aRTICLE | Marine Pollution & Plastic Ingestion
Micro-plastics in the fish I eat The other day, as I stepped out of my car to buy fish from a fisher folk on the bank of River Mahanadi, a waste carrier vehicle engaged by the local municipality rushed towards me at high speed. It would have killed me had the fish seller not shouted to warn me about the incoming danger. Saved from the road accident, as I walked on to buy my favourite Rohu fish, fresh from River Mahanadi, I hardly had any idea of another danger that stared at me: micro-plastics in the body of the fish
Ranjan K Panda | Convenor, Combat Climate Change Network
his might not be an immediate danger to my life but is surely a slow-onset disaster posing a lot of threat to not only human health but that of other species, and the ecosystems they are part of. Of course, micro-plastic is not the only pollutant that invades a fish or waterbody. They could be contaminated by heavy metals and other pollutants. In this piece, I am touching upon the micro-plastic menace, that’s growing out of bounds and already poses a great challenge before all of us.
Fish from the reservoir
A latest scientific study has got me especially worried particularly because my family and I love to have river fishes. Researchers from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) have, in this study, found out that pollutants like micro-plastics may be causing growth defects in fish, including skeletal deformities, in the Cauvery River. An important aspect of this study was to find out pollution of water from different locations at the KRS Dam with varying speeds of water flow: fast-flowing, slow-flowing, and stagnant. Water speed is known to affect the concentration of pollutants. Such pollutants, including micro-plastics, could impact the health of people and
44 May 2022 | www.urbanupdate.in
planet. A researcher involved in the above study opines, polluted water can cause diseases including cancer. We have all observed that our rivers have changed over the decades, but there is hardly any data to show all the dimensions of these changes. This study, led by Prof.UpendraNongthaomba, throws a completely new dimension of the change our rivers have faced. He is a worried man as his favourite fish destination gives him shockers. Reports published about this study quotes the professor saying how he cherished going to the backwaters of the Krishna Raja Sagara [KRS] Dam and having fried fish on the Cauvery River bank. Things have changed now as physical deformities have been noticed in fishes, which could be due to the degraded quality of water. Hence the study.
Dammed rivers, unhealthy fishes
What Prof.Nongthaomba worries about his favourite fish and its habitat is something that worries me as well: about my favourite fish and its habitat. It concerns me more because the kind of deformities that the professor can see in his favourite fish may not be visible to me. I am not an expert on that, neither are other people who relish the fish from my river. More so because movement of the fish is restricted by a dam and thus chances of pollutants affecting the fish are greater. The fish I bought was sourced from the HirakudDam. This is the only large dam on the lifeline river of two states – Odisha and Chhattisgarh – which has submerged an area of 746 square kilometres thus creating one of the largest human-made lakes in the world. Besides being used for other purposes, the water in this reservoir has created a huge fish reserve for both fisher folks and traders in Odisha. Thousands of people eke out a living by fishing in this reservoir on a daily basis. Pollution from coal mines, thermal power plants, steel and sponge iron industries, cities and towns – from the upstream locations in both Odisha and Chhattisgarh enter into this reservoir. There is hardly any study available on the impact of all these
