Tiraspol, May, 25. /Novosti Pridnestrovya/. Public organization in Tiraspol launched an international #breakitoffwithplasticbag environmental campaign in Pridnestrovie. The idea is to say no to plastic bags but carry purchased products only in paper, biodegradable bags or eco-bags.
Pridnestrovians are called upon to share photos of their purchases in the environmental packaging in social networks with the #breakitoffwithplasticbag hashtag.
The idea of such a campaign came up not by chance: the problem of plastic pollution reached the scale of a global environmental catastrophe and is only gaining momentum every day. About 40% of the 406 million tons of plastic produced per year is used to make disposable items, mostly packages that are usually thrown away after a few minutes. Production from the middle of the last century has been increasing at a dizzying rate: almost half of the world's plastic has been manufactured in the last 15 years.
According to Greenpeace, currently up to 1% of the Pacific Ocean is covered by a large garbage patch, an impressive part of which is plastic and polyethylene. Millions of sea creatures die from plastic every year, swallowing plastic trash or invisible plastic microparticles dispersed in water.
The situation can be saved by reducing the use of plastic and recycling such waste. But in most countries of the world such garbage is not being utilized, and, like the main part of human waste, is being brought to landfills, where it will be poisoning the ground, water and air for centuries. Unfortunately, in Pridnestrovie, plastic recycling and disposal systems are practically non-existent. Surely many of our readers often witnessed how, next to a solid household waste landfill near the village of Malaeshty of the Grigoriopol District, the fields are full of plastic bags that fly all year round in the district, and then fall into the soil or water bodies.
As noted by one of the activists of public organization, Dmitry Volosyuk, it's time to think about what can be done to at least not worsen the current ecological situation in the republic. Moreover, the year 2019 in Pridnestrovie has been declared the Year of Ecology.
“After holding an information campaign for the exchange of plastic bags for paper, we decided to continue this trend and invite the buyer to join the #breakitoffwithplasticbag campaign. It is in our power to say no to plastic bags. Moreover, the average time of its use is only about 20 minutes, while it is being decomposed for more than 200 years,” Dmitry Volosyuk noted.
That`s right, using reusable paper packaging, biodegradable bags or eco-bags in stores or in everyday life, each of us will reduce the mass of plastic waste entering nature by several times.
Earlier, our news agency talked about a young couple who are implementing a project in St. Petersburg to sew cloth bags, bags for fruits and eco bags. These products are an excellent alternative to plastic bags. According to the creators of the project, their products are sewn from natural materials - 100% cotton and linen, and the young people themselves invent its design and put on prints - drawings and inscriptions.
For the first time, such #breakitoffwithplasticbag campaign aimed at reducing the consumption of plastic disposable containers, was launched in Russia by the Greenpeace branch in November 2017. Its members shared on the Instagram network their secrets of carefully packing products in stores, telling where to buy bright reusable eco bags and published funny stories about how difficult it is to convince the seller to pack the purchase into the package after weighing.
This and many other actions, by the way, had an effect. Activists of public organizations have been heard and the State Duma have already proposed to introduce a complete ban on the use of plastic bags in Russia since 2025.
As part of the Year of Ecology, another international flash mob entitled Trashtag Challenge was launched in Pridnestrovie. Users picked up trash in any polluted area and posted photos before and after with the #trashtag hashtag.
