Briggs
English 2010
Thursday, February 12, 2009
You’ve probably heard the term ‘plastic ocean’ and you’ve probably heard that it’s ‘serious’, ‘the size of Texas’, ‘twice the size of Texas’. Do you believe it? More importantly, can you do something about it?
The first time I heard about the Pacific Gyre in 2006, I imagined soda bottle caps, Barbie shoes, plastic forks, cups, and plastic grocery sacks. I wondered why it sounded so serious, couldn’t we just get out there and clean it up? I started to do some research and found an article about a man named Captain Charles Moore and that led me to a 12 part video called Toxic Garbage Island on VBS TV’s website.
Picture: Animated map showing the journey garbage takes from the beaches to the gyres of the ocean. From Greenpeace 30 Oct 2006,
All the things I had imagined are present, but the problem was much bigger and more difficult to solve than I had realized. I also began to wonder why I had never heard of this before.
So What is The Problem?
Charles Moore is the man who discovered the ‘plastic ocean’ in 1997 when he decided to sail a less traveled route from Hawaii to Los Angeles, CA. He was interviewed by NPR for a show called All Things Considered on October 28, 2007 and it turns out that I wasn’t the only one who wanted to know: “Why can’t you just sort of sweep through, scoop it up, and get rid of it?” (Interviewer’s name Unknown) His answer is alarming:
If the entire Continental United States had a million plastic particles per square mile, how would you propose to remove that from the entire surface area of the United States? Now, imagine a medium in which, not only would you have to remove it from the surface like you would if it was on land, but where our trawls indicate it’s prevalent down to over 100 feet.
The sheer size of the mess is only half of the problem. Plastic is made up of monomers, a molecule that can be combined with other molecules that form a polymer. Polymers can be found in things like diamonds, and graphite as well as silly putty and foods that contain complex carbohydrates like starch and cellulose. At the molecular level, a polymer looks like a string of beads.
To make plastic, various polymers are broken back down to monomers using a heat process; the recombination of various monomers make-up the different types of plastic. You could say that these polymers are no longer ‘natural’.
Types of Plastics
HDPE High-density polyethylene (i.e., milk jugs)
LDPE Low-density polyethylene
LLDPE Linear low-density polyethylene
PET Polyethylene terephthalate (i.e., soda bottles)
PP Polypropylene (i.e., long underwear)
PS Polystyrene (i.e., packaging "peanuts")
PVC Polyvinyl chloride (i.e., pipes)
Table from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 6 Nov 2008. 02 Feb 2009
Plastic has changed nearly every aspect of the way human beings live. Its relative indestructibility makes it the perfect way to transport food, beverages, and innumerable other products. It is the same indestructibility that creates the major part of the problem. There are few if any organisms that can actually digest, that is to say, destroy plastic; most of it is broken down into its most basic polymers by ultraviolet radiation and solar heat in a process called photodegredation. These polymers make up the bulk of the plastic that has contaminated the ocean.
No one can say with certainty how long plastics will last in the environment. We will just have to wait and see. The first synthetic plastic, Bakelite, was invented in 1907. Pieces of Bakelite are still structurally sound after more than a century. Our best guess is that, like diamonds, plastic is forever. – Algalita.com FAQ
It seems like we are presented with an unsolvable dilemma. The garbage can be removed from beaches around the world, but there is no way to remove that much ‘confetti’ from the ocean without causing irreversible damage to the marine life.
What’s The Harm?
Photo by Cynthia Vanderlip. From Moore, Captain Charles. “Trashed: Across the Pacific Ocean, plastics, plastics, everywhere” Natural History Magazine 02 Feb 2009.
It seems like the plastic soup out there is just a big ugly mess, but is it more dangerous than that? The answer is yes, aside from being an eyesore, the plastic confetti floating in the oceans is often mistaken for natural food sources. Jellyfish mistake it for plankton, sea turtles mistake plastic bags for jellyfish, and Albatross birds often fly hundreds of miles to find whatever food they can for their young. This information left me wondering who would feed their child a plastic bottle cap if they knew that it would cause starvation?
Photo from Algalita Marine Research Foundation 10 Dec 2008, 02 Feb 2009
Plastic is known for its ability to attract oily substances. That means that it also soaks up POPs (persistent organic pollutants) that make it into the fish that make it onto our dinner plates. Chemicals like DDT and PCB which, to name a few problems, are known to cause birth defects and damage to the nervous and immune systems.
How can I help?
It is estimated that each American throws away 48 kilograms of plastic each year; That’s 105.6 pounds of plastic per person. If the oceans are downhill from everything else the implication is that any wayward garbage that makes it into the rivers, because of major storms or minor negligence, will eventually end up washed out to sea. The best thing we can do is to keep as much plastic from the waste stream as possible by reducing the amount of it we use. Here are a few suggestions:
Imagine how many polystyrene take-out containers could be saved on Valentine’s Day if every person who went out to eat that night slipped their own container for leftovers into their purse or briefcase.
Imagine how many plastic bags could be kept out of the trash cycle if each person used their own bags for their groceries, or used Tupperware instead of Ziploc bags. The grocery bags I use have long enough handles that I can put them on my shoulders. That saves me the mad dash to the door with heavy armloads of plastic grocery sacks.
I would like to close by making a comparison. A responsible pet owner takes into consideration that most dogs live to be at least 10 years old. They must consider if they are willing to commit their resources to a dog for at least that long before they get one.
A responsible consumer would consider the lifespan of a plastic water bottle before purchasing one. You could purchase one 32oz bottle of your favorite water for roughly $2.50; after its one-time-use is up, it will spend centuries on the planet. You could also spend $7.00 on a 32oz BPA free bottle with a screw on cap and refill it over and over again for the rest of a lifetime. I wonder how much money could be saved?
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