How Much Plastic is in The Ocean

In January 1992, a cargo ship sailing from Hong Kong to Washington hit a storm, and twelve containers tumbled overboard, releasing a fleet of blue turtles, green frogs, red beavers, and yellow ducks. 28,800 animals, destined for bathtubs, now a lonely plastic navy, drifting in the Pacific Ocean. Then they started to float ashore. Along the Alaska coast, Washington State, some even traveled as far as the British Isles. But a few ended up in a swirling spiral of floating junk: the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

There’s five, or maybe six spots on Earth where rotating currents gather masses of plastic debris. But go there and you won’t see mountains of yellow ducks, red beavers, and novelty sunglasses. Not alarming as Garbage Island, but a lot more dangerous. The high-density plastics we use to make consumables (water bottles, straws, and Frappuccino cups) are broken down by sun, waves, and curious critters until what’s left is less like garbage rafts and more like tiny bits of confetti, floating in soup. That soup is bad news for what lives there, which is ironic, since plastic was invented to save animals.

During the 19th century, the demand for ivory billiard balls decimated elephant populations, forcing chemists to look for a synthetic alternative. They found it 1907. Bakelite, the first synthetic plastic. Of course the real boom didn’t come until the mid 20th century.

Modern plastics are so strong that a 60 gram jug can carry 4 kg of milk. But despite being so durable, plastic is also cheap. So cheap that much of it is designed to be used just once. And even when it ends up in the trash can, or better yet, the recycling bin, every year more than 8 million tons of plastic waste leak into the ocean. That’s about 15 plastic shopping bags worth for every meter of coastline on Earth. Because that plastic is broken down into nearly invisible bits, it makes it hard to figure out just how large those polluted patches are. That puny plastic potpourri also means most of those ocean-skimming cleanup ideas you hear about won’t work, and truth is, while we might hear a lot about these flotillas of flotsam, we find plastic in everywhere we find ocean, and at every depth, even the deepest.

Birds and younger sea animals that can’t dive deep to find their dinner, end up feeding near the surface where they encounter more plastic. Larger debris can certainly tangle these animals up, but many end up eating plastic too - sometimes by accident. To a sea turtle floating trash looks a lot like dinner. And smaller debris, when ingested by young fish, can interfere with growth and development. On the small scale, the tiny organisms who recycle whale poop, driftwood, and old ships can’t break down microscopic plastic debris, and those tiny bits can absorb toxins which are concentrated as they move up the food chain, even to our plates. But that plate is somewhere we can make a difference.

When it comes to plastic pollution, just remember the 6 R’s.

Reduce

Choose to buy fewer things that are packaged in non-recyclable plastic. Did you know that stores like Amazon often let you choose “hassle-free” packaging?

Reuse

Think reusable.

Recycle

 Most cities have recycling programs these days, but a lot of recyclable stuff still gets thrown away. Stuff like clothes and shoes, full of plastic fibers. So why not donate them?

Rethink

If you build or make things, ask if there’s another way to do it without using disposable plastics. And if you own something plastic and it breaks, try to repair it rather than throw it away.

Refuse

Just say no to disposable plastics. Turn your plastic fork into metal. Did you know that Americans use 500 million drinking straws every single day? Did you know that you can drink with your mouth, and not use a straw? Try it! It doesn’t suck.

We’ll never get rid of plastic, and that’s ok. It’s still a pretty great invention, and there’s a lot of places where it makes sense. But there’s a lot of places where it doesn’t.