Plastic in the ocean sucks!

Mr. McGuire was correct in the 1967 movie, The Graduate, when he told Benjamin, “I want to say one word to you…Plastics.” Yes, plastics are here. Everything is packaged in it and made of it. Our cars are plastic. Medical technology is all about it. It’s literally molded into every facet of our lives.

Unfortunately, plastic enters our waterways, and ultimately ends up in our oceans. Turns out, it’s concentrating in the middle of the oceans’ great gyres. Ocean currents go in circuits, the centers of which are gyres. Plastic has low density and thus floats in the center of the gyres, where it can stay for decades. One of the Pacific's great gyres is now named “The Great Garbage Patch.” Remote islands, like Midway are littered with trash blown out of the gyres by storms. Turtles, fish, albatross, and other birds mistake it for food.

Much of this plastic escapes from our communities into our rivers, below.

River plastic is flushed into the ocean and ends up in the gyres.

The Albatross

In the short term ingestion of plastic by animals can lead to starvation and dehydration because the plastic displaces food and water in the gut. In the long term, plastics adhere to toxins that get into animal tissue and impair their ability to reproduce and cause other maladies.

Out of 22 species of albatross, only 2 are not threatened with extinction. These are awesome birds with huge wingspans. They can live for months soaring over the open ocean, rarely flapping their wings.

Necropsy of an albatross - full of plastic. Where's the knucklehead who owns that lighter?

For a really in depth, Pulitzer Prize winning special on the great garbage patch, check out Kenneth R. Weiss' LA Times article:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-me-ocean2aug02,0,3130914.story

Here’s an excerpt from Weiss’ story about the albatross:

“Of the 500,000 albatross chicks born here each year, about 200,000 die, mostly from dehydration or starvation. A two-year study funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency showed that chicks that died from those causes had twice as much plastic in their stomachs as those that died for other reasons.

The atoll is littered with decomposing remains, grisly wreaths of feathers and bone surrounding colorful piles of bottle caps, plastic dinosaurs, checkers, highlighter pens, perfume bottles, fishing line and small Styrofoam balls. Klavitter has calculated that albatross feed their chicks about 5 tons of plastic a year at Midway.”

According to the California Coastal Commission, plastic bags, packaging and single-use disposable products are the most common items. Common sources include industrial discharges, garbage transportation, landfills, construction debris, and debris from commercial establishments and public venues.

I remember outdoor rock concerts in the 90s, where everybody threw their plastic cups from their $6 beers on the ground to be picked up. I guess the $6 didn’t cover clean up after all.

Folks, it’s much worse than just a few isolated seabirds tangled in six-pack rings. Plastic is everywhere and we’re not doing a good job keeping it out of the oceans. This is one of the most important environmental issues of our time, which we, citizens of Earth, can and must fix. How can we must be responsible with our plastic? Reduce, re-use, and recycle.

Reduce plastic consumption.
1. Use re-usable containers for lunches.
2. Use re-usable drink containers, instead of buying a new $2 Evian each time you get thirsty. If the tap water is bad, get a filter. My great grandmother drank city tap water for all of her 100 years.

3. Tough one; consume less.

If you must use a plastic container, re-use it.

Recycle.
1. Most communities have recycling centers or curbside pick-up. Even my rural/suburban county has recycling services at the local transfer station.
a. It’s easy; all glass and plastic goes into one bin so you only need one.
b. Be sure to remove caps from containers so that the crushers can crush them.
2. Take plastic bags back to the grocery store, or re-use, or use cloth bags.

The demand is there for these recyclable plastics. We just need to ensure that our used plastics get to market and not to the oceans.

That’s good for us, but what about the corporate world, where this stuff is made. Manufacturers of laundry detergent, for example should create a re-fill program where you can bring your indestructible detergent bottle back for more. I hate knowing that the ones going into the landfill today will be there long after we’re all dead.

Less is more. Packaging is out of control. Many times the packaging out weighs the merchandise by an order of magnitude, like with digital camera cards, mp3 players, and food stuffs with multiple layers of plastic, to name a few.

We didn't have all this plastic when I was a kid. Heck, we've been living and evolving for 2 million years. Plastic burst onto the scene just a heartbeat ago. We don't need it.

There are also a lot of problems with plastic manufacturers who neglect to keep their industrial byproducts from leaking out of rail cars and factories. Little plastic beads used for the manufacture of plastic get into the environment, are ingested, and make their way into the oceanic food web. Remediation of these problems must happen.

Plastics represent a huge threat to the environment. With over 6 billion people on the planet, all using more plastic than ever, we must get better. We owe it to the albatross and our children.