Pulse Magazine
Spring 2017
Reuse. Reread. Recycle
An Entree of Swordfish and Plastic
Photo Credit Algalita 2014
By Sarah Hysong
There are an estimated 5.25 trillion particles of plastic floating through the world’s oceans according to Anika Ballant, the education director for Algalita Marine Research and Education. Those particles are bite sized pieces regularly eaten by marine life. What are the chances you’ve eaten a fish that has ingested some of the plastic? “Without a doubt,” says Ballant.
When plastic is left floating in water the sun breaks it down, but because it’s not a naturally occurring element it can never completely disappear. When the plastic breaks down, it simply breaks into smaller, swallowable pieces that are eaten by wildlife.
“It’s already proven that plastics are found in mussels. The microfibers get filtered through animals like mussels that filter their food, and we’re eating them, and they’re the bottom of the food chain so the cycle goes on and on,” Ballent said.
It is widely known that we’re being exposed to the chemicals that find their way into the bloodstreams of the animals we eat, but the effects of those chemicals are not as well known according to Ballent, and it’s something they’re still trying to figure out.
Photo by Anika Ballent
You won’t see the plastic from above. It sits just below the surface of the water, only noticeable if you drive or swim through it. Captain Charles Moore discovered the Great Pacific Garbage Patch when he sailed straight through it. He then went on to found Algalita Marine Research and Education, a foundation dedicated to the protection and improvements of our oceans and education programs about plastic pollution.
Plastic is in every ocean in the world, but the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is perhaps the most well-known concentration. The patch was featured in Angela Sun’s documentary “Plastic Paradise.” The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, in the documentary, was estimated to be between twice the size of Texas and the size of the continental United States. That’s a pretty big difference, but getting a specific estimate size is incredibly difficult.
“There’s plastic everywhere. It’s not a specific size. It floats in horizontal bands throughout our oceans and can stretch vertically from 10 to 20 degrees longitudinally."
- Anika Ballent
Plastic gets into our oceans not so much because it is specifically put there, but because we just don’t have the capability to dispose of it in the quantities that it exists. The United States tends to ship its recycled plastic to countries like India for further processing, and India is also beginning to produce plastic in greater quantities, but they don’t have the infrastructure to deal with all of it.
And that’s just what was supposed to be recycled; then there are the small pieces like the ketchup packets and food wrappers that get littered and blown around. They find their way into streams, then rivers, and eventually our oceans.
“These pieces are so small that people don’t really know what to do with them. They don’t get recycled because they’re either so small, or they aren’t marked well with instructions, and they just end up being littered,” Ballent said.
Photo by Lindsey Hoshaw 2009
When it comes to cleaning up oceans, Ballent suggests a number of solutions, one of which is robots which are sent out to collect the plastic for The Ocean Cleanup. The Ocean Cleanup is a Dutch company founded by Boyan Slat who has a prototype currently being tested that uses natural ocean currents to collect plastic into more concentrated areas where it can be extracted. The Ocean Cleanup declined to comment on the status of their prototype tests.
“In my opinion, plastic is best kept out of oceans in the first place,” Ballent said, “and that means we have to change people’s mindset, make them more conscious about how much plastic they’re really using, and how much is actually being disposed of properly.”
While changing the public’s mindset is a long-term solution, Ballent suggests that the best way to keep plastic out of our oceans right now is to catch it as soon as possible; at storm drains that enter into rivers, at river mouths that let out into oceans and so on.
Plastic in the ocean is harming the ecosystems that exist there. From fishing nets breaking off pieces of coral, which causes animals to get caught in the bigger pieces and no longer able to grow properly or die, to plastic being ingested by animals who can’t get proper nutrients, the sad fact is we’ve all probably contributed to these garbage patches with all of the products that we consume and later dispose of. For the health of our oceans, its wildlife and ourselves, we must start being more conscious of what we’re consuming and how we’re disposing of it.