Filmmaker's Journal: CNN's Plastic Wars goes looking for ocean plastic pollution

In early September, I had the opportunity to join Amber Lyon, investigative journalist for CNN, to film evidence of plastic pollution along the Southern California coast. Amber and her producer, Ken Shiffman, were working on a news report about the impact of single-use plastic bags on the environment and on our own potential health. The report, Plastic Wars, will air on CNN Presents this Sunday, October 30th at 5:00pm and again at 8:00pm PST (8pm & 11pm EST).

Many people know about the eyesore on our streets and coastline caused by discarded plastic, or are aware of areas like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, where a complex system of ocean currents traps huge quantities of floating plastic debris. However, while the images of floating water bottles, Mylar balloons, and strangulated marine life, can provoke emotional responses, those familiar with ocean conservation know that there is an even greater danger in what we don't see - the minute particles of plastic broken down by sun and wave action that can make for a toxic soup that is capable of working it's way through the marine food chain right to our dinner table.

Read prior post on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

I met up with Amber and her production crew in San Pedro, California, where we boarded the Mr C dive charter boat. We were joined by marine scientist, Dr. Marcus Eriksen, CEO/director of the 5 Gyres Institute and researcher with the Algalita Marine Research Foundation. Marcus has been studying ocean pollution by plastics for nearly 10 years. The captain of the Mr. C probably thought we were all a bit odd, chartering his boat not to locate some illusive shark or fish or to unlock the secrets of some exotic marine behavior. No, we were looking for floating shopping bags - that was our quarry, our quest.

We first began by cruising around within the Los Angeles/Long Beach harbor breakwater. We positioned ourselves between the Los Angeles and Santa Ana river outlets - basically dry concrete river beds that funnel rainwater and enormous amounts of trash right out to sea. City and state agencies try their best to net and scoop as much of the accumulated trash as possible before it enters open sea, but plenty escape and enter the harbor and eventually the open ocean beyond the breakwater.

Weaving around large freighters anchored in the harbor, we came across floating congregations of kelp and sea grasses, cups, water bottles, and plastic bags of all types. Not in any massive quantities, mind you; there have not been any major rains for several months and a weekend change in wind and weather patterns were making things a bit more difficult to find trash in the usual places.

At one point, I decided to jump in and film a white shopping bag floating several feet below the surface. It would make for an arresting image - this ghostly piece of pollution moving gracefully along like some man-made sea jelly.

Well, it would have made for an arresting image if I could only have seen it once I jumped into the harbor! The waters of Los Angeles/Long Beach harbor, like most major commercial ports, are a witches brew of floating sediments, ship oils, and other nasty things I don't even want to think about. When I first jumped in, I felt like I was diving in a pint of Guinness and I couldn't see the bag even when it was a foot in front of me. As we had planned to have Amber and Dr. Ericksen enter the water, when I came back on board (feeling like I needed a Hazmat crew to clean me off) I recommended we head south along the coast where the visibility would be better. Not all plastic trash finds its way to the sea via storm drains; it can also be found off of many of Southern California's beaches, thanks to careless beach goers.

We headed for the popular sandy coves and beaches of Laguna Beach where, during beach dives, I had found various trash items that would get stuck against the thin kelp beds and low-lying rocky reefs. While underway, Amber interviewed Dr. Eriksen, who had brought along some alarming and convincing evidence of plastic micro-particles found in some of the fundamental building blocks of the marine food chain - a chain that can lead straight to commercial marine species destined for the dinner tables of unsuspecting seafood consumers.

I had the Mr. C anchor offshore at an area in Laguna Beach called Picnic Beach - part of Heisler Park and a popular spot for having a picnic and sitting out in the sun. We all jumped in and although the visibility was not great due to a heavy surge and tidal action brought on by an upcoming full moon, it didn't take us long to find our specific quarry. Plastic bags in various states of decomposition gave us the visual evidence we needed to illustrate that plastic does not biodegrade and magically disappear - plastic is forever but continues to break down into smaller and smaller bits, often giving off many of the toxic chemical and petroleum-based ingredients used in its manufacture. A gift that just keeps on giving.

After we finished our dives and headed back to home port, I spent some time talking with Amber about the news piece she is working on. Amber is no "bubble-headed bleach blond" (to quote songwriter Don Henley), she is a dedicated journalist who has put herself in harm's way on more than one occasion (although diving in L.A. harbor water could have been the ultimate test of her bravura). I'm looking forward to her news piece as she examines not only the problem at hand, but also the heroes and villains involved in this important drama, and what lies ahead if we take action now or choose to do nothing.

Here's a video preview of Plastic Wars from CNN.com.


Plastic Wars airs Sunday, October 30th, 5pm PST & 8pm PST (8pm & 11pm EST) on CNN.
For more information on ocean plastic pollution, visit 5 Gyres Institute or Algalita Marine Research Foundation.
Check out Amber Lyon's work at CNN.

The Sargasso Sea: a famed Atlantic Ocean region is a gyre at risk

The Sargasso Sea - an area in the North Atlantic that is unique in several ways. It is a sea without shores, defined by aquatic borders made up of four open ocean currents: on the west by the Gulf Stream, to the north by the North Atlantic Current, on the east by the Canary Current, and on the south by the North Atlantic Equatorial Current. Collectively, this forms the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre - a rotating pool of water some 700 miles wide and 2,000 miles long.

The other unique feature of the Sargasso Sea is its namesake. Within this large body of water resides Sargassum seaweed. Sargassum is a floating seaweed and as such provides an oceanic haven for a variety of sea creatures from juvenile fish, to predators to coral larvae. Over the centuries, vast mats of Sargassum were seen and documented by sailors. But there has been a steady decline in the acreage of this vital seaweed, which serves as a barometer of the ocean's health.

Mission Blue, the new research and expedition arm of Dr. Sylvia Earle's Deep Search Foundation, has designated the Sargasso Sea as one of the organization's Hope Spots - an ocean area that deserves attention and study because of what it says about the state of the planet's oceans.

Mission Blue recently visited the Sargasso Sea, near it's Bermuda epicenter, and from the organization's blog came these comments from Dr. Earle, "No large mats of Sargassum but we snorkled around some small patches and had a great at sea rendezvous with the Bermuda Aquarium team who had a big tub of water on board their small boat and were able to show us a cross section of Sargassum's floating zoo -- some of the endemic crabs, shrimp and a miniature Sargassum fish as well as a little puffer, tiny jacks and other little critters."

Being a gyre, the Sargasso Sea is open to many of the same conditions that have grabbed attention in the Pacific Ocean with its Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Plastics, both in large floating pieces and in the degraded micro-particles, threaten the health of the Sargasso Sea and all of its inhabitants. Micro-particles of plastic form a deadly and sometimes toxic stew in the water which threatens everything from seabirds, turtles, pelagic fish (which are also at risk from swallowing larger pieces of plastic) all the way down to larval creatures that ingest the particles.

Disrupting the floating marine ecosystem and Sargassum seaweed that makes up the Sargasso Sea, through climate changes in surface temperature and pollution from plastics, puts this shoreless sea at risk of becoming a lifeless zone. Often written about in history as a thriving breeding ground and mysterious vast ocean forest floating across the surface of the water, the Sargasso Sea needs protection, lest it becomes just a footnote in our memories.

Visit the Mission Blue web site to learn more about the Sargasso Sea.

Bear Cub Trapped By Trash: a happy ending but not the first time

Perhaps you have seen or read about the recent story reported in several press outlets via the Associated Press about the Florida bear cub with the plastic jar stuck on its head.

For 10 days, the cub was reported to have had the jar stuck on its head, obviously preventing the animal from eating or drinking. Ultimately, the decision was made to tranquilize the mother bear cub that was always nearby, allowing wildlife officials to rush in and restrain the young bear so as to remove the jar. Once accomplished, the freed bear along with its mother and one other sibling, were rounded up and relocated to an area further into the woods.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time this has happened. As recently as July, a young black bear, having foraged in an Ontario, Canada land fill, found itself trapped - able to breath but not eat for 2 weeks. Looking emaciated, the bear wandered the local woodland and suburban area near Thunder Bay, while wildlife conservation officials pondered the best way to deal with the situation. Ultimately, the bear was able to free itself.

While the freed bears are, of course, a happy ending to what would have been a silly and tragic waste of animal life, the picture of the Florida cub and the Ontario bear atop an open land fill are disturbing. One must ponder the question of how best to restrict animal access to such an odor-tempting pile of garbage, while wondering what other toxic or life-threatening hazards are offered by such an open tribute to man's consume-then-discard technology.

Read brief AP article on the Florida bear's release.
Watch video of the Canadian bear in the Vancouver Sun.

Ban the Bag: California moves toward eliminating single-use plastic shopping bags

Plastic bags - in particular, the flimsy grocery store variety - have become the target of a wave of anti-bag fervor as more and more people become aware of plastic bags as an unsightly blight, a pollutant, and a threat to ocean sealife. In several California cities, the bags have been banned from use and now there is legislation moving forward that would eliminate the plastic grocery bags statewide.

First introduced in February by Assemblywoman Julia Brownley, AB 1998 passed the Assembly and is headed for the Senate Environmental Quality Committee for review before moving to the Senate for a vote. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has expressed interest in signing it. The bill currently provides for the elimination of the single-use plastic shopping bag and a 5-cent charge to the shopper for each paper bag used (a concession to the grocers as paper bags cost more than the plastic variety).

The single-use plastic shopping bag has become the dark iconic symbol of our growing plastic pollution problem. It is a very visible component of the ocean's plastic pollution problem, exemplified by the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, but it must take its place in the ocean with a long list of other plastic items that break down into micro-particles that leach chemicals into the water and disrupt the fundamental food chain when ingested by embryonic sealife all the way to adult animals. Many plastics are supposedly "biodegradable" but do so only in the right set of conditions - circumstances that often don't exist in reality. So, to "ban the bag" is a step in the right direction, but only a step.

Without the single-use shopping bag, we still must be mindful of these:

• Eliminate or recycle as much plastic as possible. Or turn it over to recycling centers so that it doesn't end up in landfills where little if any biodegrading takes place.
• Use paper bags instead of plastic. I've been saying "Paper, please," in my local supermarket for years. But be sure to recycle or dispose of properly - remember, landfills have been dug up only to find 50-year old newsprint intact and readable.
• Use reusable shopping bags, typically made of canvas or burlap. But be sure to occasionally disinfect them as they can have trace moisture from meat products that can produce bacteria which can be later transferred to other perishables like fruits and vegetables.

Read LA Times article about AB 1998.