Rod Barford

Microplastics are omnipresent, every cloud, every gust of wind, every handful of soil, every drop of water. Not just marine biota, but every creature including humans is ingesting them. Any solution must force Asian countries to properly treat plastic waste via recycling and reuse. I’ve watched convoys of tiptrucks in Indonesia backing up to streams during high flow and dumping thousands of tonnes of raw garbage, swept out to sea. Yet many Asian countries are signatories to global or regional agreements to do exactly the opposite. There’s simply zero accountability, zero social conscience in most Asian countries when it comes to waste disposal. Where I live, the beaches were always pristine, but now it’s ‘normal’ to see millions of microplastic particles washed up with every wave.