Fiji's plastic challenges
Fiji must cope with consumer plastic waste from its tourism industry which introduces a massive amount of single use water bottles into circulation.​
As a small archipelago in the centre of the South Pacific ocean Fiji has just one sanitary landfill and two municipal dumps.
Ocean currents circle around the islands and drop yet more plastic waste with the tide. Less than 1/3 of Fiji's plastic waste is produced in Fiji.
Burning Plastic is bad
Burning plastic waste is common in Fiji as people attempt to great rid of the ugly mess in the environment around their villages and houses. It is common to find clumps of carbonised food packaging, juice cartons, plastic bottles, toothpaste tubes, shampoo bottles and old flip flops.
However, this might remove the ugliness of the rubbish but this creates serious health effects for humans and for the environment
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Damaging human health
Burning plastic releases toxic substances into the environment which can last hundreds of years.
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The acrid smoke irritates eyes, causes lung issues and may be linked with cancer and diabetes.
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Poisoning our Vanua
Once a plastics fire stops burning an oily sludge seeps into the soil, rivers and washes out to sea.
This contaminates fruit and vegetables and other crops before emptying into the ocean.
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Once it enters the ocean this toxic plastic waste breaks up into microscopic particles which damages our coral reefs and marine life. This is transferred back to humans when we eat fish, gather nama and crustaceans such as qari.
How long to disappear?
The time it takes for plastic to biodegrade depends on the particular type of plastic, the environmental conditions and how much sunlight is present *
plastic straw - up to 200 years
plastic bag - 20 - 1000 years
plastic rings - 400 years
plastic bottles - 450 to 500 years
disposable nappies - 500 years
*Statistics from WWF Australia
