Plastic Pollution of the Ocean is on the Rise

Here are some facts about plastics:

• We now produce nearly 300 million tons of plastic every year, half of which is for single use.
• Over the last ten years we have produced more plastic than during the whole of the last century.
• Packaging is the largest end use market segment accounting for just over 40% of total plastic usage.
• Annually approximately 500 billion plastic bags are used worldwide. More than one million bags are used every minute.
• A plastic bag has an average “working life” of 15 minutes.

How much of the plastic gets into the ocean and what does it do?

• Scientists have come up with a new way to measure ocean trash—and the numbers are even worse than thought.
•  In 2010, eight million tons of plastic trash ended up in the ocean from coastal countries—far more than the total that has been measured floating on the surface in the Great Pacific Garbage Patches (Box 12.9 of the book).
• Even worse news is that the tonnage is on target to increase tenfold in the next decade unless the world finds a way to improve how garbage is collected and managed.
• Since plastic is buoyant and durable, it has a long-term impact on the ocean.
• Microplastics in the ocean absorb chemicals, including Persistent Organic Chemicals (POPs), from the surrounding water in dangerously high concentrations.
• Fish in the North Pacific ingest 12000 to 24000 tons of plastic each year.
• Thus the toxic chemicals enter the food chain and we are at the top of the food chain.
• Plastic debris is an entanglement and ingestion hazard for many species, creates a physical barrier on the beaches to animals such as sea turtles, and lowers the diversity of shoreline invertebrates.
•  More than 200 species are known to be at risk from eating plastic, and 55% of the world's seabirds are at risk from marine debris.

According to a 2017 study, one of the world's most remote islands of the world is polluted with the highest density of plastic debris reported anywhere on the planet, with over 37 million pieces littered on its beaches.

It is the Henderson Island in the south Pacific Ocean, which is uninhabited and located more than 5000 km from the nearest major population centre. Far from being the pristine 'deserted island' that people might imagine of such a remote place, Henderson Island is a shocking but typical example of how plastic debris is affecting the environment on a global scale.

Based on their sampling at five sites, researchers estimated that more than 17 tonnes of plastic debris have been deposited on the island, with more than 3570 new pieces of litter washing up each day on one beach alone. It is likely that the data actually underestimates the true amount of debris on Henderson Island as the researchers were only able to sample pieces bigger than two mm down to a depth of 10 cm and were unable to sample along cliffs and rocky coastline.

The island is so remote that it is only visited every five to ten years for research purposes, but its location makes it a focal point for debris carried from South America or deposited by fishing boats. What has happened on Henderson Island shows there is no escaping plastic pollution even in the most distant parts of our ocean.

(This post relates to Chapter 12 of the book.)