A Plastic World

I have to confess something. Starting with the first day in Burma. I have been using plastic bags. At first, I was realizing too late that I was getting one. The shopkeepers and street vendors put EVERYTHING in them, little flimsy plastic bags of all colors. You want a pomelo? Here’s an individual plastic bag to carry it! Some coconut milk pastries? They go straight into a plastic bag as the only packaging. And you see where they end up. They are strewn about the roadside and the countryside is covered with them. How do you fight it when the locals have incorporated it so much into their culture (even more than ours)? After a few days I realized that I had brought a reusable shopping bag full of gifts for the school kids and it was now empty. Bingo! I started being on the alert to stop people from giving me plastic bags and started chucking everything into my bag. That has worked well for the most part, although fruit sometimes gets messy! However, for the last 10 days I have cringed so many times, since we travel as a group and my companions are not hesitant about taking a plastic bag with every purchase. Banning plastic bags in California is great idea, but between Burma and Thailand, they probably 10x more person than we do. A lot end up in the ocean. Paul witnessed an older person living along the Chao Praya river in Bangkok throw her household trash right into the river. When Paul questioned Ed about it, he said that a lot of people do it, especially older people, and they won’t change no matter what you say to them.

Today we took a tourist oriented snorkeling trip to some small islands south of Ko Chang. Even though the visibility was not great, we saw lots of fish, an impressive array of coral, some giant clams, long-spined sea urchins and purple sea cucumbers. We also saw the plastic. Little bits here and there. A plastic bag. At lunch, our boat and several others pulled up to a small, white sanded island where the boats go every day with their loads of tourists. We, like the other tourists, were fed fried rice from polystyrene containers – 1 each. I watched a couple (Russian I think), finish theirs off and throw their containers into the bushes by the beach! I was getting ready to yell at them, when I looked further and founds over 100 of such containers here and there on the beach, just tossed carelessly away. I could only conclude that the boat drivers started this, not wanting to deal with taking the trash back (and in fact, the beaches on Ko Chang are not much better – littered with plastic and beer bottles). So they let it sit on the beach until a storm comes along and blows it into the ocean. So short sighted! No one is going to want to come to a beach full of trash, or the Gulf of Siam as it becomes more and more polluted.

When I was snorkeling later, I saw a big yellow fish spit out something that looked suspiciously like a large chunk of polystyrene foam.

Of course, all of this has made me a bit depressed. I spent the last year working so hard to educate people in California, who for the most part don’t litter (other than smokers). And on the other side of the world, they are countering – times 10- all of the work we are doing. After all, the oceans are all one.

On the brighter side, the fish and seafood here are amazing. The local specialty is white sea bass, deep fried whole and glazed in chili sauce. Incredibly fresh and tender calamari, covered with fried shredded garlic.