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Plastic Waste Potentially Endangers Health

Kamis, 17 Januari 2019 - 16:15 | 21.84k
Plastic. (PHOTO: Hello Sehat)
Plastic. (PHOTO: Hello Sehat)

TIMESINDONESIA, JAKARTA – Plastic has been an important thing in daily life. Most of us interact with something made of plastic. However, the impact has the potential to endanger health, both the health of the environment and the health of the living things.

Director of Environmental Health, Ministry of Health (Kemenkes) dr. Imran Agus Nurali, Sp, KO said there is a bad impact of plastic waste on the environment or health of the body. According to him, this is because plastic is difficult to decompose, so the visible impact is the occurrence of landfill, clogging of waterways, and floods polluting the environment.

"Next, it will affect the health of the human body if it is buried in the ground or water, then fragments of plastic waste will potentially endanger human health if the water is consumed," said Dr. Imran at the Ministry of Health building on Wednesday (January 16, 2019).

Not only that, a dangerous impact will also occur on plants on land and water ecosystem. For example, micro plastic contained in water will go directly into fish organs, the fish will not survive long, and if consumed by humans can also be dangerous.

"Then if it (micro plastic) hits the sun's heat or burns so it is also dangerous for the breathing. If it is burned, it can produce carbon monoxide which is dangerous for health," said Dr. Imran.

However, added Dr. Imran, there is no study of the threshold of micro plastic content which can endanger the health of living things. However, the community is urged to reduce the use of plastic.

"Actually, it is well preferred for us to limit the use of plastics such as in retail or stall. If it can be limited, we can use our own shopping bags so we don't add plastic production, "he said.

Reducing plastic use can be started from households through waste management. The method is by grouping organic and non-organic waste. Organic waste can be used as compost, while non-organic waste can be recycled into works of art and even works of economic value.

Limiting the use of plastic can also be done by getting used to bring your own bottle. This is done by the Indonesian Minister of Health, Nila Moeloek, and on several occasions she invited the public to be accustomed to use their own drinking bottles to reduce the waste of water packaging. (*)

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Publisher : Lucky Setyo Hendrawan
Sumber : TIMES Jakarta

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