Update On Plastic Pollution

When it comes to plastic pollution, how are we doing? We recently found two great websites that examine the environmental impacts of plastic: Planet or Plastic? is a National Geographic series on the global plastic trash crisis; The Ocean Cleanup is a nonprofit devoted to technologies that rid the oceans of plastic. Here's a snapshot of the plastic pollution situation, and some actions we can all take now.

Realities

Between Hawaii and California, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GRGP) covers 1.6
million square kilometers, an area twice the surface of Texas or three times France.
5 giant gyres of plastic trash exist in the world’s oceans.
An estimated 1.8 trillion plastic pieces float in the GRGP (250 pieces for every human in
the world); more than 5 trillion pieces of plastic float in our oceans.
The GRGP surface has 180x more plastic than marine life.
Nearby sea turtles can have up to 74% of their diets composed of ocean plastics. Laysan
albatross chicks from Hawaii have around 45% of their wet mass composed of plastics.
On some Hawaiian beaches nearly 15% of the sand is plastic.
The time it takes plastic to biodegrade is unclear, with estimates between 450 to 1000s of
years.
Of the estimated 9.2 billion tons of plastic in the world, 6.9 billion tons have become
waste.
World plastic production has increased exponentially over the past 65 years: 2.3 million
tons in 1950; 162 million tons in 1993; and 448 million in 2015.
Less than a fifth of all plastic gets recycled globally. In the U.S. it’s less than 10 percent.
Nearly half of all plastic waste is single-use packaging material.
Last year Coca-Cola made 128 billion plastic bottles.

Possibilities

The Ocean Cleanup estimates a full-scale deployment of their systems could clean up
50% of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in 5 years.
The Ocean Cleanup, based in the Netherlands, launches their first cleanup during the
summer of 2018 from their first assembly station in Alameda, California.
Each of us can reduce the use of single use plastics by opting for the use of reusable
alternatives.
Globally, 18 percent of plastic is recycled, up from nearly zero in 1980.
Wax and meal worms can eat plastic and turn it into compost.
Newly discovered micro-organisms can dramatically decrease the time it takes for plastic
to biodegrade.
Some bioplastics made from renewable resources can biodegrade.
The rubber tree is a sustainable source for plastic production.
Increasingly, governments (Kenya, France, California) are developing policies that ban
the use of disposable plastics.
Hundreds of communities are embracing a “zero-waste” movement.
In response to public pressure, some multi-nationals (Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Unilever)
have pledged to convert to reusable, recyclable, or compostable packaging.

Update On Plastic Pollution

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