In the 1967 Dustin Hoffman film “The Graduate” the lead character Ben is offered advice at his grad party by a family friend. “I’m just going to say one word to you. Just one word. Are you listening? Plastics. There’s a great future in plastics.” Just over 50 years later we are faced with a grim picture thanks to the great future of plastics. We produce over 300 million tons of plastic every year, and 8 million tons end up in our oceans. According to a bipartisan group of senators, “Without change there will be more plastic by weight than fish in the oceans by 2050.” If you aren’t alarmed by these numbers, there’s a lot you need to know about plastic. (1, 2, 3)
The Plastic Crisis: Pacific Trash Vortex
The Pacific Trash Vortex, also known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch covers an estimated 1.6 million square kilometers, spanning from the West Coast of North America to Japan. The area of spinning trash consists of 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic weighing about 80,000 tons. An estimated 1.15 to 2.41 million tonnes of plastic travel from rivers into the ocean each year. Because of its buoyancy, the plastic debris does not sink and instead floats creating an island of plastic garbage. The plastic easily travels far distances, reaching areas where currents converge, holding the plastic mass in the Trash Vortex. (4, 5)
Plastic Crisis Bill
Sens. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) head up the team of bipartisan senators introducing a bill to address the plastic crisis. Aptly named ‘Save Our Seas 2.0’, the bill is an addition to an ocean cleanliness law signed by President Trump. (3)
The new plastic crisis legislation would upgrade U.S. recycling and sorting of plastic materials. A fund would also be introduced to address “marine debris events” allowing for quicker response to accidents such as shipping container disasters. Research would be financed exploring the possibilities to re-purpose used plastics for a wide number of products from clothes to skateboards as well as materials to support infrastructure such as telephone poles. (3)
Plastic Crisis Effects All Nations
While the United States can contribute to cleaning up the oceans, it will take a major effort from around the world to make a difference. Rivers in Asian countries account for 67% of the global total of plastic that ends up in the ocean. Because of this the new bill also includes demands the Trump administration prioritize ocean pollution with pressure to create an international agreement on marine debris. (4, 3)
Plastic Crisis Killing Marine Life
Meanwhile, the Trash Vortex continues to grow with more and more water bottles, cups, plastic bags, and random plastic items collected by the gyre. As plastic debris enters the gyre, it becomes trapped allowing the plastic to degrade into smaller microplastics. Through prolonged exposure to the sun and waves, photodegradation takes place breaking it down into smaller and smaller pieces. (5, 6)
The plastic collected in the gyre has a terrible impact on marine life. Plastic bags attract loggerhead sea turtles as they have the same movement and appearance as their favorite food, jellies. Plastic resin pellets have the appearance of fish eggs, drawing albatrosses in when seeking food for their chicks. The plastic provides no sustenance and therefore the chicks die of starvation or suffer from ruptured organs. (6)
Larger animals such as seals become tangled in plastic fishing nets, which causes them to drown. In the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, plastics block out the sun which means it can’t reach plankton and algae. These “autotrophs” are key to the marine food web as they produce nutrients from sunlight and carbon and provide food for fish and turtles. (6)
The Dangers Of The Plastic Crisis
Harmful pollutants also affect the marine food web. Through bioaccumulation, poisons such as bisphenol A (BPA) and PCBs enter the seafood we eat. This domino effect begins when chemicals enter the body of animals feeding on plastic, then that animal becomes food for another animal, and those poisons then enter the body of that animal and so on. At the top of the food web are humans who ultimately eat the poisoned food supply. (6, 5)
In dollars and cents, marine plastics cost between $6-19 billion US dollars due to the negative impact on tourism, fisheries and aquaculture, and government cleanup programs. Since money talks, hopefully governments will see that intercepting plastic in rivers is far more cost-effective than trying to manage the issues once the plastic reaches our oceans. (5)
