful what we throw away, and how we dispose of plastic!

Related Articles

The rock on which Bengaluru sits
Bird-beaks reveal eating habit!
Yes or no to plastic bags?
From anti-plastic steps to zero waste management

Comments:

  1. srinivasan dr sundaram says:

    100% correct. why the govt itself is still distributing plastic. the milk by KMF is supplied in very plastic sachets. they might say it is pvdc coated or whatever but in essence it is plastic . why they can’t find a better substitute or do tetra pack. Like we are calling for natural[herbal] hair dye which can not be done with out a chemical[ non herbal] para phenelenediamine a fixative of its class.Like wise i think plastic is an inevitable evil. but its indiscriminate use can be minimised, .

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Similar Story

Mumbaikars are fighting for their mangroves. Here’s how you can join them

Mumbai is about to face a monumental loss—its mangroves are being cut to build the coastal road. Citizens, however, have not given up the fight to save them.

​“What happens when we remove this natural infrastructure of the city? What happens if it floods? What happens if the air quality (index) goes really high?” asks Pooja Domadia, a member of the Save Mumbai Mangroves campaign. These are questions that many Mumbaikars have as work begins on the Versova-Bhayandar Coastal Road, which is set to affect 45,000 mangrove trees. In March this year, the Supreme Court dismissed a petition challenging the Bombay High Court order to greenlight the cutting of mangroves for the project. Is the SC decision a fatal blow to the movement? The BMC has already begun…

Similar Story

Where are the pollinators in Bengaluru?

Despite the volumes of citizen-generated data on the city's biodiversity, pollinators who sustain the urban ecosystem do not seem to be getting their due attention.

Urban biodiversity is often discussed in terms of tree cover, lakes, or flagship species, but far less attention is paid to pollinators—the insects and birds that quietly sustain urban ecosystems. In Bengaluru, a rapidly urbanising city with a strong culture of citizen science, large volumes of biodiversity data are now being generated by the public. But what does this data tell us about pollinators in the city? This article draws from a data jam hosted by OpenCity in Bengaluru that explored pollinator observations using publicly available, citizen-generated datasets. By analysing long-term observation records and spatial data on land use and…