A Plastic Ocean — Summarizing the information of the Documentary
Films are probably by far one of the best ways to raise awareness worldwide. A Plastic Ocean (2016), by Craig Leeson, is one of the most recent and shocking documentaries about plastic pollution. What at first began as a search for the elusive blue whale, ended up being an exploration of the fragile state of our oceans caused by our overdependence on plastic. The journey covered over twenty locations around the globe and besides showing the sad situation in the water, the director also deals with many repercussions that go hand-in-hand with it in a very easy and accurate way. But the thing about good documentaries is that they usually contain a lot of information, which gets difficult to digest.
In this article, I´m going to try to give some more cleanliness and organize the information provided a bit further, so that we can really understand the big problem around plastic pollution.
Plastic Production and overdependence
In the last ten years we produced more plastic than in the century before that. Half of those plastic products are considered disposables. How can a disposable product be made of a material that is “indestructible”? Where does it go?
Plastic is wonderful because it is durable.
And plastic is terrible because it is durable.
We think that when we throw something in the trash or we just toss it from a boat or to the beach, it just goes away, problem solved. But the fact is that almost every piece of plastic ever made is still on the planet in some form or another.
The film already starts giving us numbers and percentages with the U.S. as a reference. But with a huge Planet like ours, talking about billions and tons makes it difficult for us to imagine the real size and consequences of these numbers. So let’s add some references for them.
- 238 billion liters of oil are used every year to supply just the U.S. with plastic water bottles. This represents around 18% of America’s total consumption in one year, almost the same as the consumption of a whole country like India. And to make it worse, more than 90% of these bottles are used only once.
- The US alone throws 38 billion water bottles every year. That’s around 120 per person in a year.
- This year, every man, woman and child will consume around 136 kg of single-use plastics.
By 2050, when population explodes to 10 billion people, it´s expected that plastic production will triple. The problem with that is that only a fraction of it is recycled. The rest ends up in our environment.
Plastic´s presence in the oceans
So, why is our overdependence on plastic a problem? Why isn´t this an issue just for locations near the ocean?
The problem is that over 80% of ocean plastic leaks from land-based sources. Even if you don’t live near the ocean, chances are your plastic garbage has found its way to the sea. And once there, it travels and gets collected in any of the ocean´s gyres or currents.
About 8 million tons of plastic is dumped into the world´s oceans every year. That would be equivalent to the weight of 1.2 million elephants. Of those, half of them sink to the bottom of the ocean. As shown in the documentary, even at 1600 m deep where sun never reaches, you still find plastic.
Where in the world can you go anymore and not find plastic?
The biggest problem: Microplastics
What are the consequences of plastics ending up our the oceans?
The truth is there is no island of plastic in the ocean. What exists is a kind of floating plastic smog formed by tiny pieces of plastic that come from larger pieces. Over time, the sun´s ultraviolet light, the ocean wave action and salt break them up into smaller pieces called microplastics. These little particles vary in size, and are ingested by all the sea foodchain, from whales to plankton, even by sea birds. To make it worse, chemicals from industry and agriculture stick to microplastics, making them toxic poison pills.
We usually say that plastic breaks down, but it´s more accurate to say it breaks up, so it´s proliferated. And the more proliferated, the more chances we have to ingest them.
5,000,000,000,000 (five trillion)
It’s the amount of plastic pieces scientists estimate are floating in our oceans worldwide. These microplastics are just everywhere, and they are already a problem that has no solution.
Plastic´s presence in fish, birds and humans
Following the chain of consequences, the documentary shows the effect of microplastics in our oceans through several animal species dying because of plastic ingestion.
Whales feed by taking thousands of liters of water, expressing it and taking the krill and tiny fish contained inside, as well as every piece of plastic that was present.
Fish feed from plankton, but cannot differentiate it with plastic. Studies in Indonesia and California showed that ¼ of the fish for sale had plastic inside. When sampling blue mussels at six locations in France, Belgium and the Netherlands, microplastics were present in every single organism examined.
Turtles feed from jellyfish, but cannot tell the difference between them and plastic bags. Worldwide, we use an estimated 1 trillion plastic bags each year. Nearly 2 million a minute. With the use time of a typical bag of just 12 minutes.
Even studies show that plankton feeds from tiny particles of microplastics. In some places there is more plastic than plankton, and that plastic is being eaten by marine life. In the western Mediterranean, recent findings show a one-to-two ratio of plastic to plankton.
In the case of seabirds, the documentary shows shocking images of birds with their bellies full of plastic.
The documentary also goes to the endless landfills surrounding the Philippine’s capital city, Manila, where you can’t believe how much plastic is accumulated and forms part of people´s everyday life, and to the once idyllic lagoons of Tuvalu, some of which are now virtually drowning in plastic. For lack of a better solution, the plastic in these places is either edged to the sea causing irreversible damage to the ocean; or burnt on-site, causing irreversible harm to the inhabitants.
ESTROGENIC ACTIVITY
As a final blow, the last part of the documentary shows that not only our foodchain is affected, but ourselves too.
A lot of plastics, perhaps the vast majority, release chemicals that have estrogenic activity.
Estrogenic activity or EA happens when a chemical like BPA or Phthalete leaches from plastic and enters the body, where it mimics the hormone estrogen.
A significant number of scientific studies link the ingestion of chemicals with estrogenic activity to:
- Early puberty in females
- Reduced sperm counts in males
- Learning disorders
- Altered behaviors
- Changed reproductive organ function
- Obesity
- Increased rates of some breast, ovarian, testicular, and prostate cancers
92.6% of Americans over 6 years old have detectable levels of BPA in their bodies. Levels in children from 6 to 11 are twice as high as those in older Americans.
Over 90% of plastics not having BPA, nonetheless release chemicals that have estrogenic activity.
What can we do about it?
It´s undeniable that plastic is a marvelous invention and very useful for numerous activities. But we have to face the reality that a future with this amount of plastic garbage production is just not possible.
What do you do? You can’t possibly filter out this tiny particles from the entire ocean. In fact, so much plastic is in the ocean now in a form that we really can´t get to it, that I feel the emphasis needs to immediately shift towards stop putting it in.
He is right, but how do we get to that point? Here there are some day-to-day actions that we can take:
- Don´t put your plastic rubbish in a dumpster where you know it´s going to landfill.
- Demand that your supermarket delivers the food in paper or just as they come. If you must buy food in plastic, like yogurt and cheese, buy larger servings.
- Think reusable — not disposable. Repair if you can.
- Refuse single-use plastics.
- Separate your trash, recycle the most you can and compost your organic waste.
- Make your own cosmetics and cleaning products.
- Girls, use a menstrual cup.
- Get a bamboo toothbrush.
- Drink tap water if possible.
The list of ways to reduce our plastic garbage can keep on, but the most important thing is to change our mindset, to start being conscious about the footprint that we leave in the environment with our day to day decisions. It is not about being perfect from one day to another, but to start giving little steps towards a friendlier lifestyle.
I invite everyone to read and research about the different ways to reduce our waste. There is so much information available out there! And the curious fact is that by doing so, we usually end up spending less money, needing less and being more independent and happier.
By Mariano L. Dotras
