We are our own worst enemy

We are our own worst enemy

Kalidas before he became a wise and learned man was a dimwit, the man who sawed a treebranch, sitting at the wrong end. He cut the branch and broke his bones successfully, a somewhat similar situation is faced by humanity now. Biomagnification in simple terms is the increase of harmful substances in the ordinary food chain process. Imagine with industrial or agriculture waste or just the trash, or the technical word PCP, persistent organic pollutant, when someone throws this out into the ocean itsettles into the seafloor. The smallest organism eats it or is surrounded by it, they live in it.

The level of toxicity is way more than what the organism can expel- they start accumulating in its body. As the organism passes along the food chain from fish to predatory fish, to birds to humans, the toxicity grows to a larger amount- this is called biomagnification, an increase in PCP climbs up the food chain. For every 4 kg of food an animal consumes, roughly 400 grams of it becomes body mass, that means PCP levels transferred jumps up to almost 10% every time it goes up the food chain.

What can we do? In the long run, human beings need to find alternatives to the usage of chemicals, finds ways to keep up with demand organically. Since that option is close to impossible, there are things we can do- like cleaning up rivers and subtle changes in our lifestyles. Like avoiding the usage of petroleum products because they have heavy metals in them, disposing of cooking oil, grease and household chemicals properly and the simplest of all solutions, drinking water to wash away the waste. In 2004, the Stockholm convention on persistent organic pollutants came into effect and has already started to make a difference. Similarly, we need to check the amount of waste that is released from factories to the aquatic habitat. We humans eat what we sow and the only way to save us is to change and maybe one day become wise like Kalidas.