Irony of petroleum products

The world can’t seem to move forward without the black gold – oil – fueling and energizing it.

The irony, however, is that whether oil is in its crudest or refined form and some converted into petrochemical feedstock used in the production of plastics, rubber, fertilizers, cosmetics and the like, if not handled, properly, carefully and safely, it becomes the scourge of nature and menace to mankind and wildlife on planet earth.

In short, it has become one monster of an environmental problem.

Such is the case of the blown oil well in the Gulf of Mexico that is creating an environmental havoc, threatening the livelihoods of people and very well affecting the economy of nearby states.

The oil slick forming on the surface and growing larger by the day because of the still uncapped fractured well is bound to drift towards the bayous and beaches of the Gulf of Mexico making vulnerable to destruction the habitats of fish, shrimps and oysters.

The coastal wetlands of the continental U.S. is not far from being a ‘sitting duck’ to this environmental catastrophe.

As oil continues to take its toll in the Gulf of Mexico, most people everywhere in the world are oblivious of whatever happens to the petroleum-based plastic products they have used one time or another and have discarded it away.

One can just imagine the volume of plastics being thrown away by people all over the world.

One can probably account and appreciates its enormity when one sees what abounds at the garbage dumps.

The harsh reality sometimes come when one is trying to survive in a flash flood and what you see around you are plastics, which could only be a testament to man’s wasteful lifestyle and his careless throwaway culture, as what happened during the 2009 Ondoy flood in the Philippines.

Unknowingly, however, by many is the voluminous plastics found strewn in the oceans polluting the sea and endangering sea animals.

Scientists estimate that 22 species of marine mammals are harmed or killed by plastic waste, either from ingestion, entanglement or strangulation.

One should also start realizing that plastic is not biodegradable.