Kanapou Bay, Kaho’olawe, Hawaii.
Photo from NOAA’s National Ocean Service on Flickr through Creative Commons

Our oceans are turning into landfills. The morbid truth about pollution—especially plastics—in the marine environment is that our trash is coming back to haunt us. Mountains of junk are swirling around in a large part of the world’s seas; a serious health concern to both humans and the environment. Below, the 5 Gyres Project and Mother Jones lay out the gruesome yet little-known facts about the dangers of our ever-growing plastic seas:

WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?

* Consumption:
We each have an impact on this planet, simply by being here. Each of us requires precious resources in order to survive. We know the earth does not have unlimited reserves to support almost seven billion people forever, yet most of us do not think twice about how our consumption habits affect the environment.

“Americans…produce a record-setting 240 pounds of plastic per person per year.”

“…Most of what we eat, drink, or use in any way comes packaged in petroleum plastic- a material designed to last forever, yet used for products that we then throw away. This throwaway mentality is a relatively recent phenomenon. Just a generation ago, we packaged our products in reusable or recyclable materials – glass, metals, and paper, and designed products that would last.”

“Roughly 50% is buried in landfills, some is remade into durable goods, and much of it remains “unaccounted for”, lost in the environment where it ultimately washes out to sea.”

* Pollution:

Photo from ingridtaylar on Flickr through Creative Commons

Things don’t simply disappear. The same is true for trash. When we throw something into the garbage bin, it doesn’t just ‘go away.’ It must go somewhere. The heartbreaking reality is most of our trash is not disposed of responsibly. Anything that doesn’t make it to a landfill ultimately ends up in our waterways, where it eventually wanders out to sea. 

“Around the world, plastic pollution has become a growing plague, clogging our waterways, damaging marine ecosystems, and entering the marine food web.”

“Twenty percent of what gets to sea has been tossed off ships and oil rigs; the rest comes via floods and sewage…”

“Every year, more than 500 billion plastic bags are discarded worldwide; they wave from tree braches so abundantly that South Africans have dubbed them their ‘national flower’…”

“Remote islands around the world are covered with acres of lighters, pens, bottles, tampon applicators—and tiny pellets of preproduction plastic called nurdles that compose 11 percent of beach litter.”

“More than 46,000 pieces of plastic debris float on each square mile of ocean.”

* Accumulation:
Plastic is made to last. When it was created in the 1850’s by New York chemist John Wesley, the intention was to make a synthetic alternative to ivory that would be both durable and supple. Unfortunately, these seemingly convenient qualities are exactly what makes plastic one of the largest environmental catastrophes.

“Because petroleum plastics are designed to last, plastic trash in the gyre will remain for decades or longer.”

“Just how long does it take for conventional plastics to completely break down? 500 years? 1,000? It’s a mystery. ‘No one has really measured how long it takes,’ says Ramani Narayan, a professor of chemical and biochemical engineering at Michigan State Univesity.”

“What is known is that conventional petroleum-based plastics never really go away, even when they break down into pieces too small to be seen with the naked eye.”

“…Scientists are finding that plastic debris is accumulating in the each of the 5 oceanic gyres.”

* Circulation:

“At sea, floating plastics are swept up into slow moving currents. Our oceans are dynamic systems, made up of complex networks of currents that circulate water around the world. Large systems of these currents, coupled with wind and the earth’s rotation, create “gyres”, massive, slow rotating whirlpools in which plastic trash can accumulate.”

“…There are 5 major oceanic gyres worldwide, with several smaller gyres in Alaska and Antarctica. Marine researchers don’t yet know the extent to which plastic pollution exists in the world’s oceans.”

“The North Pacific Gyre, the most heavily researched for plastic pollution, spans an area roughly twice the size of the United States.”

“The Texas-sized ‘great garbage patch’ in the North Pacific Gyre holds an estimated 3 million metric tons of mostly plastic trash, six times the mass of plankton found there.”

Captain Charles Moore of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation takes us on a video tour of the Great Garbage Patch in the North Pacific.

* Toxins:
The terrifying thing about plastic trash is that the problem isn’t only limited to disrupting the pretty scenery. Made of poisonous substances and chemicals, these toxins are leaking into the environment when plastic breaks down. The result is a contaminated ocean. When humans and other marine animals consume seafood that has been tainted by plastic, the health implications could be severe. 

“In the ocean, some of these plastics- Polycarbonate, Polystyrene, and PETE- sink, while LDPE, HDPE, Polypropylene, and foamed plastics float on the oceans surface. Sunlight and wave action cause these floating plastics to fragment, breaking into increasingly smaller particles, but never completely disappearing.”

These toxic agents are also found in a variety of domestic products, such as paint and computers. Animal studies on the effects of PBDEs have shown they cause liver, thyroid, and reproductive problems. Another dangerous chemical compound in our plastic world is bisphenol A (BPA.) We produce about six billion pounds of BPA per year; so it is no surprise that it has been found in every single person who has ever been tested in the United States. These chemicals have been shown to wreak havoc on the endocrine system.

“Most [of the plastic] has broken into microplastics that chemically bond with PCBS, DDT, and endocrine disrupters to make this area a million times more toxic than surrounding seas.”

“Marc Goldstein, M.D., director of the Cornell Institute for Reproductive Medicine, believes there is a correlation between declining fertility rates and exposure to synthetic chemicals found in plastic. Goldstein has stated that even low doses of exposure to the chemicals “can have an adverse effect” in an unborn baby’s reproductive organs. In ocean habitats, the excess estrogen has led to the nightmarish discoveries of male fish and seabirds developing female reproductive organs.”

* Ingestion:

Photo from gramarye on Flickr through Creative Commons

Since the seas are saturated with trash, marine animals are accidentally consuming our waste, leading to the death and strangulation of millions of creatures every year. 

“Each year, undegraded plastic chokes to death some 100,000 whales, dolphins, seals, manatees, plus an unknown number of sea turtles and about 2 million birds.”

“…Those plankton-sized flakes are mistakenly consumed by jellyfish and small fish that are in turn consumed by bigger fish, taking the toxic payload further and further up the marine food chain.”

“Science is beginning to ask the question: do chemicals such as PCBs and DDTs that sorb onto plastic pellets get into the tissues and blood of the animals that eat plastic? Do these chemicals work their way up the food chain, becoming increasingly concentrated and potentially entering our bodies when we eat seafood?”

“We’re eating these plasticizing additives, drinking them, breathing them, and absorbing them through our skin every single day,” writes journalist Susan Casey in a Bestlife 2007 article, Our Oceans are Turning into Plastic… Are We?

The multitude of problems from the gyres is enough to make nearly anyone queasy. Although the problem of marine pollution is gigantic, we can each do our small role in fixing it. Awareness of the issue is the first step. TenthMil will continue to keep you posted on the issues and solutions for cleaning up our oceans. For now, simply being aware of your consumption habits and making it a point to put trash where it belongs goes a long way.

References:

Casey, Susan. “Our Oceans are turning into Plastic… Are We?” Best Life Magazine. Mens Health, 25 Oct. 2007. Web. 5 Aug. 2009.

.
Kahn, Jennifer. “Plastic. Fantastic?” Mother Jones: Smart, Fearless Journalism May-June 2009: 57-59.
McKibben, Bill. “Waste Not Want Not.” Mother Jones: Smart, Fearless Journalism May-June 2009: 50-51.
Whitty, Julia. “Where Plastics Go to Kill.” Mother Jones: Smart, Fearless Journalism May-June 2009: 59-59.

Related TenthMil Articles:

Edward James Olmos Supports Ocean Restoration
Incredible Plastic Boat to Explore Garbage Patch
To The Gyre
Video: World’s Largest Floating Landfill Explained in 8 Minutes