This ship is voyaging across the country spreading awreness on marine plastics and pollution

Maybe most human beings are quite lazy deep down. If we apply some time and thought, we could find an eco-friendly solution to almost all problems. However, we were comfortable relying on plastics. They were cheap and easily available. But years down the line, our plastic problem is even bigger than what we could imagine.

So, when Dr M Sudhakar, Director, Centre for Marine Living Resources & Ecology, Ministry of Earth Sciences, revealed a few facts about the existence of microplastics in our water bodies and marine organisms, a ship full of people could only be shocked. The ship that we were on, was FORV Sagar Sampada, a research vessel owned by the Ministry of Earth Science, inside which, an awareness programme about plastic pollution was conducted in the vessel on October 2, 2019, by Swasraya Bharat.

"Did you know that a kilogram of packaged salt that you buy contains 15 to 20 microplastics?" asks Sudhakar. "These really small, invisible particles of plastic are everywhere - in the food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breathe. They kill you slowly and silently," he says. The programme was attended by 570 students from Kochi, where they were taught about the harm that these microplastics cause. As part of the 'Live without plastics' campaign, the vessel travelled from Porbander in Gujarat to Puthuvype in Kerala in 20 days.

"CMLRE is the only institution that is currently campaigning about marine plastics. This campaign is an initiative by the government, kickstarted by our Prime Minister Narendra Modi," says Sudhakar. "Also, recently the finance ministry has approved  7,000 Crore project for our deep-sea mission," he adds.

He also said that the CMLRE will make an initiative soon to reach out to the students who visited the vessel to seek solutions to the plastic problem. Who knows, maybe Gen Z holds the key to it!