Dealing With Plastics: California legislation proposed

While oil pollution is, understandably, capturing a lot of our attention of late, there are other forms of ocean pollution that need our continued attention. Plastics, in its multitude of forms, constitutes a major ongoing threat not only to marine animals but the entire marine ecosystem.

Much has been written about the North Pacific Gyre, a congregation of floating plastics coming together due to the various movements of Pacific Ocean currents. While it contains pieces of plastics that pose immediate threats to fish, marine mammals, and birds due to entanglement or ingestion, there is the additional problem of what becomes of the plastics over time. Sunlight combined with water/wave action breaks the plastic down into smaller and smaller particles which can be ingested by smaller and smaller creatures - down to the plaktonic level - which means that the plastic can permeate its way through the entire oceanic web of life.

Plastics seemingly last forever. Their so-called biodegradability involves breaking down into base components, which means the separation of the various chemicals used in the production of plastics - chemicals which can prove to be toxic and, again, enter the food chain at base levels, impacting plankton, and more. So first you have large plastics pieces - discarded bags, bottles, soda can container rings, rope, netting, etc. - that can ensare, entangle, or if ingested, block the digestive tracts of a variety of sea creatures. Then as the plastic breaks down, there are the micro-particles that can be consumed by smaller creatures. And finally, there are all the chemicals being given off: low-level poisons that can have a cumulative effect.

Plastics: the "gift" that keeps on giving.

To address the issue requires industrial science to generate improved or alternative products - a new generation of plastics or plastic-like products that break down safely, as opposed to the current specific and unrealistic set of precise circumstances (light, temperature, moisture) needed for "successful" biodegradation. And there must be a more responsible use of plastics on the part of the consumer to reuse and/or recycle.

And there is also the need for legislation to nudge both industry and the consumer in the right direction. The Sea Turtle Restoration Project recently alerted its California members of upcoming state legislation to restrict the use of plastic bags, bottle caps, and more (plastics endanger leatherback turtles that feed on the plastic or became entangled). Within California, several cities have already banned the use of plastic shopping bags or instituted stiffer fines for plastic littering. Here are the three bills:

AB 2138 (Chesbro) - Plastic Ocean Pollution Reduction, Recycling and Composting Act

AB 2138 would prohibit food providers from distributing single-use food packaging and bags unless they are accepted for either recycling or composting in at least 75% of households in a jurisdiction and are recovered at rate of at least 25%. This policy will make the fast food sector financially responsible to:

• Switch to packaging that is compatible with the recycling and/or composting services available in the communities they serve.
• Work with local governments and recyclers to increase processing and market capacity for recyclable and compostable packaging alternatives.
• Work with consumers to ensure that their packaging is recycled or composted.
• Single-use food packaging litter kills endangered sea turtles that become entangled or mistake it for food. Single-use packaging is a primary source of urban litter and oceanic litter pollution, according to storm drain and beach cleanup studies. Polystyrene, plastic bags and other non-recyclable packaging have a high propensity to be littered because they are light and aerodynamic and are consumed away from home. Up to 80% of ocean pollution is litter from urban runoff, and non-recyclable single-use food packaging is a primary component of urban litter.

AB 1998 (Brownley) - Carryout Bags
AB 1998 will reduce dangerous plastic bag litter pollution by banning plastic bags at large retail outlets. Plastic bags are a primary component of urban litter pollution. And urban litter pollution is the primary component of marine litter pollution. Plastic already outweighs plankton in the North Pacific Gyre. Plastic pollution costs California families hundreds of dollars annually in hidden litter clean-up costs. Current retailer practices result in the distribution of approximately 19 billion plastic carryout bags annually.

AB 925 (Saldaña) - Plastic Bottle Caps
Requires plastic bottle caps be attached to the plastic container and be recyclable. As more than half of all single use beverages in plastic containers being consumed outside of the home, these plastic bottle caps can easily become part of the litter and waste stream. Beach clean-up studies find that plastic bottle caps are among most littered items. AB 925 proposes to address this problem by requiring that the bottle caps remain connected to the bottle, more than 60% of which are currently recycled, thereby significantly reducing the waste, litter and threat to wildlife posed by discarded bottle caps.

Californians can and should voice their support for these bills (they can click on each assembly bill listed above to send an email). And for you non-Californians, check your own state's government web site to see if similar legislation is in the works to protect the quality of life where you live. It doesn't matter whether your state has an ocean coastline or is landlocked, we all have bodies of water - be they freshwater or saltwater - that can be adversely effected by the growing volume of plastics we have produced over decades.

I suspect that plastics, in one form or another, are here to stay. If that be the case, then it behooves us to produce, use, and recycle plastics more responsibly. Or it will bury us.

Learn more about plastic pollution at the Sea Turtle Restoration Project.

Ocean Poison: chemical pollution from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Many of you have probably heard of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an area in the mid-Pacific where the clockwise circulation of currents slowly works discarded plastics into a central area (about twice the size of Texas!). You may have visualized it as a floating garbage dump of plastic bags and discarded water bottles that we could, in some herculean effort, scoop all up.

Unfortunately, it's not that simple.

While there certainly are large pieces of plastic that make their way into the Garbage Patch - drawn in by the North Pacific Gyre (the famed "doldrums") and this material can pose a threat to ocean mammals and other animals like sea turtles that will sometimes mistake it for food, what constitutes a large portion of the garbage patch is "microplastic." These are minute pieces of plastic, the end result of being battered and ground by the action of the sea. It makes for a polluted soup that is ingested by a wide range of sea creatures, often unintentionally.

From seabirds all the way to larval fish, microplastic enters the marine food chain and as it does, it releases a variety of polluting chemicals as part of the process of breaking down - this breakdown we have come to call "biodegradable" but plastic doesn't really ever disappear; it simply continues to separate into smaller and smaller components, releasing chemicals into the water and into the tissues of many ocean species, many of which end up on our dinner table.

And this environmental threat is not being confined or contained within the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. After all, the plastic that is there did not just drop out of the sky. It came from the coastlines and spent weeks, months, and maybe even years, floating about, slowly disintegrating and discharging pollutants throughout the ocean, on its way to the ultimate plastic graveyard.

What to do? Well, the obvious answer would be to use less plastic and to dispose of plastic in a manner that keeps it out of the ocean. Both are challenging because the ubiquitous material has become a mainstay of our lives for the past century. And our sewage/trash transport infrastructure is still predominantly designed around the idea that the ocean is our convenient dumping ground. But, we must do what we can to minimize our "polyethylene footprint." (Are you bringing your own cloth bags to the supermarket or at least asking for paper bags over plastic? That's a start.)

Scientists are looking into methods of treating plastic, breaking it down into its base components and producing hydrocarbons - an alternative fuel source. But, currently, it requires more energy than the process produces - much like the problems with the production of ethanol, and the logistics of turning this technology towards such vast areas as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and others worldwide is truly enormous.

To get a handle on the scope of this problem, read An Ocean of Plastic by Kitt Doucette in the latest print issue (No. 1090) of Rolling Stone (yes, Rolling Stone). I could cite several studies and technical papers, but this article puts the issue into language that everyone can understand. Right now, it's not a pretty picture and we can only hope that our actions to curtail discarded plastic combined with a future breakthrough in technology can stem the tide.