How a New Generation of Eco-Warriors is Saving the Planet from the Onslaught of Plastics
Fifty years ago, I was an earth science teacher in the town of Larchmont, NY. To my surprise, the students found the course material boring. At that time, the concept of recycling was relatively new. To get them more involved in what I perceived as a key issue impacting the earth’s future, I came up with a special class project. For ten weeks, each student would weigh all the groceries that came into their homes then weigh the trash that it produced. They were astonished by the results.
Within the margin of error we had established, the outgoing trash weighed nearly as much as the incoming groceries.
They quickly realized that the enormous volume of solid waste they produced daily was an ongoing threat to our environment. I suggested that we attempt to educate our community about solid waste recycling. The students calculated the potential savings in trash collection if the community adopted recycling of paper, plastic and metal. They then wrote a pamphlet explaining its environmental and fiscal benefits and gave it to other students to show their parents. They also sent a report detailing their findings to the mayor of our village and the relevant government officials of Westchester county. They proposed that Larchmont consider starting a solid waste recycling program. As a result of their efforts, that winter the village began a paper, glass, plastic and metal recycling program.
I was excited. We had started the ball rolling and very soon, recycling would have a major and positive impact on the earth and our environment. That’s what I thought 50 years ago. Today I’m not as certain.
Drowning in a Sea of Plastics
When you watch television, use a computer, ride in a bus, train, or plane, you are using plastics. When you go to the doctor’s office, a hospital or to the grocery store, nearly every container you encounter is either constructed of or wrapped in plastic
Plastics are a group of materials that can be shaped when soft and then hardened to retain the given shape. They are composed of polymers, substances made of many repeating units. Plastics are either derived from natural materials, such as gas, oil, coal, minerals and plants, or synthetic material. Naturally occurring polymers include tar, shellac, tortoiseshell, and animal horn. Plastics are virtually indestructible. Even worse, over time the weather breaks them into tiny particles that can enter our food sources and bloodstream.
In 2016, the world generated 242 million tons of plastic waste — 12 percent of all municipal solid waste. Residents of the U.S. and the U.K. produce more plastic waste per person than any other nation, with each American generating an average of 231 lbs. of plastic per year. And much of it ends up in the oceans of our planet.
1,000 Rivers of Debris
How does all of this plastic get into the oceans? Nearly 100,000 rivers flow through the earth’s continents. Rivers at carry runoff rainwater that connect the continents with the oceans. Most of the floating solid waste they carry is plastic. Each year the 1,000 largest rivers deposit an estimated 0.8 and 2.7 metric tons of plastic into the oceans. Small urban rivers also add to the debris.
Scientists estimate that more than a quarter of all the plastic polluting our oceans pours in from the Yangtze, Yellow, Hai, Pearl, Amur, Mekong, Indus and Ganges Delta in Asia, as well as the Niger and Nile rivers in Africa. The Yangtze river pours about 1.5 million tons of debris into the Yellow Sea.
Ocean Vortices of Plastic
Nearly ¾ of our planet surface is covered by oceans. Winds and currents create spinning vortices, also called gyros, on the surface of these waters. Some are 60 miles in diameter and extend nearly 3000 feet below the surface. Driven by winds and currents, they travel at a slow pace, about 3 miles per day. Each one is an upside-down mountain of water held together by rotation. Many of these vortices are covered with tiny pieces of plastic.
The United Nations environmental program estimates that for every square mile of ocean, there are about 46,000 pieces of plastic. Much of marine life now houses plastic in their bodies. Unless we find a way to reverse this, by 2050 the oceans will contain more plastic by weight than fish.
A Garbage Dump in the Middle of the Pacific
A “garbage patch” is a gyre of marine debris particles caused by the effects of ocean currents and increasing plastic pollution. This causes ecosystem and environmental problems that affect marine life. The pieces of plastic contaminate the oceans with toxic chemicals and contribute to the greenhouse gas emissions.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is an area in the Pacific Ocean halfway between Hawaii and California. It is currently twice the size of Texas and three times that of France. Visible from space, it is the largest among five offshore plastic accumulation zones in the world’s oceans and has the highest density of marine debris in plastic.
A New Generation of Environmental Warriors
Fifty years ago, my hope for the future lay with our young people. It was their enthusiasm and commitment that would eventually beat back the threat to our environment. That’s what I believed. After 25 years I left the teaching profession and moved on to another career. Over time, I lost track of what was happening in the field of recycling. All I knew was what I saw on television. And it was not good.
Today, my views have changed because a new generation of young eco-inventors, has risen to meet the challenge. These people are not simply concerned students but brilliant young scientists who are coming up with new and innovative methods for combating the threat of plastics and other solid wastes. Here is a sampling of young environmental activists, and how they are helping to clean up and, hopefully, save the planet.
Boyan Slat
Boyan Slat is a Dutch inventor and entrepreneur. A former aerospace engineering student, he is the CEO of the Dutch non-profit The Ocean Cleanup. In 2011 Slat, then age 16, encountered more plastic than fish while diving in Greece. While in high school, he created a project to investigate ocean floating plastic and to challenge the belief that it was in fact impossible to clean it. He later came up with the idea to build a passive system, using the circulating ocean currents to his advantage. With a full fleet of cleanup systems in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, they aim to remove 50% of its plastic every five years.
Tom Szaky
Tom Szaky launched the recycling business TerraCycle in 2001, while a 19-year-old Princeton student. He recognized that since plastic does not biodegrade, it ends up in landfills and oceans where it breaks into tiny fragments and enters the food chain. Curbside recycling programs launched in the 1970s can only collect simple objects made from a single form of plastic, like soda bottles or takeout containers. More complex products are labor-intensive to separate.
TerraCycle partners with brands that pay manufacturers to collect and recycle customers’ old products. It runs a volunteer-based recycling platform to collect non-recyclable pre-consumer and post-consumer waste on behalf of corporate donors or municipalities to turn it into raw material to be used in new products. To date, more than 500 brands have signed up, a tenfold increase from 2016. In 2020, TerraCycle generated upward of $50 million in revenue across 20 countries.
Greta Thunberg
Greta has become a household name since she began her climate strikes in 2018, inspiring thousands of students to walk out of class and demand action on the climate crisis. The young Swede has addressed the United Nations, appeared on “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah,” and met with Barack Obama. Her actions have motivated young people around the world to take action to combat the climate crisis.
Keiana Cavé
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which unfolded in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, deeply motivated and energized Keiana Cavé. She was a 15-year-old high school student in New Orleans at the time of the spill. She began studying what happens to oil when it’s left on the ocean’s surface. She learned that that when the ultraviolet rays from the sun fall on oil spills, they create carcinogenic chemicals. She has since published two scientific papers and earned patents for her methods of detecting the carcinogens. Her company, Mare, has received a $1.2 million grant to continue her work.
Isra Hirsi
The daughter of a member of the House of Representatives, Hirsi has been a longtime social justice advocate and more recently got involved in climate activism. She joined an environmental group at her school and later co-founded U.S. Youth Climate, an American branch of the international movement inspired by Greta Thunberg. Hirsi is focused on advocating for groups that are disproportionately affected by climate change. Most recently, she attended the United Nations Youth Climate Summit.
Autumn Peltier
At the age of 14, Peltier began fighting for water conservation and indigenous water rights. She was inspired by her great aunt, an indigenous activist. When Autumn was 8 years old, she attended a ceremony at a reservation where she saw a sign warning that the water was toxic. Six years later, she walked the shores of the Five Great Lakes to raise awareness for water conservation. Most recently, Peltier spoke at the United Nations about the importance of water conservation and water access.
The Potential of Environmental Education
Back in the 1970s, I was elated by my students’ enthusiasm for saving the planet. For many, the solution to defeating environmental pollution seemed obvious. Our motto was:
“Since you would not throw garbage on the floor of your home, expand your view of the space you live in to include the environment.”
This motto and the project that followed led my students to create the solid waste recycling program still in operation in the Village of Larchmont 50 years later. Yet I sometimes wonder whether the earth science students who participated in that experiment remained committed to saving the environment? I hope so.
