Comments due by Feb. 21, 2015
Marine scientists have long known that plastic pollution in the ocean is a huge problem. The most visible sign of it is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an accumulation of waste (actually spanning several distinct patches) floating in the ocean. It’s at least twice the size of Texas and can be seen from space. This pollution has an incalculably lethal effect on everything from plankton to whales.
So just how much plastic is there? A new study in Science yesterday put out some pretty horrifying numbers: In 2010, the study finds, between 4.8 and 12.7 million metric tons (that’s about 10.5 billion to 28 billion pounds) of plastic entered the oceans — the median of those estimates is 1.3 times the weight of the Great Pyramid at Giza.
If we want to crack down on all that plastic, knowing where it all comes from could be as important as knowing how much there is. That’s the main idea behind this study. A team of scientists led by University of Georgia environmental engineer Jenna Jambeck set out to calculate how much plastic every one of the world’s 192 coastal countries dumps into the ocean. To do it, they combined data on each country’s per-capita waste generation, the size of the population living within 50 kilometers of the ocean, the percentage of waste that is plastic, and the percentage of plastic waste that is “mismanaged” (defined as “either littered or inadequately disposed”).
The last step is to estimate how much of the mismanaged coastal plastic waste actually washes into the sea. (This is the step that explains the wide uncertainty range in the grand totals above.) Jambeck drew on existing literature on waste streams from places like South Africa and the Bay Area to reach an estimate of 15-40 percent; she then applied that range across the board.
The chart below shows the worst offenders, in terms of total plastic pollution in the ocean in 2010, using data from the study. The top-ranks belong to middle-income countries with rapidly growing coastal populations that lack the resources to keep pace with waste management infrastructure. By contrast, even though the United States has relatively good waste management, its per-capita waste production is so high that it makes the top 20.
That’s right: China alone dumped nearly 5 billion pounds of plastic waste into the ocean in 2010. But what’s even worse is just how much the study projects these numbers will grow in the future, based on predictions of population growth in each country by 2025. The chart below shows the top-ranked countries in terms of total mismanaged plastic waste (in other words, not all of this plastic is necessarily winding up in the ocean). China is still very much in the lead, and India shows a disturbing explosion of plastic pollution:
18 comments:
Plastic is a major problem within our oceans. Plastic does not biodegrade overtime, but instead breaks down into smaller pieces of plastic over long exposure to the sun. Many birds and fish are found to have these small pieces of plastic in their stomachs, and this plastic can even move up the food chain if we eat contaminated fish. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is one of the most widely known garbage patches within the ocean. It takes up a vast area formed by ocean currents pulling trash and plastic from many areas into one place.
I think it was a good idea to do the study that "Science" produced. The study shows, through many variables, the countries that contribute most to the increase in plastic. I was surprised that in 2010 China dumped around 5 million pounds of plastic waste into the ocean. The fact that China is becoming more affluent makes this unacceptable. There are relatively cheap ways of recycling plastic and in 2010, it is practicable to collect most plastic trash and dispose or recycle it properly.
The chart at the bottom of the article was alarming. It shows that every country increased its plastic waste by almost double its waste just 5 years ago in 2010. In 2010 China was mismanaging about 20 billion pounds of plastic waste, of which 5 billion ended up in the Ocean. In 2015 China is mismanaging about 40 billion pounds of plastic waste, so theoretically 10 billion pounds could end up in the ocean. At this rate our oceans can become polluted beyond our control if they aren't already. The increase in plastic could decrease populations of fish and birds in the ocean. To an economist this is bad news because there is a major loss of revenue due to this result as the number of available (edible) fish will decrease. Sea-animals are also a major food staple of many coastal diets and could strain food supplies around the world.
-Frazer Winsted
I remember the first time hearing about the garbage patch in the Pacific Ocean. It was hard to believe because it isn’t something that we see the effects of everyday. However, the alarming study has heavy implications and horrific projections of future plastic waste. It is easy to see that if humans are no proactive now, then we may not be able to react to the massive amounts of garbage polluting our oceans.
It is no secret that global economies rely on China, which makes them the second biggest economy in the world. The ominous chart shows that either their explosive growth cannot handle the level of waste or that China has no concept of environmental sustainability. Most likely it is a mixture of both. To further emphasize the myriad of environmental problems China faces, their smog problem is a growing concern. The city of Beijing is notorious for its dirty air. It is incredulous that facemasks are now part of everyday fashion donned with designer labels. If a radical environmental change needs to happen somewhere, the first place should be China and the plastic waste projections graph proves it.
The obvious question that springs to mind is what do we do about it? The post says that we need to combat the problem at its source and stop producing and dumping such large quantities of plastic. This implies that global attitudes towards waste must change. To illustrate, recycling efforts account for only 5% of global plastics and other materials. Thus, there is an apparent need for improvement. I think that if global waste trends continue, we will no choice but to pour money into managing the garbage patch and slowly decreasing its size.
-Takashi Okamoto
The issue of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is one of pollution, mismanagement of waste, perhaps poor education, and excessive consumption. All of these factors put together leads to immense destruction of Earth's ecosystems and resources. As stated in the article, "in 2010, between 4.8 and 12.7 million metric tons of plastic entered the oceans - 1.3 times the weight of the Great Pyramid at Giza." This immense amount of waste is indeed, as stated previously, a catalyst of humans consumption patterns. However, what struck me about the study is that most (if not all) of the countries on the list of plastic polluters were LDC's (least developed countries), with the exception of the United States. For the most part, countries whose average wage is below the poverty line are not consuming in great numbers. They do not possess the money or time to leisurely buy products that would result in plastic waste, such as packaged technological items. This would explain why the United States would be on the list, because even though they have a more advanced recycling system, they consume at a rate that is exceeding their waste management facilities. Indeed, the LDC's are on the list because they lack the infrastructure for proper waste management facilities, and their trash ends up in dumps, and eventually into the ocean. It seems that this is where the change needs to come. Countries struggling to manage their waste are contributing to the decline of the oceans, a pristine and vital lifeline of the Earth. Working to create worldwide waste management facilities not only prevents pollution both on land and in the water, but also could perhaps boost the country's economy by offering jobs to the local people. Everyday the Great Pacific Garbage Patch grows larger and more dense, only solidifying the intensity and need for chance in the way humans handle their waste.
This is a terrifying reality we cannot ignore. Reading this article reminded me of another article I read a year ago about a young man who had a plan to eliminate all of the plastic that wound up in the ocean in two years time. His plan involved going out and anchoring boats near the outer edges of where the plastic island begins and sending boats in to gather plastic and then re-purposing the garbage to something useful.
The main point though of this article I think is that we need to stop incorrectly throwing out our garbage. We must recycle whenever and where ever possible to eliminate this mess.
Plastic does not biodegrade, and become seamless in the environment around itself, it photo-degrades, the sun breaks the plastic down smaller and smaller, but it does not seam into the environment around itself, but forever a foreign presence and the smaller it becomes, the larger an area that it encompasses overall.
This will kill any and all sea life. Sea turtles confuse plastic bags as jellyfish and eat them, starving to death, and other animals eat the smaller more broken down plastic because it looks like other marine life, but it isn't so these animals are starving and their systems are being ripped apart because they aren't eating what they should be. This will eventually affect humans, we will see a huge decrease in marine life and we will have to stop eating fish altogether unless it is farmed.
This is not something we can ignore much longer. We have to spread awareness and evoke a response out of government or get enough people and resources together to solve the problem ourselves, and then get governments around the world to ban plastics and regulate how the plastics are disposed of, making sure that this is a proper system.
Beverly Levine
It is sad to see how many people are unaware of the Pacific Garbage Patch. When I first heard about it, I was a senior in high school and I was astounded that something that massive could be completely man-made and still not completely known about. The amount of people that are still ignorant to this issue is astounding, as well as the fact that they don't even know the exact scale of the issue. They know it's a "big" problem, but how big is "big?" They can only estimate the amount of trash that is in the ocean, and if it is only an estimate, how are we supposed to clean it up?
At the same time, the problem is only growing bigger. As we see with this study that China is by far the biggest contributor to the growing plastic in the oceans, yet there is no policy (and probably won't be for a while) because of its rapid economic growth and its inability to keep up with the amount of people they are producing each year.
Meanwhile, this problem is growing and growing and it is already a problem that we've made and cannot control. It will take maybe 100 years to get all of the plastic out of our oceans and even then, since we don't know how much is actually in there, there will always be remnants of what we've put in there, and it will always affect our oceanic ecosystems.
All we can do at the moment is hope that policy in growing countries will slow down this rate of pollution growth, and that someone can figure out how to get it cleaned up.
Leanna Molnar
Plastic waste is amongst all the environmental waste issues we face, and the world to acknowledge the damage plastic does would take more than just a few years. China is the leader in plastic contribution in our oceans. However, the United States generates more waste per capita than any other country.
Although China and other leading countries are being held at a higher account than others for plastic waste, as a global issues we need to take into account the total waste production. I believe we need to account plastic waste as a global responsibility, rather a country-separated issue.
Development of waste management have to be developed in other countries, as well as reduce waste per person globally. New strategies and lifestyles need to be adapted to balance environmental sustainability in relation to human consumption.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is one of those scary environmental issues that is too hard for most people to conceptualize without seeing it, so they just don't worry about it. Like climate change, the garbage patch is so "out of sight, out of mind" that when I first heard about it I had a very hard time believing it really existed. I didn't understand why no one was talking about it, if it was so real, nor did I understand how we could have let it become so massive. After some thought and schooling I know understand that several factors contributed to the garbage patch, including poor waste management, economic expansion, cradle-to-grave mindsets, and pure laziness.
I'm not sure how we will clean up such a mess, but I have some thoughts about how we can stop it from growing. The majority of the countries on the Top 20 Polluters list were poorer nations that, like the article said, were experiencing economic booms previously unseen. Governments with almost no waste management systems in place simply could not keep up with the plastic, and so it went elsewhere. With so many people, growing cities, and more demands for stuff, it is easy to see why these nations have been dumping so much plastic into the ocean. The solution here is easier said then done: create more effective waste management programs, including recycling centers, and then enforce their use.
More developed nations need to approach this in a different manner. In the United States, we face the problem of laziness. We have recycling programs, but they are underutilized, and in some cases they are outdated. Most people in the US with access to recycling centers don't know how to properly recycle or they simply don't care. Almost every commercially sold plastic can be recycled in modern facilities but this requires a small amount of work on the part of the consumer, like cleaning out dirty plastic containers before recycling them. For many people this is simply too much work, especially if there are no convenient places to bring recycling near by.
Of course all people must also be removed of the "one and done" mindset we have regarding products. As long as there is plastic being produced and thrown away there will always be a Pacific Garbage Patch.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is an another reason as to why lifestyle changes need to be made. The article said that even though the United States is more affluent and has a decent waste management system, our waste per capita total is so high that it made the Top 20 "Worst Plastic Offenders" list. This is unacceptable because we are fortunate enough to have the capital and the resources to recycle and use alternatives to plastic. China's growing economy and population should be reason enough to start implementing recycling polices. Five billion tons of plastic being dumped in the ocean in one year, is outrageous! Plastic is not biodegradable, therefore it never fully absorbed by the environment. The plastic problem is obviously a big one if the results of our plastic waste can be seen from space. This problem is linked to a lot of other environmental and economic problems as well. Therefore, if plastic must be used, it should always be recycled. If possible, avoid using plastic at all.
-Emma Weis
This was a very interesting article. It's sad to think about how much damage we have caused. Prior to reading this article, I had some knowledge about the accumulation of plastic waste in our ocean however, after reading this article I have a much better understanding of the issue.
As the article indicates, as of 2010 there was between 4.8 and 12.7 million metric ton's or 10.5 billion to 12 billion pounds of plastic waste in our oceans. One noticeable garage patch is known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and span's a remarkable area (roughly twice the size as Texas). Issues stemming from this waste can be seen in many instances. One, is through the contamination of numerous fish and bird species. Additionally, this plastic waste is often eaten by animals and quite often leads to death. Many fish and bird species may also become trapped in said plastic and lead to many terrible outcomes.
The 2010 University of Texas study that is discussed in the article was quite in-depth. As it states, the study highlights the total plastic pollution by countries. Among the worst offenders include China and Indonesia which are "middle-income countries with rapidly growing coastal populations that lack the resources to keep pace with waste management infrastructure." Amazingly, China pollutes nearly 5 billion pound's of plastic waste and as the following chart indicates, the future appears quite bleak as 2025 estimates of plastic pollution look to skyrocket.
We are headed down a very dark path if this total mismanagement of plastic waste by "top-ranked countries" continues. New policies must be enacted immediately if we are to move forward.
-- Dylan Troy
This post got quite a few complicated thoughts going on in my head. For one, I understand the US is in the top 20, that wasn't very mind blowing due to our lifestyle and the way our nation cares about garbage. We still end up dumping plastics and other stuff in the waterways, but we do it in a lesser, smarter way, at least how I understand it to be. China's population is huge and still growing by the coasts. Their numbers are the highest and will always be the highest. If I'm not mistaken aren't we still in a lot of debt to China? I mean, we have always been in debt with them so why can't we put a dent in that debt by helping China wit their garbage problems? we can help China to adopt our waste management and that would do the world a great deal. Their pollution ill get cut back and it could help the global pollution problems a lot. However it wouldn't totally fix the problem because China is still developing, but it would be a great start in order to keep the plastic pollution down in our oceans. This big plastic island is a serious issue and it will only get bigger if we don't act on it. If we help out china with their waste management issues, more developing countries like India and the Philippines might follow suit before it gets too late.
--Mike Tierney
The only way to tackle the issue of oceanic garbage sinks is to tackle them on a continental basis, halting the production of all non-biodegradables. Packaging, consisting of plastics, paper, Styrofoam etc. are all toxins, persistent organic pollutants that do not degrade, equipped with byproducts that are capable of accumulating in human and animal tissue, posing threats on human health and the environment. This is simply not acceptable. At one point, I attempted to revert to a ‘Raw Vegan’ food diet as to avoid packaging from food because I was under the impression that all raw foods were unpackaged, as well as uncooked and unprocessed. I was later proven wrong, and was quite unsuccessful as I later came to find out that even "raw" foods come in packaging. Nonetheless, I am terribly concerned about this issue of non-biodegradable waste as it is truly 'waste' in the true sense of the word. Massive amounts of energy and water is used in the process of creating these items, most of which will eventually be thrown away not recycled, sometimes finding its way into our waters, contaminating the ecosystem. This can result in huge garbage gyres like the ‘Great Pacific Garbage Patch”. One solution to this issue would be to mandate the production of strictly compostable packaging material that is 100% biodegradable, releasing no harmful chemicals, persisting in the environment for a short time and nourishing the soil. The lack of adequate prioritizing of waste management practices such as a recycling in various communities globally is an additional hurdle to this issue. Educating and recycling incentives would help offer encouragement to those who are too ‘lazy’ or are ‘uninterested’ in the practice and are not driven by a sense of commitment and stewardship to the Earth.
“Made in China” is one of the things that comes to mind when I think about plastic objects. Whether is a water bottle or a plastic toy-car, most of them will be labeled with that legend. Now, does it surprise me that China is the biggest plastic polluter of the countries listed in Jambek’s study? No, not really.
The Pacific garbage patch is one of the most painful examples of how our economies work. Based on principles of expansion and greed, society does not care about the future of the planet. But the Pacific Patch is not the only one that exists, there is a new one forming at the edge of the Florida’s Atlantic coast, and many others around the world that are not as big yet.
The issue relies on poor waste management, lack of recycling programs and an environmentally uneducated society. It would be a lie if we say that there is one person that has never littered. Regardless if we consider ourselves a first world country, if we don’t care we are not different to those countries that do not have our resources to recycle or dispose pollutants in a more safe way.
Yes, China has provided the rest of the world with cheap labor force and materials, and the more it produces without much regulations, the more waste it will create. But the blame does not fall on China’s shoulders alone, or the emerging economies that want to secure a stable future. The blame also falls in every big internationals corporation that accidentally lost plastic containers in the middle of the Pacific to a four year old that threw away a McDonalds cup while mommy was driving her brand new Audi.
What to do to remediate it? Well it starts with us, with one person educating another. With the governments applying taxes on plastic products, such as shopping bags or containers; and also making industries accountable for the waste disposal with a fee or even a penalty. But even with that, I still think about plastic as “Made in china”
Unfortunately, I am not surprised by the facts and statistics in this article. The lifestyle's in developed countries lead to waste, most of it mismanaged. Most everything we use comes in some form of plastic material, and while this is convenient, it's horrible for the environment; especially when it is thrown onto the side of the road and ends up in a water body.
Ultimately, awareness and mass efforts to eliminate plastic from the waste stream are the only ways to reduce the amount of plastic that ends up in the oceans. I don't know how many times we have to be told, or how many different ways we need to hear it, but the lifestyles we've grown so accustomed to are killing our world.
Haylei P.
After reading this article and seeing all the charts in it, I am not surprised at all by China being number one in this issue. I understand China has done so much and provides and offers such a huge work force and infrastructure. This issue I think could only be fully resolved if its taking upon as a global matter rather then trying to handle it by each country doing it themselves. Plastic pollution affects every waterway, sea and ocean in the world. When we damage our water systems, we're putting our own well-being at risk. This pollution also has huge costs for taxpayers and local governments that must clean this trash off of beaches and streets to protect public health, prevent flooding from trash-blocked storm drains, and avoid lost tourism revenue from filthy beaches. The most effective way to stop plastic pollution in our oceans is to make sure it never reaches the water in the first place. We all need to do our fair share to stop plastic pollution: individuals need to recycle and never litter, but producers of single use plastic packaging need to do more too. We need producers to design packaging so that it is fully recyclable, and so there is less waste. We also need producers to help cover the costs of keeping their products out of the ocean.
Derek Fields
It is crazy to believe that the largest landfill in the world is located in the Pacific Ocean. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is just a collection of plastic marine debris that is ending up in the ocean, seas, and other large bodies of water.
Plastic bottles, wastes from ships, dumping of toxic industrial waste, medical wastes, etc. are the type marine debris that is being collected. This is becoming a big pollution problem, which is affecting all of the world’s oceans and existing sea life. The trash is causing numerous injuries and deaths to marine animals and birds.
To believe that the debris is estimated to be twice the size of Texas is also alarming. It is only bound to get larger. We need to be aware of how we are handling our plastic and other waste, to ensure that it doesn’t end up in the water. Marine animals and sea birds become entangled in the marine debris or ingest it thinking its food, which causes them serious harm or even death. While the issue doesn’t directly harm humans (for now at least), it is still important that we preserve the ecosystem that these animals are living in.
The main problem with plastic is its resistance to degrade, since it is not considered a biodegradable material. Plastics actually photo-degrade, which is the process in which plastics in the ocean are weathered into progressively smaller pieces by the action of sunlight. These tiny pieces have been found suspended in seawater and on seabed in sediments. These pieces of shrunken plastic have dangerous property of soaking up toxic chemicals, just floating around in the Pacific Ocean.
Now is the time to spread awareness of this issue. We cannot afford to sit around as this large mass of plastic just grows. We need to educate the countries that are the biggest offenders of dumping plastic into the ocean. If we can find a way to get rid of plastic all together, that would be definite way to start reducing this problem.
The Pacific Garbage patch is something i often think about and bring up as a perfect example of how bad are situation is and how many people have no clue. Clearly plastics are terrible for our environment, especially the oceans. One commenter noted a plastic production chart showed an increase of nearly double in the last 5 years, while im not at all surprised i am appalled. We are still going in the opposite direction that we need to be moving in. One of the biggest problems with the garbage the we have already created and continue to create is that even if we wanted to do so there is no efficient means of cleaning it out of the oceans and destroying it (both from oceans and landfills) we are stuck with what we already have and we still continue to make more.
-Nick Stanton
Plastic has always been a major concern in the circle of environmental issues. Most countries are starting to take action against plastic. However, we have gotten so used to a way of life that involves plastic so greatly that we do not care to realize the harm it's causing to the environment.
China becoming the highest dumpee of plastic waste is not surprising considering the amount of production of electronic goods alone it produces each year. Along with that , it also mass produces cars, clothes, plastic toys etc. There needs to be some sort of control regarding the amount of plastic being used/ created by china each year.
Plastic not being a biodegradable substance cannot break down completely over time and this can cause a lot of danger to the ocean animals and also block sunlight for the plants that thrive in the oceans. This is an alarming issue which needs to be taken care of. People are switching to paper a lot more nowadays but thats only the more developed or first world countries. What about countries that do not have the advanced resources to make alternative arrangements that do not involve plastic?
This article talks about the plastic waste that is affecting our oceans and about how our part needs to be played in order to limit the pollution. If we don’t emmedieately take part in this initiative, we may not be able to react to the oncoming pollution. Someone else spoke about Chinas waste in terms of their economic growth. One could argue that their economy is booming because of their lack of environmental regulations. Only about 1% of China’s air is actually considered breathable by European standards. Their plastic waste and smog emmisions are not helping their situation. The article states that we need to cut down on the producing and dumping of plastic. But even the recycling that we do now, only plays a miniscule amount in the fight againt the plastic patch
-John D'Onghia
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