Planet or Plastic: Part 2

Hi everyone!

In my last post I talked about the first 3 sections of the Planet or Plastic exhibition by National Geographic that I visited. This post will be a continuation go my last post and I will be talking about the remaining 3 sections of the exhibition:

Section 4: Steps Towards A Cleaner Future

Section 5: Science in Action

Section 6: Choosing Planet Over Plastic

Section 4: Steps Towards A Cleaner Future

This section of the exhibit featured exhibits that provided more hope for our planet’s future and what is currently being done to try and solve this issue. According to Ted Siegler, a resource economist who has spent more than 25 years working with developing nations on waste management, said that “This isn’t a problem where we don’t know wha the solution is” and that it is just the matter of building the necessary institutions and systems to make it happen.

One exhibit in particular that caught my eye was a photograph of Toplun Plastic Corporation in Valenzuela City, located on the outskirts of Manila, Philippines:

This is a photograph of a low-tech recycling facility featuring a worker who is sorting out all the plastic bottles by hand. The  plastic bottles that you see  here are the total amount of plastic bottles collected in Manila in just one day! And these are only the ones that were thrown into the recycling bins. Imagine how many more plastic bottles were improperly disposed of that will most likely end up polluting our environment. This is a fairly common sight in many developing countries that don’t have the technology and resources to have electronic sorting facilities like the more developed countries do. Therefore, while it is good that recycling is becoming more of a common sight all over the world, more can be done to make the process easier and faster.

Section 5: Science in Action

Due to the plastic pollution problem being too large to solve through waste management means alone, scientists, engineers and innovators are looking for ways to bolster their efforts by using the latest STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) solutions to tackle the problem.

For example, they are trying to engineer new materials that break down faster after being discarded than plastic currently does as well as developing more effective strategies for capturing waste that escapes the disposal stream.

National Geographic is currently spearheading a multilayer effort to raise awareness about the global plastic waste and aiming to make a difference through championing and funding the work of many leading scientists. One scientist in particular, Biologist Heather Koldeway, is a 2018 National Geographic fellow who spearheaded Project Seahorse in 1996 and is recognised as the worlds leading authority on seahorses.

Section 6: Choosing Planet Over Plastic

“in the end the choice is up to each of us. We are faced with dozens of decisions each day that make an impact on the earth, our shared home. While actions like using a plastic straw or throwing away a plastic water bottle may seem insignificant, they add up”

My favourite exhibit  was one that featured the plastic trash found on the beaches of Singapore. It didn’t provide a lot of information but I feel like it was the most impactful exhibit as it featured plastic waste found on our own shores and thus it has a much bigger impact on us Singaporeans and resonates more with us than pictures of plastic waste in other countries.

Another exhibit that I found to be particularly interesting especially during this COVID-19 period,  was one that explained how long it takes for a single disposable mask to breakdown. the single chip on the left side of the container represents a disposable mask being used for just one day. The big pile of chips on the right side of the container represents how many days it takes for that one single mask to break down which is  a total of 164,259 days!! Now imagine how many disposable masks are currently being used all around the world on a daily bases during this pandemic and how much pollution that would cause.

While some might say that this pandemic has reduced the amount of pollution in the world through instances such as CO2 emissions as many factories have shut down, but they seem to be forgetting that there are many other forms off pollution that have been exacerbated through this pandemic such as plastic pollution from the use of disposable masks.

Although these last 2 posts have been slightly off topic, I hope you found them insightful and If you are interested and want to see the exhibits in person and learn about it in greater detail, the exhibit will be up until the 28th March 2021 so do go check it out!! https://www.marinabaysands.com/museum/exhibitions/planet-or-plastic.html

Stay tunes to my next post where I will be back talking about music pollution in terms of concerts!