Plastic pollution to marine environment a big problem

By JIMMY KALEBE
PLASTIC pollution to the marine environment is a catastrophic problem that the world is currently facing, says an official with the National Maritime Safety Authority (NMSA) in Lae.
Senior compliance and monitoring officer Gabriel Poiya said trash of any sort that was made of plastic have clogged seashores causing danger to marine life.
Last Friday, NMSA in partnership with Bugandi Secondary School cleaned up Voco Point beachfront with the help of students in an attempt to inform the public to keep the beaches clean from plastic rubbish.
“The message behind this exercise is to tell those villages along the coastlines not to dispose
off any plastic rubbish of any sort into seas and river systems,” Poiya said.
He said this was a community initiative that NMSA was taking the lead to involve local communities to be responsible and stop disposing plastic rubbish into the sea.
Poiya also pointed out that in coastal towns and cities, people should refrain from disposing plastic rubbish into drains and river systems.
He said these wastes will end up in the sea and then washed onto the beaches.
He said even though the activity was only for a day, it brought a message to the people that disposing of plastic rubbish into the sea should stop and these rubbish should be disposed of properly.
Bugandi Secondary School head of agriculture department Matthew Boi said the exercise was good for the students to take the lead in such exercise.
“These are grade 12 students and once leaving school at the end of the year, they will then take lead in their own places to keep clean beachfronts in their own areas,” Boi said.