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The Pacific Garbage Patch: A Plastic’s Paradise
The ocean, a mixture of sky blue, royal blue, baby blue, and midnight blue spanning
down into the deep depths of the earth. A still canvas of water, sparkling from the sun shining
above. Each little ripple and baby wave placed ever so delicately in the serene expanse running
for miles. The refreshing smell of crystal salt radiates from the surface. The cool wind blows
gently across the horizon, like a brisk blanket on a perfect summer’s day. One problem. The
water that surrounds you is full of floating pieces of plastic caps, bottles, and bags as far as you
can see. There are even tiny particles of plastic suffocating the very water keeping you afloat. No
matter which way you turn, there is no way to avoid the daunting presence of plastic. This my
friends, is the horrors of the Pacific Garbage Patch.
The Pacific Garbage Patch is located amidst the waters between the United States and
Hawaii, bounded by the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre (“Great Pacific Garbage Patch”). It is
essentially a large floating and deeply submerged mass of litter, equivalent to double the size of
Texas, (Jocelyn Kaiser 1506). Phenomenally, this unfortunate situation is the result of the
beautiful nature of the sea and careless human conduct. Because of the “Earth’s wind patterns
and forces created by the rotation of the planet,” the center of a gyre is calm and stable (“Great
Pacific Garbage Patch”). Yet the “circular motion of the gyre draws debris into this stable center,
where it becomes trapped (“Great Pacific Garbage Patch”). The more we allow our litter to end
up in oceans, the faster and bigger the patch will grow. Often times, we tend only worry about
the visible problem, but the scariest part is that the patch is not limited to grow just from the
surface; it grows in depth as well. In fact, 70% of marine debris sinks to the bottom, making it
almost impossible to accurately compute the size of this vortex, (“Great Pacific Garbage Patch”).
Although we don’t know how extensive this issue is, we do know the contents of this massive
problem.
Most of the debris that has already been accumulated is composed of plastics, a material
that is not biodegradable, (“Great Pacific Garbage Patch”). Essentially, plastic is eternal and can
last forever. Over time, if left in the water, the sun will break down these plastics into
microscopic pieces, called micro plastics through a process called photodegradation, (“Great
Pacific Garbage Patch”). To illustrate the magnitude of this problem, scientists have confirmed
that there is about 1.9 million bits of plastic pieces per square mile, (“Great Pacific Garbage
Patch”). The plastic to naturally occurring organic matter ratio is roughly six pounds to every
pound specifically in the Pacific Garbage Patch, (Coulter 1962). This presents a huge problem
and threat to marine life. The home they thought they once had is now turning into an “aquatic
garbage can,” (Coulter 1960).
We live in a plastic era. We use plastic products everyday, see plastic creations
everywhere, and produce plastic commodities worldwide. The average American “uses hundreds
of pounds of plastic every year,” (Coulter 1962). Plastic is an extreme convenience. It is
tremendously easy for us to distinguish the benefits of plastic consumption when the negative
consequences are accumulating at sea so far away. Because no one owns the ocean, we cannot
get lazy and point fingers to find whose responsibility it is to pay attention the debris polluting
the sea. This is a problem that we need to address and come to realize now. In order to clean up
the plastic pollution found in the Pacific Garbage Patch and protect marine life, the United States
should ban shopping bags, regulate the use of tiny pellets, and decrease the use of disposable
plastics.
A common misconception is that most of the plastic found in the Pacific Garbage Patch
comes from ships when in fact most of it actually originates from land, (Coulter 1963). And one
of the most common sources of plastic originating from land is plastic bags. The average
American shopper will use an estimated 102 billion plastic shopping bags every year, equating to
over 500 per consumer and 1 million plastic shopping bags consumed every minute, (Kitt
Doucette 37). Despite its obvious popularity and deeming presence as a necessity in today’s
society, there is a significant drawback. Since these bags are “lightweight, aerodynamic, [and]
practically indestructible,” they are able to easily travel to unwanted territory and do not actually
disappear even after being discarded, (“Should Cities Ban Plastic Bags?”). Plastic bags should be
banned worldwide to help minimize the amount of plastic that ends up in the Pacific Garbage
Patch. This will help prevent the growth of this horrendous nightmare.
Plastic bags are made from polyethylene, (Doucette 37). Polyethylene is a chain of
hydrogen and carbon molecules originating from a mixture of crude oil, natural gas, and
petrochemical derivatives, (“The Ubiquitous Plastic Bag”). Does that not sound already toxic to
you? The shopping bags from supermarkets are not biodegradable and takes over a hundred
years “until the material effectively decays, mainly by UV-triggered photocatalytic
disintegration,” (Christin Muller, Kathy Townsend, and Jorg Matschullat 464). This means that
the plastic bags that end up in the ocean will only be able to break down into smaller plastic
fragments. There are biodegradable plastic bags that exist but only account for less than 1
percent of the bags on the market, (“The Ubiquitous Plastic Bag”). Even though this may be an
improvement on the time it takes to degrade into microbes, there is still a prevalent short-term
threat to marine animals, (Muller, Townsend, and Matschullat 465). In a study testing the
degradation of polymer shopping bags in the gastrointestinal fluids of sea turtles, it has been
proven that the breakdown is not fast enough to prevent mortality in both the Green and
Loggerhead turtle, (Muller, Townsend, Matschullat 466). Whether it be mistaken plastic bags as
jelly fish for food or pieces of plastic, 91% of Green Sea turtles and 82% of Olive Ridley Sea
Turtles have shown occurrence of anthropogenic debris ingestion, (Kathryn WedemeyerStrombel, Goerge balazs, James Johnson, Taylor Peterson, Mary Wicksten, and Pamela Plotkin
2088). The increased amount of plastic debris pollutes the water world of many marine animals
and poses a huge danger. By banning plastic bags, not only will the Pacific Garbage Patch’s
growth rate dwindle, but also many sea turtle lives will be saved. Imagine the tons of plastic bags
that can be kept out of the ocean with this single initiative.
But still, there are many that say a complete plastic bags ban is a huge inconvenience and
paper bags isn’t any better. Is the hassle of remembering to bring a reusable bag into the
supermarket a bigger deal than the 500 plastic bags you would have wasted that year (Doucette
37)? Plastic bags may be ideal but they are not irreplaceable. After the ban is implicated,
consumer demand will veer to using different alternatives and simultaneously removing the
threat you could have caused on a sea turtles life. But then there are many that argue paper bags
are equally harmful to the environment. That is untrue. Plastic is made from non renewable
resources such as oil. When China was able to decrease the plastic bag usage by two-thirds, 11.7
million barrels of oil was saved (Doucette 38). Yet paper bags come from renewable resources
and are renewable themselves. They can literally be made from the same recycled material of the
bag you chose to recycle, creating a huge sequence that is conservative. Sounds environmentally
friendly to me.
Another reason plastic bag bans may not be seen as ideal is because it is too expensive.
Yes, using plastic is cheap, only costing grocery stores anywhere from two to five cents per
plastic bag (“Should Cities Ban Plastic Bags?”). But it also costs about “$1 million a year to
repair recycling equipment jammed with plastic bags” (“Should Cities Ban Plastic Bags?”).
Cities spend large amounts of money just to clean up the bags and the unrelenting damages
caused by them. Banning plastic shopping bags would eliminate all of these economic and
environmental problems. It is the most effective way to retain more bags from entering the
growing Pacific Garbage Patch.
A further step that can be taken is regulating plastic resin pellets. Plastic resin pellets are
small pieces of plastic that are unintentionally set free into the environment usually during
transportation to manufacturing sites where they are remelted and molded into the plastic
products we use everyday (Yuki Mato, et. al. 318). These pellets have the same persistence as the
plastic particles floating around in the ocean and are even more commonly mistaken for food
amongst many sea birds. One of the main sea birds that ingests these pellets are Laysan
albatrosses. Swallowing plastic leads to “blockage of the digestive tract, reduced food
consumption, satiation of hunger, and potential exposure to toxic compounds” (Lindsay Young).
In a study where 22 albatrosses were tagged and tracked from O’ahu and Kure Atoll, the
amount of plastic loads were examined and collected. The amount of plastic ingested from the
Kure albatrosses was “up to ten times higher” than those from O’ahu (Young). These results was
an outcome of the availability of food and competition. Because Kure Atoll contains the same
amount of natural food but almost 52 times as many albatrosses, the pressure to select food
lessens and thus makes it easier to misidentify plastic as food (Young). The plastic that these
albatrosses are consuming and then feeding their chicks comes from the Pacific Garbage Patch,
as shown from the foraging paths of the tagged albatrosses (Young). If the plastic pellets never
got misplaced in the oceans, albatrosses would never come across the unintentional harm of
plastic pellets. We must be able to intercept and regulate the dispersal of these pellets into the
ocean to save the future generation of seabirds.
Another detrimental factor of these plastic pellets is that they carry toxic chemicals like
polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) (Mato 318). PCB is the perfect persistent to all environmental
factors. The surrounding sea water and the surface of the pellet is the ideal system to supplement
the amount of PCB in the pellets, a proven amount of 10^5 - 10^6 times higher concentration
than plain sea water (Mato 323). Another seabird that these plastic pellets effect is the Great
Shearwater. It has been proven that there is a “positive correlation between the mass of ingested
plastics and PCB concentrations in fat tissue” (Mato 318). This presents a concern because of the
possible transfer of pollutants to other organisms passed down the food chain. Just because of
our careless actions, we are poisoning seabirds, other marine animals, and perhaps the seafood
that ends up on our table. Becoming aware and accountable of where these plastic pellets end up
could just end up saving the lives of many animals.
Monitoring how the pellets travel from industrial plants to factories will help reduce the
number of misplaced and lost pellets that are irresponsibly released into the environment. Like
California, passing a law requiring all companies that use nurdles to install “more effective
screens in storm drains,” improve “coverings on plastic pellet containers,” and improve “vacuum
clean up systems” would restrict the flow of plastic pellets into the Pacific Garbage Patch
(Jessica Coulter 1976). This is why every state should enact new laws restricting nurdle
operations as a necessary operation to resist the growth of the Pacific Garbage Patch.
The last precautionary step we can take is eliminating the use of disposable plastics.
Disposable plastics, or plastic items that are only used once quickly add to the rapidly growing
amounts of plastic waste in the Pacific Garbage Patch. If reduced by reusing, avoided by cutting
back on the production, and revised with new consumer choices, tremendous clean up would
take place. For example, trash entering the ocean in Hilo, Hawaii, can reach the island of Maui in
as little as eight days (Henry Carson, Megan Lamson, Davis Nakashima, Derek Toloumu, Jan
Hafner, Nikolai Maximenko, and Karla McDermid 82). If plastic products such as containers or
bags are discarded after only one use, other communities begin to feel the wrath rapidly. On
average, Americans throw away 100 billion bags every year (“The Ubiquitous Plastic Bag”).
Even more frightening is that only about 5% of plastics are actually recycled (Coulter 1962).
When we choose to reuse or shift our purchases to products that are designed to be reused
multiple times, the volume, mass, and consequences of plastic pollution will be reduced.
To help foster this new proactive endeavor, the United States needs to increase the
manufacturing of biodegradable resources and materials. One area that can be tackled first is
packaging, a prevalent form of disposable plastic. Since about “two-thirds of plastic waste is in
the form of packaging,” confronting this problem will drastically diminish the environmental
impact of first time disposals (Song 147). Biodegradable packaging materials made from
renewable resources would benefit waste management and decelerate the exponentially growing
amount of plastic waste floating around in our oceans. Biodegradable polymers have the
capability to be a major improvement in the long term breakdown time for plastic to degrade. We
should not allow thousands of years for the standard plastics we use now to deteriorate into
smaller pieces (Christin Muller, Kathy Townsend, and Jorg Matschullat 467). The earth just
doesn’t have that much time.
Another method of resisting further additions to the Pacific Garbage Patch is creating
international agreements that terminate some of the flow of plastic from land to sea. These
international agreements must be specific, binding, and fully implemented to propose policies
that achieve minimization of marine debris. When the entire globe is focused on a mutual
objective, the entire ocean will feel the effect and the “faucet of plastic pollutants” will slowly
turn to the closed position (Cathy Pyrek). But it is only after this collective effort that the
circulation of all plastics will minimize from all different directions contributing to the Pacific
Garbage Patch.
An additional threat disposable plastics have is the effect on the food web. It has been
proven that even the smallest animals, Bosmina coregoni, a crustacean zooplankton, shows no
selectivity between polystyrene beads and alga of equal size (Charles Moore 134). The
infinitesimal small pieces of plastic called micro plastics are also ingested by polychaete worms,
barnacles, and amphipods (Moore 134). And as you move up the food web, the micro plastics
that were consumed by low trophic level species are also getting consumed by other trophic
levels (Kay Critchell 111). Yup, you guessed it. That means the seafood we eat are often times
contaminated with plastics that we are unaware of because the same substances our seafood is
ingesting, we will we also be ingesting. Plastic pollution in the Pacific Garbage Patch needs to be
prevented and limited through human actions. If not, our carelessness and laziness will not only
effect marine life, it will begin to come back to pollute our lives as well.
Plastic is everywhere in our lives today. We see it in stores, in schools, in the community,
and in our homes. Somehow we have allowed to even creep it’s way into the ocean, quickly
establishing it’s horrifying presence. In order to clean up the plastic pollution found in the Pacific
Garbage Patch and protect marine life, the United States should ban shopping bags, regulate the
use of tiny pellets, and decrease the use of disposable plastics. By taking these three proactive
precautions, millions of lives of marine animals will be rescued, millions of dollars can be saved
and distributed differently, and future generations can enjoy the beauty of the ocean. Protecting
our environment is the only way to illustrate the heavenliness glimmering against the vast ocean.
The water can shine in elation and gratitude for relief from suffocation plastic pollution. Give
plastic a new home so paradise can once again be restored to nature’s design.
Albatross ingests plastic.
Works Cited
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