Hi everyone from Taiwan! I would like to draw your attention to my tenth report on topic related to PLASTIC POLLUTION and what Taiwan did for the environment.

Plastic pollution kills! We can see bottle caps and all kind of plastic in our inland streams and rivers, parks, beaches and ocean waters. People need to cut down on the use of plastic, citing United Nations data forecasting that the world's oceans will contain more plastic than fish by 2050 unless people stop using single-use plastic items. For example, only such a small island like Taiwan uses 18 billion plastic bags each year, or an average of about 782 bags per person.

Plastic pollution (for example, bottle caps) kills seabirds and other marine life through ingestion that causes starvation or injury, when sharp edges of degraded plastic puncture internal organs. Floating bottle caps look and smell like food. This plastic is then eaten by adult birds and regurgitated for their young whose bellies fill with plastic causing them to starve. Bottle caps are one of the most frequent items found at annual beach and watershed clean-ups.

Last December (2017) Taipei is rolling out a new ban at the beginning of this year that forbids the sale of plastic shopping bags at hypermarkets, supermarkets, and convenience stores. The deputy commissioner of Taipei's Department of Environmental Protection, announced the city's plan to prohibit the three types of stores from distributing free plastic shopping bags or selling plastic bags. Hypermarkets, supermarkets and convenience stores will be allowed to sell "dual-purpose" bags that function both as a shopping bag and a trash bag. The newly announced ban on the sale of plastic bags comes in addition to an expanded ban on free plastic bags at 14 types of businesses also set to take effect on January 1st 2018. The 14 places of business are government agencies, private schools, department stores, hypermarkets, supermarkets, convenience stores, fast food restaurants, pharmacies, medical equipment stores, book and stationery stores, laundries, beverage stores, bakeries, and computer, consumer electronics and communications product retailers.

With our support, we will make meaningful change to the status quo and help the ocean eco-system. To be honest, as a species we, humans have been a total disaster for the rest of the planet, so we should do something to reduce the devastation caused by our ridiculously consumptive lifestyles.

Today I delivered an oral presentation on PLASTIC POLLUTION (and what Taiwan did for the environment) at Tamkang University (Taiwan). I presented it to 3rd year students. The presentation took place at the Russian department of Tamkang University on January 2nd, 2018. This presentation was in Russian because students also need practice in Russian. The younger generation is very interested in this issue. They are very worried about the future of our planet.

Thank you very much for your attention.