Week
week 1: problem

The Plastic Soup

When gods granted king Midas one wish he wished that everything he touched would turn to gold. Midas was bewitched. Trees, buildings, beds all of the gold. But then he found the horrors of his gift. Every food he touched turned to gold as well, and when hugged his daughter to soothe his pain, he realized his mistake too late. The person with so much gold, starving heartbroken and alone. Humanity got a similar wish granted when we learned how to branch polymers to form plastic. Plastic- cheap, sterile and transformable. And this gift changed our lives. But this gift of science got little too much out of hand and invaded the whole world and now it's finding its way to our body. Plastic has long ceased to be a revolutionary material. Instead, it became trash. Coffee cups, plastic bags, or stuff to wrap a banana. We think it just comes and goes away. But it's not it. It stays there for hundreds of years. 9 percent of plastic gets recycled 12 percent is burned but 79 percent is still sticking around. Out of which 8 million tons find its way to sea and oceans causing what we call plastic soup. Plastic soup is the term used for plastic waste floating in oceans. These plastics can be as big as an elephant or as small as an ant. Many marine animals, as well as birds who eat those animals, die due to plastic soup. And that plastic soup which is not consumed which is still a very large figure stays in the ocean where it breaks down into microplastic due to UV radiations. And these microplastics are everywhere. In our body in our environment in our food basically everything. If not tacked this catastrophic problem will be the grave of us all.

Presented By :

Ayush Srivastav

Hansraj Model School

Punjabi Bagh

New Delhi

Teacher : Jaya Sood