So there’s a new report out estimating that there is around 250,000 metric tons of plastic debris in the oceans, much of it microscopic or not much larger.
Okay. This is bad, conceded. It shouldn’t be there, conceded.
But this is somewhat less than the mass of two cruise liners, distributed across 3/4 of the planet (and in a fairly deep stratum to boot) and most of it too small to detect without fine sieving.
Explain to me why this is a crisis rivaling any of the others we currently face.
Does it have to be as bad as global climate change to get our attention? Plastic, in my understanding, get swallowed by various seal creatures and kills them, including ones endangered already. Is it too much to ask us not to be slobs?
I was at the Monterey Aquarium earlier this week, and a guy who was a diver for the Aquarium mentioned collecting a big bunch of plastic bags in the Bay. The ban on bags we have around here has already helped.
Is the debate that we shouldn’t worry about stuff that won’t kill us personally in 50 years? Or what?
Because the Oceans are filled with organisms which feed on plankton and are negatively effected by small particles of plastic.
The number of organisms which are negatively effected by eating ocean liners is fairly small in comparison.
Won’t Someone Think of the Godzillas!
Here’s a link to the paper.
The authors state that their estimates for the tonnage of plasic on the oceans currently is roughly 0.1% of one years’ worldwide plastics production. What the authors seem to find most significant is that…
The issue is that the authors were unable to determine where the “missing” plastic may be and that the actual tonnage deposited across the oceans is probably much higher. Possibilities include, but are not limited to, breakdown by UV radiation, sinking to the bottom, washing up on shorelines or being ingested by sea life. Some of these conditions, if they are occurring, could be causing serious cumulative harm to the environment.
Do you like seafood?
Do you like eating plastic?
Marine organisms aren’t just important to us as food. For instance, Horseshoe crabs are still used in medicine. Menhaden is used for the production of fish meal, oil, and fertilizer. These resources depend on a functioning ecosystem.
I don’t know enough about the situation to comment one way or another, but to put the OP’s argument in perspective, if the plastic was evenly distributed, it would result in a plastic concentration in the ocean in the range of 0.005 parts per billion, not quite homeopathic levels but still pretty darn low for something that is not highly toxic (The EPA considers arsenic concentrations less than 10 ppb to be safe for drinking water).
Of course the plastic isn’t distributed evenly, and I tend to trust scientists who know more about the subject than I do, so if they say it’s a problem than it probably is.
The plastic accumulates in large rotating bodies of water knows as gyres.
There are various ways of cleaning it up that are better than a simple sieve:
Hi Amateur Barbarian.
I’m really glad you asked this question because you bring up a valid point about plastic in the ocean. Here are two key points that people should take into consideration when talking about plastics in the ocean.
2)Ecology and Climatology are connected in a REALLY complicated way.
So we know that the ecology is affected, but we don’t know how. We also know that ecology and climatology are connected, but we don’t know how they are connected exactly. Are you seeing a theme here? The theme is that we don’t know shit about the environment or ecology. There is a lot of uncertainty. This isn’t the type of uncertainty where there is a bad guy and he can only do so many bad things to the world but we know if bad things happen it is because of the bad guy… No… This is the kind of uncertainty where a butterfly could flap its wings in Brazil and cause a tornado in Texas. The kind of uncertainty where we don’t know where things are coming from when in reality they are coming from the most unpredictable places. Like that small amount of plastic in the sea. If you want to read up more about this look up Chaos theory on wiki.
You might be thinking “Ok tuf, you’re taking this too far. It is just some plastic in the sea. What harm could happen?”
We don’t know, and that is the scary part.
Even worst, if something bad did happen, we would have no idea it is the plastic in the ocean.
I hope you can see why people are concerned about this.
It’s never cut and dried. Menaden fishing often destroys ocean ecologies. The breeding grounds are netted off and the entire mass of these filter feeders removed causing algae blooms and de-oxygenation of the water. Pointing to plastic micro-particles as the problem can just distract from a much wider problem. It makes for good headlines and feel good measures taken while the greater problems continue unabated.