Have you seen that awful youtube video (warning: graphic content) of a straw stuck in a turtle’s nose? I haven’t looked at straws the same way ever since. This poor, peaceful turtle’s plight has become for many people, myself included, the poster animal for what humanity’s throw-away culture is doing to our oceans. Plastic is literally infiltrating all of our oceans’ nooks and crannies, and it’s gotten out of hand.
Unfortunately, the star of the brutal turtle video is becoming less of an exceptional case. Studies have found that 1 in 3 turtles have eaten plastic. 1 in 3! The statistics on other impacted species, like 90% of seabirds, 56% of whales and dolphins and the list goes on, are just as baffling. But how is all the plastic making it’s way into the stomachs of sealife and our oceans at all?!
The short answer is improper disposal. The long answer is a lack of adequate infrastructure to deal with the levels of recycling and waste, improperly placed landfills or disposal facilities leading to wind carrying garbage to waterways, storm drains carrying litter, a society increasingly reliant on single-use products and the inability to deal with all the trash, and a refusal by major plastic producing corporations to take responsibility for the entire lifecycle of their products.
If you’ve visited many of the world’s beaches and waterways you’ll know that it is so common to see in the ebb of the tide, man-made plastics dotting the beaches. And though we’ve witnessed it, and some of us are even aware of the ocean pollution statistics (like that the equivalent of a garbage truck of plastic enters the ocean every minute), it’s hard to get your head around just how much plastic is in our oceans, impacting marine life and how we can tackle such a pervasive problem.
So what do we do about it? Is cleaning it up possible or enough? We need to stop the flow of plastic into our oceans and we need to stop the overproduction of throwaway plastic products. Greenpeace has been working with other awesome organizations to raise the profile of this issue in various countries around the world and now we’re turning our attention to the major producers of the plastic items we see burped out of our sea and in ocean surveys. Our UK office just launched a campaign focused on the plastic bottle industry, and we’re going to urging major companies to ditch their addition to plastic. More on that to come.
We know plastic is everywhere and avoiding it despite best efforts can be super hard. But some simple places to start are: avoiding single-use products wherever possible; bring your own containers, coffee mugs, bags and bottles; just say no to straws and tell the restaurant or bar why straws suck; explore bulk and package free stores in your region if any are available; tell your friends and family about this important issue.
Together we can end ocean plastics.
References:
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0111914
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0111913