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Attenborough: World ‘changing habits’ on plastic
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The world is starting to take on the risk of plastic waste, according to the prominent broadcaster Sir David Attenborough.
“I believe we’re all moving our behaviour, I actually do,” Sir David stated in an interview with the BBC.
Describing plastic contamination as “disgusting” and “ghastly”, he stated there was growing awareness of the damage it can do.
“I believe we are altering our practices, and the world is getting up to what we’ve done to the world,” he stated.
Sir David was speaking as he and the BBC’s Natural History Unit (NHU) were revealed as the winners of the distinguished Chatham House Prize for their Blue Planet II series of documentaries.
Chatham House, a foreign affairs think-tank based in London, grants the reward to organisations or individuals making a considerable contribution to enhancing global relations.
Its director, Dr Robin Niblett, explained plastic contamination as “among the gravest difficulties dealing with the world’s oceans”.
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He stated Sir David and the BBC Studios Natural History Unit played “a crucial function in assisting to put this problem at the leading edge of the general public program”.
“Blue Planet II stimulated an enthusiastic worldwide action and created clear behavioural and policy modification.”
The series exposed how plastic products – approximated to amount to more than 150 million tonnes – are wandering on the planet’s oceans and triggering the deaths of one million birds and 100,000 sea mammals each year.
In among the most moving scenes, albatrosses were seen feeding their chicks a diet plan of plastic which would doom them to pass away.
The head of the NHU, Julian Hector, stated he thought the programs had “struck home” with the general public due to the fact that they revealed “the interaction of plastic and the natural world”.
“We’re mentally engaging the audience, providing a connection with biography, the behaviours, the strategies that these animals have actually got, and how plastic because case is getting in their method, decreasing their chicks’ survival.”
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For Sir David, these sights are “really effective – they talk to adult impulse”; and they appear to have actually assisted encourage individuals to do something about it.
“It’s the start, and individuals in all parts of society know what’s occurring, and it’s repellent, it’s ghastly and it’s something we are plainly seeing caused on the natural world and having a terrible impact and there’s something they can do about it.
“So in such a way it’s a little a base test to see if the population appreciate it and individuals do.”
Sir David stated that strategies required to be developed for dealing with plastic waste.
“We still require to understand how to get rid of the sorrowful product, undoubtedly if we can create it, someone someplace is going to have the ability to handle it, to handle these mountains of this dreadful product.”
Also chosen for the Chatham House Prize were Abiy Ahmed, prime minister of Ethiopia, who just recently won the Nobel Peace Prize; and Katrn Jakobsdttir, prime minister of Iceland for her dedication to gender equality.
Sir David’s present series with the BBC NHU – Seven Worlds, One Planet – is relayed on BBC One on Sunday nights.
Follow David on Twitter.
Read more: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-50419922