India, April 22 -- Plastic turns into a problem as soon as its disposal is improper and it enters a highly dynamic environment such as the sea

My team is in Southern Maharashtra, at one of the remote SCUBA dive locations on a mission to assess the health of the coral reef. As the dive starts and I slowly descend through the water column, visibility improves, and I see some coral. I am eager to see fish, colourful nudibranchs, or at least a shoal of barracudas, which I know are usually seen there. But, alas, I am greeted by the ghastly sight of a discarded infant diaper tangled into a coral. It is a shocking sight for a marine biologist. How can something out of place be found in a pristine habitat around 10 km from the shoreline? It seem...