Time to stop treating our oceans like garbage bins

Representational Image. Pic/Pixabay

June is Ocean month. This is not very well-known, unlike other special ‘days' or ‘months' which may have been marketed better and hence better known. The National Oceans Month is celebrated every June. This is to highlight the beauty and importance of our oceans. The Internet tells us that the month-long event encourages one to explore and cherish the vast blue stretches that cover 70 per cent of the Earth's surface.

This paper ran a story stating how a city rapper and environment enthusiast is celebrating it by educating Instagrammers about marine life. He stated that Mumbai is a bio-diverse city adding that there are over 600 species of marine wildlife. The rapper is using hip-hop to educate people about oceans, marine life and preservation.

Preserve Mumbai's seas, through clean beaches. That is one way to preserve diversity. Plastic goes into the trash bin, not in the ocean. Even spending a day at the beach means disposing of rubbish in bins. There are a number of beach cleaning movements on in the city. Joining in for a day or two may whet your appetite for the movement and you may become environmentally conscious. One can even make that a family day out, which is fun and meaningful.

A heightened awareness of our oceans means becoming conscious that each individual can in a small but important way, keep rubbish out of the seas and help preserve marine life. Last year, this paper had focussed on a gigantic fish sculpture at Girgaon-Chowpatty. The fish made of plastic water bottles was a message that by 2050, we will be catching plastic and not fish from our oceans, with the amount of plastic in the sea. Use the month to enhance knowledge and change actions in small but significant ways.