IF anything, the lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic include the importance of looking after our environment. So it is quite disconcerting to learn that Malaysia has the highest annual per capita plastic use in South-East Asia, at 16.78kg per person, according to a 2019 study by the World Wide Fund for Nature (“Our plastic predicament”, Sunday Star, Oct 24; online at bit.ly/star_plastics).
Like many other countries, we have become increasingly reliant on the convenience of plastic. And with improper disposal, as much as eight million tonnes of plastic end up in our oceans, badly impacting marine life and fish stock supplies.