Actual situation:
Today, plastic is used for many things (technological devices, gardening, packaging, beauty products, etc). Plastic has many qualities: it is light, malleable, rotproof. In a few decades, the plastic replaced other materials like wood, brass or glass. Although all these quality, the overproduction of plastic and therefore the amount of waste has become one of the main problems for the oceans (adding this to other issues: like fishing or the acidification of the oceans). The majority of plastic is based on petroleum, natural gas or coal. Extracting CO2 from the underground. Once created, plastic has a long life, one plastic bottle can live until 450 years.
The oceans represent more than seventy per cent of the planet’s surface. Every minute, the equivalent of a garbage truck finishes in the oceans. There isn’t really a solid island in the ocean but a masses of trash floating around. The scientists count five areas where the concentration of plastic in the water is really worrying, these areas are situated in the gyres (circular movements): North Pacific, South Pacific, North Atlantic, South Atlantic and in the Indian Ocean.
The plastic in the ocean originates from the mainland (80%) that include household waste, industries, port activities, tourism, etc. Bad recycling or un-collected plastic is carried away by the rain and the wind to rivers or sewers and often finish in the ocean. We can find two different forms of plastic. The first group is formed by pieces of plastic that are visible by the naked eye. The second is formed by plastics under 5 millimetres. The big pieces of plastic by the sun and the wind, become smaller.
The animals:
The marine animals and the birds are threatened by the plastics for many reasons. A first one is that big plastics can imprison turtles and hurt them by distorting their bodies. It the worth case, it kills them.
Another alarming fact is that we find plastic inside their bodies, from the tiniest animals (like the zooplankton) to bigger one like fishes or birds. These animals often die by having their stomachs being full of plastic, they stop eating and die from hunger.
Humans, like the other animals, also eat plastic. An Australian study shows that each human eats an average of 5 grams of plastic per week. This is not a surprise when we know that we find microplastics in most of the food (honey, beer), in the water we drink (especially plastic bottles). Plastic is everywhere, even in the deep sea.
Solutions:
I could tell you to buy in zero waste shops or simply boycott plastic bottles and plastic in general but I feel like we can not wait until all people start freely to recycle their plastic waste or simply stop consuming plastic. Speaking only of individual actions to stop the pollution of the oceans is wrong. Sincerely, I’ve tried to buy all my food in zero waste and organic supermarkets but it’s just not possible. I know, I’m not the only one in this situation. We need to have a look at more structural solutions. They exist. Solutions adopted at the national level (like Bangladesh where the plastic bags has banned since 2002) or solutions that the multinational companies (Nestlé and it’s 83 brands of bottled water, for example) could establish.
Paloma Gude
Sources in french:
https://reporterre.net/Face-a-la-maree-de-plastique-dans-les-oceans-les-parades-se-preparent
http://www.encyclopedie-environnement.org/eau/pollution-plastique-en-mer/
http://impact-gem.org/pollution-plastique-oceans/
https://www.futura-sciences.com/planete/dossiers/pollution-dechets-plastique-mer-septieme-continent-1898/page/2/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-6EtbJeMoE
https://www.letemps.ch/sciences/menu-5-grammes-plastique-semaine
Sources in english:
https://theoceancleanup.com/faq/
Recent Comments