PLASTIC BAGS and our WATER WORLD

Plastic Breaks Down in Ocean, After All -- And Fast

Carolyn Barry
for National Geographic News
August 20, 2009

Though ocean-borne plastic trash has a reputation as an indestructible, immortal environmental villain, scientists announced yesterday that some plastics actually decompose rapidly in the ocean. And, the researchers say, that's not a good thing.

The team's new study is the first to show that degrading plastics are leaching potentially toxic chemicals such as bisphenol A into the seas, possibly threatening ocean animals, and us.

Scientists had previously thought plastics broke down only at very high temperatures and over hundreds of years.

The researchers behind a new study, however, found that plastic breaks down at cooler temperatures than expected, and within a year of the trash hitting the water.

The Japan-based team collected samples in waters from the U.S., Europe, India, Japan, and elsewhere, lead researcher Katsuhiko Saido, a chemist with the College of Pharmacy at Nihon University in Japan, said via email.

All the water samples were found to contain derivatives of polystyrene, a common plastic used in disposable cutlery, Styrofoam, and DVD cases, among other things, said Saido, who presented the findings at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in Washington, D.C., today.

Plastic, he said, should be considered a new source of chemical pollution in the ocean.


Cooking Up Plastic Soup in the Seas

The toxic compounds the team found don't occur naturally in the ocean, and the researchers thought plastic was the culprit.

The scientists later simulated the decomposition of polystyrene in the sea and found that it degraded at temperatures of 86 degrees Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius).

Left behind in the water were the same compounds detected in the ocean samples, such as styrene trimer, a polystyrene by-product, and bisphenol A, a chemical used in hard plastics such as reusable water bottles and the linings of aluminum cans.

Bisphenol A (BPA) has been shown to interfere with the reproductive systems of animals, while styrene monomer is a suspected carcinogen.

The pollutants are likely to be more concentrated in areas heavily littered with plastic debris, such as ocean vortices, which occur where currents meet.

(Related: "Giant Ocean-Trash Vortex Attracts Explorers.")


Plastic Breaks Down Fast

About 44 percent of all seabirds eat plastic, apparently by mistake, sometimes with fatal effects. And 267 marine species are affected by plastic garbage—animals are known to swallow plastic bags, which resemble jellyfish in mid-ocean, for example—according to a 2008 study in the journal Environmental Research by oceanographer and chemist Charles Moore, of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation.

Now, it seems, they also face the invisible threat of toxic, plastic-derived chemicals.

Once Styrofoam, for example, breaks down, the tiny polystyrene components start to sink, because they're heavier than water, Moore said. "So it's likely that this styrene pollutant is prevalent throughout the water column and not just at the surface."

Along with Moore, David Barnes, a marine ecologist from the British Antarctic Survey, doesn't think the Japanese team's lab results can be applied uniformly across the ocean, however. Water temperatures are typically much cooler than the 86 degrees Fahrenheit in the study, he said.

"We're talking about, effectively, what happens in [zones] of tropical and some subtropical coasts. And there, [the] study may be very important," Barnes said.


Ocean as "Plastic Soup"

Plastic hits marine creatures with a double whammy, Moore said. Along with the toxic chemicals released from the breakdown of plastic, animals also take in other chemicals that the plastic has accumulated from outside sources in the water.

"We knew ten years ago that plastic could be a million times more toxic than the seawater itself," because plastic items tend to accumulate a surface layer of chemicals from seawater, Moore said. "They're sponges."

Moore worries about the plastic-derived chemicals' potential damage to wildlife. The chemicals can potentially cause cancer in humans, he said, and simpler life-forms "may be more susceptible then we are."

Pollutants also become more concentrated as animals eat other contaminated animals—which could be bad news for us, the animals at the top of the food chain. (Read National Geographic magazine's "The Pollution Within.")

Moore estimates plastic debris—most of it smaller than a fifth of an inch (five millimeters)—is "dispersed over millions of square miles of ocean and miles' deep in the water column.

"The plastic soup we've made of the ocean is pretty universal—it's just a matter of degree," he said. "All these effects we're worried about are happening throughout the ocean as a unity."

Ocean Rubbish Dump

The world's rubbish dump: a tip that stretches from Hawaii to Japan

US scientists have returned from an expedition to the 'Great Pacific Garbage Patch' - estimated to be 'the size of Texas'- with samples of plastic debris they pulled out of the ocean — soda bottles, cracked patio chairs, Styrofoam chunks, old toys, discarded fishing floats and tangled nets.

But what alarmed them most, they said, was the nearly inconceivable amount of tiny, confetti-like pieces of broken plastic. They took hundreds of water samples between the Farallon Islands near San Francisco and the notorious garbage patch 1,000 miles west of California, and every one had tiny bits of plastic floating in it. And the closer they sailed to the garbage patch, the more plastic pieces per gallon they found.

'Marine debris is the new man-made epidemic. It's that serious,' said Andrea Neal, principal investigator on the Kaisei, a 151-foot research ship on the trip back in September 2009.

Neal, a researcher who has a doctorate in molecular genetics and biochemistry, said crews on the three-week voyage discovered tiny jellyfish eating bits of the plastic debris. The jellyfish are, in turn, eaten by fish like salmon or tuna, which people eat.

Because the plastic pieces contain toxic chemicals — and are believed to be able to absorb now-banned chemicals such as DDT and PCBs, which can persist in the environment for decades — state toxicologists have taken hundreds of the objects, along with more than 300 fish, to an environmental chemistry lab in Berkeley to see if any chemicals are moving up the food chain.

'Every day, every night, we'd pull up samples and pour the water through a sieve. It would be completely clogged with tiny pieces of plastic,' said Margy Gassel, a research scientist with the California Environmental Protection Agency. 'It was so disturbing.'

The research was the most extensive look yet at the garbage patch, a collection of mostly plastic debris located 1,000 miles north of Hawaii. The bobbing debris field, where currents swirl everything from discarded fishing line to plastic bottles into one soupy mess, was discovered in the mid-1990s.

Not much is known about it, including when it began forming or even its exact boundaries. It cannot be seen from the air or from satellites because most of the plastic has broken down into billions of tiny, confettilike pieces that float just below the surface.

Scientists believe the trash washes down storm drains and rivers from places such as the Bay Area or Japan, eventually drifting into several large ocean vortices where currents swirl together.

Two ships embarked a month ago to study the site. The New Horizon, a 170-foot vessel, was sent by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California-San Diego. The Kaisei — whose name means 'ocean planet' in Japanese — left from Richmond. It was sent by Ocean Voyages Institute, a Sausalito nonprofit that privately raised $500,000 for the voyage.

Both ships met at sea, collected water samples and took thousands of readings and photographs. Their goal: to study the patch's size, how the plastic affects wildlife and whether it may be possible to one day clean up some of it.
Doug Woodring, a former Merrill Lynch financier and one of the founders of Project Kaisei, said Tuesday at a San Francisco news conference that one solution to the problem might be to dramatically increase the use of plant-based, biodegradable plastic and to beef up plastics-recycling programs. Designing storm drains to catch plastic debris also is a possibility, he said.

'We're not talking about a plastic-bag tax,' he said. 'We need to move the needle beyond that.'

The garbage patch is emerging as a major international environmental concern. Not only do its plastics pose a potential chemical threat, but birds, sea turtles and other marine life die when they eat or become entangled in floating plastic. Invasive species such as crabs, barnacles and other marine life also can attach themselves to it and float across the globe.

In the central Pacific, there are up to six pounds of marine litter for every pound of plankton, according to a 2006 report from the United Nations Environment Programme. And roughly 46,000 pieces of plastic litter are floating on every square mile of the oceans there, the report found.

John Chen, a spokesman for the Bureau of International Recycling, an industry group that contributed to the trip's costs, cited fees placed on bottles and new computers under California laws that help cover recycling costs. He said such fees may be a model for recycling all plastic products.

Research papers from the expedition will not be published for several months. But Mary Crowley, a Sausalito resident who owns a yacht chartering company, Ocean Voyages, and who co-founded Project Kaisei, said time is of the essence.

'The floating pieces of plastic — large and small — are like a spreading cancer on the ocean,' she said. 'It's impossible for me to think of what the ocean might be like in another 30 years if we don't change.'

According to Project Kaisei, the Plastic Vortex poses a threat to the entire food chain.

Plastics and other wastes in the oceans:

• Can kill marine life;
• May be entering our food chain (studies on this issue will be undertaken by the Project Kaisei Science Team and other researchers);
• Continues to increase due to poor waste management practices on land and sea; and
• Can have a negative effect on people’s health and safety.

It is estimated that over 60% of the plastic and other wastes (including rubber and aluminum) in the ocean come from land-based sources, and once in the sea, they are at the mercy of the confluence of tides, currents and winds because they are buoyant. Over time through exposure to the sun and heat, some plastic materials can disintegrate into ever smaller pieces due to weather and UV impact.

More at www.projectkaisei.org

Europe to PAY fishermen to collect plastic from the ocean

While independent lobby groups are leading the way, there are some sporadic moves afoot by governments around the world to save our oceans and ocean life (and our food chain) from plastic. In India new rules include a 'no free plastic bag' initiative by government, in the United Arab Emirates they vow to be 100% plastic-free by 2013 and now in the EU the authorities are to pay fishermen to retrieve plastic bags from the ocean.

Currently the world's population uses and discards around 500 billion plastic bags every year. The European Union (EU) plans to pay the continent’s fishing fleets for collecting plastic as part of an initiative that will help reduce pollution in sea.

As per under consideration proposals from EU commissioner for fisheries Maria Damanaki, fishermen will be paid to land plastic to provide them with income and reduce pressure on dwindling fish stocks, the Sunday Express reported.

Vessels that clear up plastic will initially be subsidised by the EU. The hope is that the practice will become self-sustaining as the value of recycled plastics increases.

Damanaki will unveil a trial project in the Mediterranean this month, which will see fishermen equipped with nets to collect plastic debris.

The plan, as well as an attempt to handle seaborne waste, is also aimed at pacifying Europe’s fishing industry over a potential prohibition on the wasteful practice of dumping low-value fish at sea.

Fleets fear of losing money by not being able to throw away lower-value catch for which they say there is little demand. A million tonnes are thrown back each year in the North Sea alone.

Commissioner Damanaki said: ‘Ending this practice of throwing away edible fish is in the interest of fishermen and consumers. It has to happen, we cannot have consumers afraid to eat fish because they hate this problem of discards.

‘People (in the fishing industry) feel insecure because this is a change. That is why they need incentives.’ The industry will contribute to the pilot but it is not known how much each fisherman will get. Payments will depend on tonnage and the recycling market.

Plastics 2020 Challenge, an industry campaign that supports recycling and preventing litter, is backing the move.

by Sail-World Cruising