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How Can We Solve Plastic Pollution?

We need to tackle the problem of marine debris head on. It's not just an issue for environmentally conscious, it is an issue that ultimately affects human health. Man is a top predator that feeds on a variety of ocean fish, shellfish, and other marine species. We face the same risks as the killer whale and polar bear.

While any plastic or polystyrene pellets that may have been clogging the gut of the fish that is nicely presented on our dinner plate have been long removed, the toxic contaminants originating from that debris remain stored in the flesh we are about to eat. Food for thought indeed.

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Plastic Pollution Guide - Ocean Pollution Facts & Figures

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We need to tackle the problem of marine debris head on. It's not just an issue for environmentally conscious, it is an issue that ultimately affects human health. Man is a top predator that feeds on a variety of ocean fish, shellfish, and other marine species.

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warning sad things

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More Recycling Won’t Solve Plastic Pollution

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It’s a lie that wasteful consumers cause the problem and that changing our individual habits can fix it

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https://givingcompass.org/article/10-facts-about-plastic-pollution-you-absolutely-need-to-know/

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Plastic Oceans
There are increasing high levels of man-made pollution in many of the world's seas and little actually disappears. By 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the world's oceans.
We live on a blue planet; the world's oceans cover three quarters of the Earth. They contain 97% of the Earth's water and are currently absorbing around a third of the CO2 being produced by our activities and so helping in part by acting a buffer for some of the impacts of climate change. (30 to 40% of the carbon dioxide from human activity released into the atmosphere dissolves into oceans, resulting in the creation of carbonic acid.) Ocean acidification is therefore a rising concern. The average pH balance is dropping and as a result the growth of calcifying organisms such as corals and shellfish is being reduced. Acidification alone, though, is not the only pollution problem faced by the world's seas, and others are escalating at an even faster rate. The impacts and implications are huge and growing.

Around 80% of marine pollution comes from land-based activities. Waste runs or is dumped into drains and rivers and hence the seas. Oil, fertilisers, sewage, plastics and toxic chemicals are all part of the mix. Oil spills are less frequent but in many countries without an established recycling system, used oil is thrown down the drain or poured directly into rivers. Nutrients in fertiliser runoff from farms and lawns produce algae, depleting dissolved oxygen and suffocating marine life, causing dead zones in places such as the Gulf of Mexico and the Baltic. In many regions, untreated sewage still flows into the seas - 80% of urban sewage discharged into the Mediterranean is untreated. A recent addition to the challenge is the role of desalination plants, cropping up in areas of water stress from the Middle East to Australia and California. As a core by-product of their water purification process, they add salt into the seas, so increasing salinity and hence acute toxicity.

While all of the pollutants are having severe negative impact, perhaps the most visible - hence one that will drive the biggest change in the next decade - is plastic. Around 275 million tons of plastic waste is generated each year around the world; between 4.8 million and 12.7 million tons is either washed or dumped deliberately into the sea. The World Bank expects the planet's municipal solid waste to double within 15 years, much of this in the form of single-use plastic items. Bottles, bags, balloons, packaging, shoes - all take decades to break down. This waste is ingested by pretty much every marine animal including fish, dolphins, seals and turtles. So far, plastic has been found to be blocking the digestive tracts of at least 267 different species.

Although this is a global problem, the epicentre of plastic pollution is clear. Today 60% of the plastic waste in the ocean comes from just 5 countries - China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. The media already talks about the Great Pacific Garbage patch. By 2025, plastic consumption in Asia will increase by 80%, surpassing 200 million tons; some are calling for specific interventions in these 5 countries. Regionally, the EU is aiming to halve plastic bag use by 2018 but this is not an international standard. Industry experts expect that by 2050 we will be producing three times as much plastic as we do today; on a volume basis, the WEF sees that by 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the world's oceans.

Plastic pollution is however not alone as an increasing danger to the world's seas. One politically sensitive issue now is associated with dredging and land reclamation. Whether in the South China seas, where China is creating islands built on coral reefs, or in Indonesia, where sand mining has been providing Singapore with the resource to add 130 square kilometres of artificial 'reclaimed' land in the past 40 years, mining has evidently moved from land to sea.

With all the consequences of our actions now becoming apparent, the question is what will change going forward? Has ocean pollution become such a significant issue that there will be tangible change within the next decade? Some think so. Foremost, and largely because of plastic waste, the visibility of the impact is clear in the media and policy bodies. The UN has included as its 14 th Sustainable Development Goal the ambition to "conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources." A core 2025 objective is to prevent and significantly reduce marine pollution of all kinds, especially land-based activities, including marine debris and nutrient pollution.

Unfortunately, much of the world's oceans are not part of any one country's territorial waters. More than 40 per cent of the planet's surface (80 million square miles - seven times the area of the whole African continent) is ocean that belongs to everyone and no one - and hence is largely unregulated. While fishing, environmental, tourist and defence policies all unite to seek to protect and manage the sea close to a nation's shoreline, beyond a notional 12 to 200-mile limits it is largely a free-for-all. This is where the fish, dolphins and plankton are taking the hit. No one is setting the global rules and few are agreeing on a better way.

When will the balance tip? When will the negative impacts on our environment, the ecology and, most significantly from a financial perspective, a good share of our food resources start to change attitudes? Some are putting their faith in China to set new standards, but these may only apply locally. At a global level some see that a rethinking of the value of the 'blue-economy' is required. The Global Ocean Commission, for one, has called for adoption of an ambitious, long-term goal of zero plastic waste into the marine environment. This will require partnerships and behaviour changes that simply do not exist today, and the end of Europe and the US shipping its waste to Asia. If we start to see waste as a resource in the next decade, will perceptions - and maybe behaviours - shift?

Whether seeking to protect food supplies or looking to fulfil UN development goals, bringing order to the high seas is seen as critical for the future. We have already overshot the planetary limits on biodiversity and nitrogen; as the consequences become more apparent, can we avoid the same for ocean pollution?

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There are increasing high levels of man-made pollution in many of the world's seas and little actually disappears. By 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the world's oceans. We live on a blue planet; the world's oceans cover three quarters of the Earth.

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Editor's Note (11/27/2017): This post was updated with new statistics on plastic waste generation and recycling, as well as new information on methods of reuse.
What would modern life be like without plastic? According to The World Economic Forum, plastic production has exploded over the last half-century, growing from 16.5 million tons in 1964 to 343 million tons in 2014; it is projected to double by 2036. Where does all of it go when we're done with it?

In 2014, Americans discarded about 33.6 million tons of plastic, but only 9.5 percent of it was recycled and 15 percent was combusted to create electricity or heat.

Most of the rest ends up in landfills where it may take up to 500 years to decompose, and potentially leak pollutants into the soil and water. It's estimated that there are already 165 million tons of plastic debris floating around in the oceans threatening the health and safety of marine life. And an average of 8.8 million more tons enter the oceans each year, including microplastics, tiny particles less than five millimeters long from cosmetics, fabrics or the breakdown of larger pieces, which may be ingested by marine wildlife.

Relatively little of our plastic waste is recycled because there are various types of plastic with different chemical compositions, and recycled plastics can be contaminated by the mixing of types. Plastic waste is also contaminated by materials such as paper and ink. Separating plastics from other recyclables, and different types of plastic from each other, is labor-intensive and so far there has been no easy solution.

Although the Society of Plastic Industries developed seven codes to distinguish types of plastic for recycling, in reality, only two-polyethylene terephthalate (PET, used for synthetic fibers and water bottles) and high density polyethylene (HDPE, used for jugs, bottle caps, water pipes)-are routinely recycled. But in more and more cities like New York and Chicago, low-density polyethylene (LDPE) plastic bags are now being recycled too. And increasingly, the recycling industry's use of near‐infrared spectroscopy, which can identify the chemical composition of plastics, is improving the efficiency and speed of recycling.

Plastics that can be recycled are first sorted, shredded and rid of impurities like paper. The shreds are then melted and formed into pellets, which can be made into other products.

MoistureShield in Arkansas, and Virginia-based Trex recycle polyethylene into outdoor decking material, fencing, and doors and windows. Coca Cola is increasing the amount of recycled plastic in its bottles to 50 percent.

Plastic is made from petroleum or natural gas in a chemical process that combines smaller molecules into a large chainlike molecule, often with other substances added to give it particular qualities. (Some, like phthalates and bisphenol A, can have harmful health effects.) Plastic production is estimated to use four percent of global oil production-both as the raw material and for energy in the manufacturing process. Because these polymers embody energy from fossil fuels (and actually have a higher energy value than coal and wood), leaving so much of it in landfills is not only an environmental hazard, it is a huge waste of a valuable resource that could be used to produce electricity, heat, or fuel.

The Plastics Division of the American Chemical Council asked the Earth Institute's Earth Engineering Center to explore ways of recovering the energy inherent in non-recycled plastics. The 2011 report, which was updated in 2014, determined that the amount of energy contained in the millions of tons of plastic in U.S. landfills is equivalent to 48 million tons of coal, 180 million barrels of oil, or one trillion cubic feet of natural gas. If all this plastic were converted into liquid fuel, it could produce 5.7 billion gallons of gasoline, enough to power 8.9 million cars per year. And the fact is, there are now technologies that can put all this waste to good use.

The report examined three ways of utilizing non-recycled plastic for energy production: converting it directly into liquid fuel, using separated plastics as fuel in special types of power plants, and increasing the amount of garbage burned in waste-to-energy facilities.

Plastics can be converted into crude oil or other types of products through pyrolysis, a high heat process that does not use oxygen. Agilyx, an Oregon-based company, has developed a system that heats polystyrene from foam cups, packaging materials, and Styrofoam to create a styrene monomer, a building block of the plastic industry. The final liquid product can be sold to other refiners to produce oil or to make more polystyrene.

Plastic2Oil in Niagara Falls, NY, uses unwashed, unsorted waste plastic to produce ultra-low sulfur fuels that do not require further refining. The company maintains that its process is "highly green, clean and scalable."

A number of other companies in the U.S., Africa, Asia and Europe are investing in technology that produces liquid fuel from plastic wastes.

According to the updated Earth Engineering Center report, power plants specially designed to use non-recycled plastics as fuel could theoretically produce 61.9 million MWh of electricity, enough to power 5.7 million homes.

Burning more garbage inwaste-to-energy facilities would recover the energy inherent in plastics and reduce greenhouse gas emissions since landfills emit methane (a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide) as garbage decomposes. Unlike incinerators of the past, modern waste-to-energy facilities produce electricity and heat in boilers designed for complete combustion. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has said they produce electricity "with less environmental impact than almost any other source of electricity."

If the amount of garbage sitting in U.S. landfills in 2011 was burned in waste-to-energy facilities, it could theoretically yield enough electricity to power 13.8 million households and reduce coal use by 100 million tons a year. In 2015, 71 waste-to-energy facilities and four other power plants in the United States burned 29 million tons of garbage, generating nearly 14 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity.

A 2009 United Nations Environmental Programme report on converting plastic waste into a resource described the production of gaseous fuels, using high heat to decompose plastic waste, and solid fuel derived from a mixture of waste plastic, paper, and wood. The materials are first shredded, sorted then made into pellets. A number of companies in Japan are producing both solid and gaseous fuels. The Showa Denko company, headquartered in Tokyo, uses heat gasification to recycle plastic waste into ammonia, used to manufacture many products, and CO2 for carbonization.

Liter of Light, a grassroots movement with partnerships around the world, has found another way to recycle plastic bottles. It helps energy-poor communities convert discarded soda bottles into solar bottle bulbs to illuminate homes and streets. The organization has installed over 350,000 bottle lights in more than 15 countries.

The best solutions for our plastic problem are still to reduce our use of them, and to reuse and recycle whenever possible. More policies that ban plastic bag use, require bottle deposits and expand recycling would help. But millions of tons of plastic waste still sit in landfills around the country; technologies that are able to tap this waste as a resource can offer multiple benefits, helping to clean up the environment, lessen our dependence on foreign oil, decrease our use of non-renewable virgin resources, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and generate energy.

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Americans discard about 33.6 million tons of plastic each year, but only 9.5 percent of it is recycled and 15 percent is combusted in waste-to-energy facilities. What happens to the rest of it?

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Our Planet is Drowning in Plastic Pollution

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Our Planet is Drowning in Plastic Pollution

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Around the world, one million plastic drinking bottles are purchased every minute, while 500 billion single-use plastic bags are used worldwide every year. In total, half of all plastic produced is designed to be used only once - and then thrown away.

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In the video.

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There's a growing movement to ditch single-use straws as a way to reduce the amount of plastic in the ocean. And while this well-intentioned crusade is certainly a valiant effort to help the planet, we can't help but point out that the vast majority of plastic in our oceans is abandoned fishing gear.

Now, we're not saying you shouldn't stop using plastic straws and consciously reduce the amount of plastic in your life, but if we're going to be strategic about this, we should really boycott the commercial fishing industry and stop eating seafood. Let's look at the facts.

A survey by scientists with Ocean Cleanup, an organization working to develop technologies to reduce ocean plastic, found that at least 46 percent of the plastic in the " Great Pacific garbage patch," a floating gyre the size of France made up of plastic, comes from fishing nets. It's worth noting that miscellaneous discarded fishing gear makes up the majority of the rest.

World Animal Protection reports that 640,000 tons of gear are lost and pollute oceans each year. But this abandoned fishing gear goes well beyond pollution. "Ghost nets," for example, are a danger to marine habitats and sea life.In 2016 there were 71 reported cases of whales caught in abandoned fishing gear off the U.S. Pacific coast.

Furthermore, human consumption of seafood is responsible for the deaths of countless sharks, whales, dolphins, sea turtles, and porpoises. TheNational Journal estimates that about 20 percent of all animals caught in commercial trawling nets are "bycatch," or unwanted animals.

Recent video footage released by Mercy For Animals, SeaLegacy, Sharkwater, and Turtle Island Restoration Network reveals how marine animals-including dolphins, sea lions, and seabirds-are routinely trapped and killed in the commercial fishing industry's driftnets. Investigators documented animals being cut apart, pierced with hooks, caught in nets, and left to suffocate aboard driftnet fishing boats off the coast of California.

You can help protect marine life by urging the California legislature to ban driftnets. Click here to take action.

While ditching plastic straws may make you feel good inside, the best thing we can do to help marine life and the planet is to leave fish off our plates and switch to a compassionate vegan diet.

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Straws Aren't the Real Problem. Fishing Nets Account for 46 Percent of All Ocean Plastic.

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There's a growing movement to ditch single-use straws as a way to reduce the amount of plastic in the ocean. And while this well-intentioned crusade is certainly a valiant effort to help the planet, we can't help but point out that the vast majority of plastic in our oceans is abandoned fishing gear.

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What really happens to the plastic you throw away - Emma Bryce

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Editor's Note (11/27/2017): This post was updated with new statistics on plastic waste generation and recycling, as well as new information on methods of reuse.
What would modern life be like without plastic? According to The World Economic Forum, plastic production has exploded over the last half-century, growing from 16.5 million tons in 1964 to 343 million tons in 2014; it is projected to double by 2036. Where does all of it go when we're done with it?

In 2014, Americans discarded about 33.6 million tons of plastic, but only 9.5 percent of it was recycled and 15 percent was combusted to create electricity or heat.

Most of the rest ends up in landfills where it may take up to 500 years to decompose, and potentially leak pollutants into the soil and water. It's estimated that there are already 165 million tons of plastic debris floating around in the oceans threatening the health and safety of marine life. And an average of 8.8 million more tons enter the oceans each year, including microplastics, tiny particles less than five millimeters long from cosmetics, fabrics or the breakdown of larger pieces, which may be ingested by marine wildlife.

Relatively little of our plastic waste is recycled because there are various types of plastic with different chemical compositions, and recycled plastics can be contaminated by the mixing of types. Plastic waste is also contaminated by materials such as paper and ink. Separating plastics from other recyclables, and different types of plastic from each other, is labor-intensive and so far there has been no easy solution.

Although the Society of Plastic Industries developed seven codes to distinguish types of plastic for recycling, in reality, only two-polyethylene terephthalate (PET, used for synthetic fibers and water bottles) and high density polyethylene (HDPE, used for jugs, bottle caps, water pipes)-are routinely recycled. But in more and more cities like New York and Chicago, low-density polyethylene (LDPE) plastic bags are now being recycled too. And increasingly, the recycling industry's use of near‐infrared spectroscopy, which can identify the chemical composition of plastics, is improving the efficiency and speed of recycling.

Plastics that can be recycled are first sorted, shredded and rid of impurities like paper. The shreds are then melted and formed into pellets, which can be made into other products.

MoistureShield in Arkansas, and Virginia-based Trex recycle polyethylene into outdoor decking material, fencing, and doors and windows. Coca Cola is increasing the amount of recycled plastic in its bottles to 50 percent.

Plastic is made from petroleum or natural gas in a chemical process that combines smaller molecules into a large chainlike molecule, often with other substances added to give it particular qualities. (Some, like phthalates and bisphenol A, can have harmful health effects.) Plastic production is estimated to use four percent of global oil production-both as the raw material and for energy in the manufacturing process. Because these polymers embody energy from fossil fuels (and actually have a higher energy value than coal and wood), leaving so much of it in landfills is not only an environmental hazard, it is a huge waste of a valuable resource that could be used to produce electricity, heat, or fuel.

The Plastics Division of the American Chemical Council asked the Earth Institute's Earth Engineering Center to explore ways of recovering the energy inherent in non-recycled plastics. The 2011 report, which was updated in 2014, determined that the amount of energy contained in the millions of tons of plastic in U.S. landfills is equivalent to 48 million tons of coal, 180 million barrels of oil, or one trillion cubic feet of natural gas. If all this plastic were converted into liquid fuel, it could produce 5.7 billion gallons of gasoline, enough to power 8.9 million cars per year. And the fact is, there are now technologies that can put all this waste to good use.

The report examined three ways of utilizing non-recycled plastic for energy production: converting it directly into liquid fuel, using separated plastics as fuel in special types of power plants, and increasing the amount of garbage burned in waste-to-energy facilities.

Plastics can be converted into crude oil or other types of products through pyrolysis, a high heat process that does not use oxygen. Agilyx, an Oregon-based company, has developed a system that heats polystyrene from foam cups, packaging materials, and Styrofoam to create a styrene monomer, a building block of the plastic industry. The final liquid product can be sold to other refiners to produce oil or to make more polystyrene.

Plastic2Oil in Niagara Falls, NY, uses unwashed, unsorted waste plastic to produce ultra-low sulfur fuels that do not require further refining. The company maintains that its process is "highly green, clean and scalable."

A number of other companies in the U.S., Africa, Asia and Europe are investing in technology that produces liquid fuel from plastic wastes.

According to the updated Earth Engineering Center report, power plants specially designed to use non-recycled plastics as fuel could theoretically produce 61.9 million MWh of electricity, enough to power 5.7 million homes.

Burning more garbage inwaste-to-energy facilities would recover the energy inherent in plastics and reduce greenhouse gas emissions since landfills emit methane (a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide) as garbage decomposes. Unlike incinerators of the past, modern waste-to-energy facilities produce electricity and heat in boilers designed for complete combustion. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has said they produce electricity "with less environmental impact than almost any other source of electricity."

If the amount of garbage sitting in U.S. landfills in 2011 was burned in waste-to-energy facilities, it could theoretically yield enough electricity to power 13.8 million households and reduce coal use by 100 million tons a year. In 2015, 71 waste-to-energy facilities and four other power plants in the United States burned 29 million tons of garbage, generating nearly 14 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity.

A 2009 United Nations Environmental Programme report on converting plastic waste into a resource described the production of gaseous fuels, using high heat to decompose plastic waste, and solid fuel derived from a mixture of waste plastic, paper, and wood. The materials are first shredded, sorted then made into pellets. A number of companies in Japan are producing both solid and gaseous fuels. The Showa Denko company, headquartered in Tokyo, uses heat gasification to recycle plastic waste into ammonia, used to manufacture many products, and CO2 for carbonization.

Liter of Light, a grassroots movement with partnerships around the world, has found another way to recycle plastic bottles. It helps energy-poor communities convert discarded soda bottles into solar bottle bulbs to illuminate homes and streets. The organization has installed over 350,000 bottle lights in more than 15 countries.

The best solutions for our plastic problem are still to reduce our use of them, and to reuse and recycle whenever possible. More policies that ban plastic bag use, require bottle deposits and expand recycling would help. But millions of tons of plastic waste still sit in landfills around the country; technologies that are able to tap this waste as a resource can offer multiple benefits, helping to clean up the environment, lessen our dependence on foreign oil, decrease our use of non-renewable virgin resources, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and generate energy.

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Americans discard about 33.6 million tons of plastic each year, but only 9.5 percent of it is recycled and 15 percent is combusted in waste-to-energy facilities. What happens to the rest of it?

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The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a collection of marine debris in the North Pacific Ocean. Marine debris is litter that ends up in the ocean, seas, and other large bodies of water.

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Cocktail bars are facing something of a crisis. A fashionable global protest movement has nightlife venues scrambling to replace their plastic straws with more sustainable alternatives, such as paper ones, on the theory that doing so will reduce plastic waste in the oceans. It all sounds virtuous - but in reality, it's likely to make matters worse. Straws make up a trifling percentage of the world's plastic products, and campaigns to eliminate them will not only be ineffective, but could distract from far more useful efforts.

The anti-straw movement took off in 2015, after a video of a sea turtle with a straw stuck in its nose went viral. Campaigns soon followed, with activists often citing studies of the growing ocean plastics problem. Intense media interest in the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch - a floating, France-sized gyre of oceanic plastic - only heightened the concern.

But this well-intentioned campaign assumes that single-use plastics, such as straws and coffee stirrers, have much to do with ocean pollution. And that assumption is based on some highly dubious data. Activists and news media often claim that Americans use 500 million plastic straws per day, for example, which sounds awful. But the source of this figure turns out to be a survey conducted by a 9-year-old. Similarly, two Australian scientists estimate that there are up to 8.3 billion plastic straws scattered on global coastlines. Yet even if all those straws were suddenly washed into the sea, they'd account for about 0.03 percent of the 8 million metric tons of plastics estimated to enter the oceans in a given year.

In other words, skipping a plastic straw in your next Bahama mama may feel conscientious, but it won't make a dent in the garbage patch. So what will?

A recent survey by scientists affiliated with Ocean Cleanup, a group developing technologies to reduce ocean plastic, offers one answer. Using surface samples and aerial surveys, the group determined that at least 46 percent of the plastic in the garbage patch by weight comes from a single product: fishing nets. Other fishing gear makes up a good chunk of the rest.

The impact of this junk goes well beyond pollution. Ghost gear, as it's sometimes called, goes on fishing long after it's been abandoned, to the great detriment of marine habitats. In 2013, the Virginia Institute of Marine Science estimated that lost and abandoned crab pots take in 1.25 million blue crabs each year.

This is a complicated problem. But since the early 1990s, there's been widespread agreement on at least one solution: a system to mark commercial fishing gear, so that the person or company buying it can be held accountable when it's abandoned. Combined with better onshore facilities to dispose of such gear - ideally by recycling - and penalties for dumping at sea, such a system could go a long way toward reducing marine waste. Countries belonging to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization have even agreed on guidelines for the process.

But while rich countries should be able to meet such standards with ease, in the developing world - where waste management is largely informal - the problem is much harder. In Indonesia, for example, one study concluded that fishermen have little incentive to bring someone else's net to a disposal point unless they're getting paid to do so.

That's where all that anti-straw energy could really help. In 1990, after years of consumer pressure, the world's three largest tuna companies agreed to stop intentionally netting dolphins. Soon after, they introduced a "dolphin safe" certification label and tuna-related dolphin deaths declined precipitously. A similar campaign to pressure global seafood companies to adopt gear-marking practices - and to help developing regions pay for them - could have an even more profound impact. Energized consumers and activists in rich countries could play a crucial role in such a movement.

That's a harder sell than trendy anti-straw activism, of course. But unlike those newly virtuous night clubs, it might actually accomplish something useful.

Adam Minter is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is the author of "Junkyard Planet: Travels in the Billion-Dollar Trash Trade."

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Trendy bans on plastic straws are mostly bunk

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Cocktail bars are facing something of a crisis. A fashionable global protest movement has nightlife venues scrambling to replace their plastic straws with more sustainable alternatives, such as paper ones, on the theory that doing so will reduce plastic waste in the oceans. It all sounds virtuous - but in reality, it's likely to make matters worse.

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Plastic straws are the plastic villain of the moment - here's how they actually affect the ocean.

By now, you've probably seen the heartbreaking viral video of the sea turtle with a plastic straw stuck in his nose. That video opened up the minds of millions of people, helping launch the anti-single-use plastic straw movement. The movement has become a contested one over the past few years, with some people demanding that establishments stop offering straws, others advocating for widely-available plastic straws to support people with disabilities, and many falling somewhere in between.

When it comes to the great straw debate, there is certainly a lot to learn - so read on for more information on how plastic straws affect the ocean, sea animals, and where most ocean plastic actually comes from.

How Do Plastic Straws Affect the Ocean?

How Do Plastic Straws Affect Sea Turtles and Other Animals?

As seen in the video of a turtle with a plastic straw in his nose, it's easy for straws - which are sharper than they look - to injure animals. According to The Odyssey, more than 1 million seabirds die every year after choking on a plastic straw that they mistook for food.

Similarly, when sea animals see floating plastic straws (or other plastic items) in their underwater habitat, they often think they are food, and eat them. Besides the choking hazard, this sends animals a false sense of having a full stomach, leading them to die of starvation.

Additionally, there have been many recent cases of whales and dolphins washing up dead or dying on beaches with stomachs full of plastic - and that plastic is often cited as the animal's cause of death.

How Do Plastic Straws Get Into the Ocean?

Humans are the only species who use plastic straws - so we're the ones responsible for them getting into the ocean. Since they are so lightweight, it's easy for wind to blow them through the air and into the ocean. This can happen when straws are littered on or near a beach, and when the wind carries them out of uncovered trash cans or landfills and into the ocean. Straws can also be blown off of boats as they cruise through the water, and they can flow through storm drains and gutters that lead to the ocean.

How Much Plastic Is in the Ocean?

Worldwide, an est. 8 million tons of #plastic end up in our oceans each year. FFI's Cambodia Marine Programme Manager, Marianne Teoh, says ton-for-ton that's the equivalent of "over 26,000 Boeing 747 planes running into our oceans every single year". https://t.co/UcFa7hVcAC
- Fauna & Flora Int. (@FaunaFloraInt) August 6, 2019

According to a study published in the journal Science in 2015, between 4.8 and 12.7 million metric tonnes of plastic entered the ocean in 2010. Based on that study, many scientists estimate that an average of 8 million metric tonnes of plastic enter the ocean every year. An estimated 150 million metric tonnes of plastic are currently in the ocean, according to Ocean Conservancy.

Some scientists even believe that by the year 2050, there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean (by weight). So yeah... there's a lot of plastic out there.

How Much of Ocean Plastic Is Straws?

Even though plastic straws certainly have a negative effect on sea life, they make up a shockingly small percentage of the approximate 8 million of plastic that enter the ocean annually. According to Phys and the UN, straws are responsible for just 0.025 percent of ocean plastic. Seriously. So why do straws get so much flack, when they're only responsible for one part of the problem?

For one thing, that video of the turtle with a straw in his nose certainly helped bring straws into the limelight. From there, many organizations launched campaigns urging people to skip the straw. Similarly, many companies ramped up production of reusable straws, and marketed them as alternatives to environmentally conscious consumers. And finally, giving up straws is an easy change for most people who do not have a disability or difficulty drinking from a glass, which helped the trend catch on.

So if straws are really such a small part of the problem, where does the rest of the ocean plastic come from?

Most Ocean Plastic Comes From Fishing

The deadliest plastic in the ocean isn't straws, bags or plastic bottles. It's abandoned, lost, and discarded fishing gear: https://t.co/6HWDTPlvJd
- Sea Shepherd (@seashepherd) August 6, 2019

A study published in Scientific Reports found that more than 46 percent of the trash in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (the world's biggest gyre of ocean plastic, which floats in between Hawaii and California) was actually comprised of fishing nets, as reported by National Geographic.

The researchers noted that it was hard to identify most of the plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, since the majority of it was microplastics or other plastic fragments; however, most of the remaining plastic that they could identify was other paraphernalia from the fishing industry, such as crates, ropes, oyster spacers, and eel trap cones. That's because many fishermen in the industry abandon their fishing gear in the ocean. Sea animals like fish, turtles, dolphins, porpoises, and whales can get caught in abandoned fishing nets and die; not to mention, an estimated 20 percent of sea animals caught in commercial fishing nets are actually "bycatch," meaning they are simply a waste product of the commercial fishing process, according to The National Journal.

How Does Ocean Plastic Pollution Affect Humans?

Microplastics have been found in the bodies of marine animals in the deepest trenches of the ocean - so it should be no surprise that the seafood we eat contains microplastics. A study published on NCBI found that when humans consume seafood, especially when we eat animals where the GI tract is still intact (such as shellfish), we ingest microplastics. So by polluting the environment with plastic, we are in turn doing the same to our bodies.

How Can We Reduce Ocean Plastic?

The statistics on ocean plastic may seem grim - but since humans are the ones who caused this problem, we also have the power to reverse this problem and curb the climate crisis. Here are a few things you can do to reduce ocean plastic.

Stop Sucking, Or Use Plastic Straw Alternatives

There are so many alternatives to plastic straws on the market. The easiest (and cheapest!) one is one you already have: the power to refuse a straw. If you do not require a straw to drink, simply refuse straws in restaurants and bars, and drink straight from the glass. If you would like to invest in a reusable option, you can get ones made from glass, stainless steel, silicone, bamboo, paper, hay, and grass, and there's even a collapsible straw. The organization For a Strawless Ocean offers discounts to various reusable straws on its website.

That said, people with certain disabilities require plastic straws to drink - and it's important to always put accessibility ahead of environmental politics, especially when it comes to something like straws. For that reason, establishments that voluntarily do not serve plastic straws typically keep a small stock of plastic straws available for customers who request them.

Participate in a Plastic Cleanup

Another great way to reduce ocean plastic is by participating in a trash cleanup, so look around on the internet for one in your community. Even if you're miles from the ocean, your local gutters and storm drains may still lead to the ocean - so picking up plastic straws and other trash in your neighborhood is always a positive thing. But if you do live near an ocean and have access to scuba gear, consider participating in an underwater ocean cleanup!

And if you can't find an official trash cleanup where you live, consider plogging (which is picking up trash while you jog), or organizing a beach or street cleanup of your own.

Eat Less Fish

As mentioned above, abandoned fishing nets and gear are a common cause of death for sea animals - as is fishing in general, since in addition to all the fish being killed for humans to eat, 20 percent of the animals caught are thrown back into the ocean dead or dying as "bycatch." Not to mention, 1 out of 3 fish caught typically go uneaten, and 20 billion pounds of fish are thrown away every year. A great way to stop supporting the fishing industry is to simply stop eating fish and other sea animals. Click here for plant-based fish alternative recommendations.

Reduce Your Personal Plastic Use, Or Go Zero Waste

In addition to plastic straws, any other plastic that you are putting in the trash can or recycling bin has the risk of ending up in the ocean. To reduce the chance of that happening, try making steps towards a zero-waste lifestyle by lowering your consumption of single-use plastic

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How Plastic Straws Affect the Ocean and Sea Turtles

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Plastic straws are the plastic villain of the moment - here's how they actually affect the ocean.