Plastic Pollution in Our Oceans

These past few decades, many of us have become aware of the extent of how we have damaged our own environment. We have realized that we've become a throw away, disposable society, and unfortunately we are suffering the consequences. Landfills are overflowing from the garbage we throw out and the majority of what we have been throwing out have been items made with plastics which are indestructible, non-biodegradable and therefore, do not break down as easily as other forms of garbage. It's only been in the past few years for instance, that people are being encouraged to either reuse the plastic bags they get at stores, or invest in reusable bags. Many countries have even banned plastic bags outright.

While the whole concept of recycling our garbage isn't a new one, in many places in America it didn't become mandatory until the late 1980s. For instance, in the New York City area, recycling was only voluntary in 1986, becoming mandatory in 1989, however, it wasn't until 1997 that all 59 districts of New York City's five borough began it's mandatory recycling program in earnest. Another incentive that began some thirty years ago, to prevent items that are recyclable winding up in landfills, particularly that of plastic bottles, was to add the 5¢ bottle deposit fee. The idea behind this was to encourage people to take these bottles back to their supermarket where their deposit money was reimbursed and the plastic bottles would be then recycled.

Despite all our efforts to make a conscientious effort to cut down on the amount of garbage that is being thrown out and have them recycled instead, is it too little too late? While we may understand the detrimental polluting effects that our garbage has created in our land environment, what about our oceans?

Supposedly, there now exists strict governmental regulations of ocean dumping, but that has only been taking effect in relatively recent years. Prior to these regulations, one of the most common places to dump any and all forms of garbage worldwide was in our oceans, ranging from untreated sewage, toxic and radioactive waste products, as well as common and ordinary types of garbage that was thrown out routinely, including and especially items made of plastic. Yet, even with the strict regulations against dumping garbage into our oceans, our garbage still manages to find it's way there. Anytime one throws out any form of garbage mindlessly on highways, for instance, it can wind up in a small body of water, and all bodies of water, such as rivers lead to the ocean. And, of course, if one carelessly throws garbage while on the beaches, they will end up in the ocean as well.

How many times for instance, in the past few years, have we heard on the news that beaches along the eastern coast of American had to be closed down, due to the discovery of disposable medical waste and syringes? The real alarming fact is that much of the garbage debris in our oceans, especially plastic items, may well be ones that were thrown and dumped into the oceans as many as some fifty years ago. (1)

While most forms of garbage can breakdown, disintegrate and therefore be considered biodegradable, plastic can't, not even the plastics that are supposed to be biodegradable. Biodegradable plastics can only breakdown with constant exposure to sunlight, a fact that doesn't exist when any plastic product finds its way into our oceans. In the ocean, plastic will often photodedgrade, that is, the sun's UV rays that filter into the ocean turns the plastic brittle, breaking the plastic into pieces anywhere from fairly large pellet sized to pieces as small as a particle of sand.(2)

Another offender is that of as nurdles. Nurdles are round pelleted sized plastics and have been in existence for about twenty-five years. These nurdles were thought to be the most economical means of shipping large quantities of plastic material to processing plants to make our plastic items such as bottles, toys, bags and virtually anything made out of plastic. Unfortunately, many of these pellets over the past twenty five years have escaped en route and managed to find their way into our oceans and on our beaches. The real danger of these pellets lies in the fact of their absorbing quality of toxins such as PCBs, and DDT-DDE making them virtual poison time bombs, not only releasing these toxins into the ocean, but being ingested by seabirds, fish and other sea creatures, and yes, of course we who consume marine animals for food. (3)

Worldwide, during the past few decades, marine biologists are constantly discovering dead birds and sea animals, such as seals, sea lions, dolphins, turtles, and whales whose stomachs contain a vast variety of plastic debris such as cigarette lighters, toothbrushes, plastic toys, plastic bags, bottle tops, styrofoam cups, even plastic tampon applicators. Back in the year 2004, a report was released by one study conducted by Dutch scientists, who upon examining the stomachs of dead fulmars, which are a type of seagull, found that each gull had an average of thirty pieces of plastics.(4) In a video I found at YouTube, entitled, Ocean of Plastic it states that an estimated one million seabirds and 100,000 whales, dolphins, seals and other animals die each and every year as a result of eating the plastic items that they think is food. Ironically, according to this video, while the bodies of these dead birds and animals will decompose on beaches, the plastic items they had eaten as food, doesn't...one even sees such evidence of a dead bird lying on a beach, it's body decomposed, yet you can clearly see the plastic bottle caps and other debris it had eaten still fully intact.

The real alarming fact is that plastic debris is affecting all stages of the ecosystem. Those fine particles of plastic "dust" absorb into the plankton and the ocean's sea-floor vegetation, which in turn may be consumed by fish and other sea mammals and even birds. Once again, referring to the YouTube video, Ocean of Plastic, this plastic dust is now showing up in our human blood and in women's breastmilk, since we are eating the foods found in the ocean, not only fish, but from other sources too, as in those cultures who consume the ocean's vegetation such as seaweed.

While all oceans are being affected by our plastic garbage, the worse to be affected is the Pacific Ocean as has been coined the term, "The Great Pacific Garbage Patch", specifically the area known as the North Pacific subtropical gyre. This garbage patch of plastics was discovered some eleven years ago, innocently enough by Captain Charles Moore and his crew on board the Alguita en route home from Hawaii to California. Most sailors usually avoid this particular path in the ocean, yet he decided to sail in this area on that particular day of August 3, 1997. What happened next was to inspire him to form his organization named The Algalita Marine Research Foundation. That day on what was supposed to be a leisurely sail home, he came upon scores of plastic bags, plastic nets, ropes, bottles quite literally in the middle of nowhere, and yet, before him were the plastic garbage remains of we humans.

Captain Charles Moore and his Algalita Marine Research Foundation, now routinely goes back to this Pacific Garbage Patch to continue studies of the effects of plastics that are found in the ocean. One would think that with our environmental awareness and efforts to help our planet these past few years that he and his Foundation would be finding less plastic items in the ocean. Not so, if anything, he's discouragingly only finding more. While perhaps a mere drop in the bucket, Moore's Foundation as well as the efforts of many like minded organizations are trying to clean up our oceans and rid them of our plastic garbage.

What can the average person do to help our oceans be rid of our plastic garbage? Be stringent about recycling plastics, try to use less plastic, especially plastic bags. If you really want to go the mile, join up with groups (usually volunteer status) that often do clean up efforts especially near any waterways, such as streams, bays, ponds, rivers and of course the beaches themselves. One great website to find out how one can go about volunteering or becoming involved with the efforts of keeping our oceans clean is at the Network For Good website, but there are of course many others one can find, especially on a local level by doing a search.

Various sources about plastics in our oceans

http://www.cdnn.info/news/article/a071104.html

http://www.cdnn.info/news/article/a071104.html

http://www.culturechange.org/Petroleum&Plastics.html (4)

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_did_the_recycling_movement_begin

http://www.alternet.org/water/76054/plastic_is_killing_our_oceans/ (1)

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/337466_ocean31.htmll (2)

http://www.greatgarbagepatch.org/

http://weblog.greenpeace.org/oceandefenders/archive/2006/11/whats_a_nurdle.html

http://blog.greenmuseum.org/recycle-ryoanji/?p=42 (3)

Recycling Programs

http://www.nyc.gov/html/nycwasteless/html/recycling/recycling_history.shtml

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_did_the_recycling_movement_begin

The Algalita Marine Research Foundation

http://www.algalita.org/

Videos On Plastics in Our Oceans

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7Nn-mUfSBU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPBO-c5GMDQ&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxNqzAHGXvs&feature=related