Saving our seas: Can we remove plastic pollution?

We found plastic in every corner of the world we looked at, from the North Pole to the South Pole, from the highest points on Earth to the deepest oceans.

Since its first use in 1907, plastic has been silently tightening its grip on our planet and all the inhabitants of its ecosystem. Based on a 2017 study published in the journal Science Advances, about one-third of plastic waste is disposed of in nature, and only 9% of it is recycled in the United States. About 75 percent of the plastic is discarded, equivalent to 4,900 metric tons of plastic, or 11 Boeing 747-8 passenger aircraft.

For all plastics, they end up harming the environment as they are released or discarded; animals get stuck or end up consuming them. Since plastic does not degrade, it will remain in the environment for decades, if not centuries. One solution is to remove larger pieces of plastic, such as water bottles and plastic bags, from natural spaces. This is easy to do on the floor, where we can simply walk and pick up the piece of plastic.

But what about the 75 to 199 million tons of plastics already in the oceans?

The amount of plastic in our oceans

Plastic is everywhere in our oceans, but most of it is concentrated in spots due to rotating ocean currents (vortices). There are five such whirlpools and garbage spots, the most famous of which is the Great Rubbish Patch in the Pacific, which covers an area of 1.6 million square kilometers.

Other areas include one in the Indian Ocean, two in the Atlantic and one in the Pacific.

Each spiral has garbage stains of different sizes.

The floating plastics in these patches will continue to spread until they break down into smaller pieces, making them harder to clean. Plastic bags are often confused with jellyfish, a favorite food for loggerhead sea turtles. Albatrosses feed the chicks plastic resin granules because they see the pellets as fish eggs. In the end the chicks starve to death or suffer organ rupture.

Research shows that most of the plastic waste that rises into the swirls and the Great Rubbish Patch in the Pacific is decades old, but it turns out that the newly produced plastic is still closer to the coasts. This suggests that one of the best ways to deal with plastics in the oceans may be through beach cleaning.

Perimeter cleaning

The goal of The Ocean Cleanup is to remove 90% of the plastic waste floating in the ocean and make the Great Pacific Garbage Patch "garbage free".

The latest and most effective cleaning technology, System-002, consists of a grid-like floating barrier three meters deep and forms a capital U. The system in question is paid for by Maersk vessels.

However, what is overlooked is that the large vessels used to pull the assembly network have a significant carbon footprint. Pulling nets across ocean waters with huge fossil-fuel ships increases air and climate pollution. In their EIA report, we can see under Section 5.0 that the two vessels operated by The Ocean Cleanup release 600 metric tons of CO2 per month from cleanup, which equates to more than a hundred cars on the road for a full year.

There is also the problem of bycatch (trapping marine animals while collecting plastic). It is difficult to get floating plastics out of the water without entanglement of fish, turtles and other marine wildlife. Even when they are thrown back into the water, these creatures usually die. Organisms that entangle in fishing nets have a poor ability to find food and evade predators. Even if the organism does not actually die, injuries, restrictions on movement, and a decrease in its ability to search for food will seriously harm the animal.

Scientists have expressed concern about the effects this passive aggregation technique might have on Newstone, a species of organism that lives on the surface of the Pacific Ocean (this research was funded by The Ocean Cleanup).

Snails, crabs, sea dragons and jellyfish are part of this ecosystem. These creatures are often found alive on the surface of plastic waste. As an integral part of the food web, Newstone creates important ecological connections between different oceanic communities. For example, Newstone serves as a nursery for small fish species, such as Atlantic cod and salmon, and is the main food source for endangered species such as loggerhead turtles.

River plastic pollution

According to a 2017 study, the global river system currently discharges between 1.15 and 2.41 million tonnes of plastic into the oceans annually. Most of the twenty most polluting rivers are located in Asia, affecting 21% of the world's population and more than two-thirds (67%) of annual global inputs. In addition, more than 90% of plastic inputs come from 122 polluted rivers, of which 103 are in Asia, eight in Africa, eight in South and Central America, and one in Europe.

From rivers to our drinking cups, plastic has made its way into our bowels. Drinking water, including bottled water and tap water, is the most important contributor to plastics in the human diet, with the average person ingesting about 1,769 tiny plastic particles each week, based on a 2019 report supported by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).

To reduce this source of marine plastic pollution, the Ocean Cleanup has additionally deployed solar-powered vessels called interceptors at plastic-polluted estuaries. The garbage is collected by a barrier during the flow of water, transported to a conveyor belt, and then dumped into a shuttle, which transports the garbage to the waste management facility. Eight interceptors have already removed more than 2.2 million pounds of plastic from rivers in the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia.

As of October 2023, we have no data on the effects of this approach.

Conclusion

The strategy of cleaning up the oceans is new, but the ironic damage it causes to the environment is not something to ignore. The best way to extract plastic from the oceans is to "not focus on the shelf part," but rather focus on the original source of plastic.

Today's waste disposal culture encourages the use of single-use plastic. Of the 300 million tonnes of plastic produced each year worldwide, half is for single-use items. Cans, water bottles, food bowls, and anything else you use once and get rid of are a big part of the problem. Identifying the root of this problem is the most effective way to solve it without allowing it to fester beyond our control, to the point where cleanup efforts become futile.