Earth Month 2024:
By Bernice Elizabeth Green
This is not a pretty picture, and this young man is not a healthy kid. It is not an exaggeration to conclude that the many thousands of microplastic bacterium-sized particles he’s breathed, ingested, or touched logjammed his bloodstream and invaded his brain. We speak past tense purposefully. We wonder, did he ever get the chance to grow up? Also, this photo was an Our Time Press cover for an April 2016, Earth Month story.
A study found that the average person eats at least 50,000 particles of microplastics a year. A Washington Post story stated, “Plastic fibers have even been found in more than 80% of tap water around the world.”
This year the Washington Post reported that “chemicals found in plastic and some food packaging has been linked to many health issues, including nervous system problems, hearing loss and cancer” and “it also has been linked to harmful health effects to a weakened immune system, reproductive problems and more.”
Also, there’s evidence – in animals that “mothers may be able to pass microplastics through the placenta to a developing fetus.” That’s one side. Zoom outside the body and into the world’s big picture and the evidence is clear: islands of garbage and trash are floating in the oceans.
According to an AtlasandBoots.com November 2021 report, “Plastic waste is polluting the entire planet. It has been found in the Mariana Trench (the deepest point in the ocean), falling from the sky in Arctic snow, embedded in Antarctic ice, and secreted in the Alpine soils of Switzerland.
“The UN Environment Programme has said that if current trends continue, our oceans could contain more plastic than fish by 2050.”
And it’s not as if our astute visionaries and friends Yonnette Fleming, American urban farmer and community earth steward; Dr. Reginald Blake, the highly honored geophysicist and climate change specialist; and the distinguished scientist Dr. Christopher Boxe, and others, did not try to tell us. They did.
Yet, for the 54th year in a row, Earth.org will be making great noise to increase awareness of Earth’s critical issues and everyone’s role in preserving it. This year the theme is “Planet and Plastics,” and a lot of talk will revolve around who’s to blame for the mess in our oceans, air, earth, and within us.
According to www.AtlasandBoots.com, “a recent report drawing on World Bank data and published in the Science Advances journal suggests that the United States and Great Britain produce the most plastic waste per person than any other major country.”
In related earth news, through compiled reports, we will introduce Nzambe Katee, Founder, Gjenge Makers, and Lorna Rutoh, Founder, Ecopost, young women plastics recycling ecopreneurs of Kenya who are dealing with the crisis, and at the same time, empowering their communities.
Earth Month arrived quietly on a rainy, windy Tuesday but it will roar to its official culminating day, April 22, alive with global activity (Earth.org). And if you really want to get your kids of all ages interested in nature and loving it so much that by next year, they’ll want to join you at the 2025 Earth celebration activities, check out what two genius artists, writer/author Jamaica Kincaid and fine artist Kara Walker have seeded possibly the Best New Book-for-All- seasons (launching in May).