By Bart King
This week marks the 20th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, which released between 11 and 30 million gallons of oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound, causing an estimated $15 billion dollars worth of damages and lingering ecological effects along 1,300 miles of coastline.
And though oil spills continue to occur with increasing frequency–the most recent happened off the coast of Australia just two weeks ago–oil is not the biggest polluting threat to the world’s oceans, at least not in its liquid form. Plastic is.
I was shocked to learn there is an area in the Pacific Ocean called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch that contains an estimated 4 million tons of floating plastic waste. A circulation of ocean currents causes trash discarded along the Pacific Rim to gather in this area, known as the North Pacific Gyre.
The most densely polluted area is roughly twice the size of Texas and is alternately called the Eighth Continent, the Plastic Vortex or Garbage Island.
Although floating plastic bags, bottles and foam can be seen in every direction, it’s the plastic that has broken down into much smaller pieces that is the greatest cause for concern. Plastic does not biodegrade into raw minerals that can be reused by microorganisms. Rather, it photodegrades, as sunlight causes it to become brittle and break into ever smaller pieces.
Eventually these tiny pieces resemble plankton, the primary organism on the marine food chain. Researchers say random water samplings taken from the Garbage Patch contain hundreds or even thousands of plastic pieces for each actual plankton. These pieces, which don’t exactly float or sink, are suspended in the top 30 meters of water, according to reports. One researcher said the underwater scene is like being inside an enormous snow globe.
Strangely enough, this soupy mess of plastic was only discovered ten years ago and studies are just beginning to evaluate its impact on the ecosystem. Early estimates suggest that on average, for every single plankton in the earth’s oceans, there are six similarly sized bits of plastic. Each speck of plastic serves as a collection point for what are called persistent organic pollutants–chemical toxins like DDT and other pesticides that are already prevalent in the ocean and cling to the plastic. As a result, it’s not just the plastic itself that enters the food supply.
Most people have heard about sea turtles and large fish mistakenly
eating grocery bags that look like jelly fish. Untold numbers of large
aquatic animals die in this manner; however, it’s the plankton-sized
pieces, passed upwards through the food chain, that threaten human
health as well.
Organic toxins aside, medical researchers don’t yet know what the
effects of eating plastic are, but we all know it can’t be good. Much
attention has been focused lately on the health risks associated with
bisphenol A (BPA)–an ingredient used in the production of
polycarbonate, which is an unrecyclable type of hard plastic. Epoxy coatings used
inside some food cans and water pipes also contain BPA. Several
million tons of BPA are produced each year, and in 2008 the federal
government issued a warning about its potential health effects.
Some studies have shown that even low doses of BPA can affect
maturation, hormone levels, fertility, immune function and brain
structure in mice. In 2007, the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) found "widespread exposure to BPA in the U.S.
population." CDC scientists detected BPA in the urine of nearly 93% of
the people tested with the highest levels in children and teens.
If the plastic is spread around the world’s oceans as widely as
reported, cleanup is impossible. However, this summer an expedition
will test methods for capturing some of the Plastic Vortex. Project
Kaisei hopes to skim the plastic from the North Pacific waters and
convert it to diesel fuel that can power continued cleanup. The
expedition will be filmed for National Geographic and the group is
currently trying to raise funding on their website
www.projectkaisei.org.
Ultimately the reduction of plastics is the only plausible
solution. Consider these statistics: Every year over 60 billion tons of
plastic are produced, much of it for one-time use, and less than 5
percent of the world’s plastics are recycled.
National Geographic estimates that more than 85 million plastic bottles
are used every three minutes. Much of the plastic waste that is not
incinerated (which is toxic in its own right) or land-filled makes its
way downstream to the oceans. The UN Environment Programme estimated in
2006 that every square kilometer of sea holds nearly 18,000 pieces of
floating plastic and that there are more than 100 million tons of
plastic in the world’s oceans.
To learn more, check out the documentary "Garbage Island" at www.vsb.tv
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Bart King is News Editor of SustainableBusiness.com. This column is available for syndication.
Contact bart@sustainablebusiness.com.
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