# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
national oceanic and atmospheric administration

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Here are 10 simple things you can do at home, around town, on the water, or anywhere!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Plastic is everywhere: In your home, your office, your school - and your ocean. Among the top 10 kinds of trash picked up during the 2017 International Coastal Cleanup were food wrappers, beverage bottles, grocery bags, straws, and take out containers, all made of plastic. How did it all get there? Why is it a problem? What can we do?

The problem with plastic

While it's tough to say exactly how much plastic is in the ocean, scientists think about 8 million metric tons of plastic entered the ocean in 2010. That's the weight of nearly 90 aircraft carriers, and the problem continues to grow.

These plastics come in many different forms. Just think about all the plastic items you use daily: the toothbrush you grab first thing in the morning, the container your lunch comes in, or the bottle you drink water from after your workout.

All these things get used and, eventually, thrown out. Many plastic products are single-use items that are designed to be thrown out, like water bottles or take out containers. These are used and discarded quickly. If this waste isn't properly disposed of or managed, it can end up in the ocean.

Unlike some other kinds of waste, plastic doesn't decompose. That means plastic can stick around indefinitely, wreaking havoc on marine ecosystems. Some plastics float once they enter the ocean, though not all do. As the plastic is tossed around, much of it breaks into tiny pieces, called microplastics.

The first thing that comes to mind for many people when they think of microplastics are the small beads found in some soaps and other personal care products. But microplastics also include bits of what were once larger items.

Microfibers, shed from synthetic clothing or fishing nets, are another problematic form of microplastic. These fibers, beads, and microplastic fragments can all absorb harmful pollutants like pesticides, dyes, and flame retardants, only to later release them in the ocean.

What can you do?

There are many ways to keep plastic out of the ocean! Here are two strategies:

Reduce plastic use.
Think about all the plastic items you use every day. Can you count them all? Look around you. How many plastic things can you see? Being more aware of how and why you use the plastics that you do is the first step to reducing plastic use. Commit to changing your habits by reducing your use of disposable and single-use plastic items, reusing items and/or recycling them.

Participate in a cleanup.
Volunteer to pick up marine litter in your local community. Find a cleanup near you!

NOAA's Marine Debris Program (MDP) works to understand how plastics - and other marine debris - get into our ocean, how they can be removed, and how they can be kept from polluting our marine environment in the future.

Infographic text:

Commonly found Plastics include cigarette butts, food wrappers, beverage bottles, straws, cups and plates, bottle caps, and single-use bags.

How to help? Reduce, reuse, recycle. Dispose of waste properly no matter where you are. Get involved and participate in local cleanups in your area. Remember that our land and sea are connected.
Impacts include:

Entanglement: Marine life can get caught and killed in derelict fishing nets and other plastic debris.

Ingestion: Animals can easily mistake plastic debris for food.

Sources include:

Boats/nets: Fishing gear can become marine debris when it is lost or abandoned.

Littering: Intentional littering or improper disposal of trash can cause marine debris.

Debris can enter the water via:

Rain and winds: Rain and wind can sweep debris into nearby waterbodies.

Streams and storm drains: Streams and storm drains can carry debris directly into the ocean or Great Lakes.

Microplastics are small plastics less that 5mm. They can come from large plastics breaking down, or can be produced as small plastics such as microbeads, which can be found in products such as toothpaste and face wash.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
national oceanic and atmospheric administration

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Plastic is everywhere: In your home, your office, your school - and your ocean. Among the top 10 kinds of trash picked up during the 2017 International Coastal Cleanup were food wrappers, beverage bottles, grocery bags, straws, and take out containers, all made of plastic.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
How Do We Clean Up All That Ocean Plastic?

There are currently 75 to 199 million tons of plastic polluting our oceans, according to the World Economic Forum. This is a result of humans recycling only nine percent of plastic waste and dumping 10 million tons of it into the seas each year.

If we continue on this path, the annual flow of plastic into the ocean could triple by 2040 as plastic production continues to increase. Marine plastic pollution may be costing the world economy trillions of dollars every year because it affects fisheries, coastlines, tourism, marine life, and the food we eat.

Some ocean plastic ends up in one of five major gyres, systems of ocean currents that corral marine garbage into their vortexes.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the largest gyre, located between Hawaii and California, covers 1.6 million square kilometers, an area twice as big as Texas. It's estimated that it contains 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic, weighing almost 90,000 tons. While there are many identifiable floating items in the gyre-macroplastics such as cigarette butts, plastic bags, food containers, laundry baskets, plastic bottles, medical waste, fishing gear, and more-most of the plastic is the size of pepper flakes or smaller, broken down by the sun and waves over the years.

Despite the fact that the majority of large plastic pieces are spread out across the vastness of the oceans and the rest may be too small to collect, there are a number of organizations attempting to clean up the oceans.

Collecting plastic from the oceans

The most high-profile effort to clean up ocean plastic is being conducted by Ocean Cleanup, a Dutch nonprofit whose goal is to get rid of 90 percent of floating plastic pollution in the ocean. Its first collection system proved ineffective when plastic garbage was able to escape its barriers and a part broke off due to the winds and waves. Its more successful current iteration has removed 220,000 pounds of plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Ocean Cleanup's system consists of a large floating net-like barrier three meters deep that forms a large U shape which is slowly towed by two ships. The natural flow caused by the movement directs plastic to the central retention zone. Once a week, the two vessels come together to close the barriers, pick up the retention zone, and empty the plastic out onto one of their decks. There it's separated into different recycling streams, packaged, and sent to recycling facilities onshore. The organization's System 03 is in the works; it's three times bigger and will reduce the cost per kilogram of plastic collected.

While Ocean Cleanup has received a lot of attention for its efforts, some marine biologists believe its methods could actually do more harm than good. They point to the fossil fuel-powered ships towing the barriers that emit 660 tons of carbon dioxide per month of cleanup. Ocean Cleanup says it offsets its emissions and that it is experimenting with biofuels.

Several ocean plastic experts are also worried that Ocean Cleanup's system will harm marine life and could kill creatures even if they are returned to the ocean. Ocean Cleanup counters that fish can escape its system. In addition, there are breathing ports for mammals, birds, or turtles that get caught in the retention zone, underwater cameras to ensure that marine life doesn't get entangled, and a remote-controlled trigger release which opens one end of the retention zone if a creature is trapped. Protected species observers are always onboard to monitor and document all animals.

Another concern is that Ocean Cleanup's system could harm a little understood ecosystem called neuston-comprising insects, worms, snails, nudibranchs, crabs, sea anemones and more that float on the ocean surface much like the plastic-before scientists have even had sufficient time to study it.

Other critics say that Ocean Cleanup's technique cannot get rid of the microplastics, and some believe lower tech strategies like beach cleanups are more effective because they prevent plastics from reaching the ocean in the first place.

Plastic on the beaches

While much of the plastic floating around in the gyres has been found to be decades old, it turns out that more of the recently produced plastic stays near shorelines. One study found that, for the first five years after entering the ocean from land, 77 percent of plastic remained on beaches or floated in coastal waters. According to Utrecht University oceanographer Erik van Sebille, most plastic in the ocean remains within 100 miles of the shore between the coastline and ocean, washing back and forth and scraping on the sand-a process that eventually breaks it down into microplastics.This means that beach cleanups may be one of the most effective ways of dealing with ocean plastics and microplastics.

A number of organizations regularly arrange beach cleanups for volunteers: The Ocean Conservancy, Surfrider Foundation, American Littoral Society, and Ocean Blue Project, to name a few.

Cleaning up rivers

Most plastic enters the ocean from rivers.

Scientists have found that 1,000 rivers around the world are responsible for 80 percent of the plastic in rivers that ends up in the ocean.

Ocean Cleanup also has river cleanup technology called Interceptors, solar-powered catamaran-like vessels that are put into the mouth of polluted rivers. As the water flows, trash is guided by a barrier onto the Interceptor's conveyor belt which dumps it into a shuttle; the shuttle carries the trash to dumpsters on a barge that are brought to the riverside and emptied. The trash is sent to a waste management facility. So far, eight Interceptors have removed over 2.2 million pounds of trash from rivers in Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Dominican Republic, and Jamaica.

In Baltimore Harbor, Mr. Trash Wheel catches plastic pollution from a local river. Its containment booms direct trash flowing down the river into its mouth where a rake lifts it onto a conveyor belt. The trash is dropped into a dumpster on a separate barge at the top of the belt, and eventually incinerated for electricity. A giant water wheel powers the rake and conveyor belt, but if the current isn't strong enough, solar power is used to pump water onto the wheel to keep it going. Four trash wheels currently working in Baltimore have picked up 2,000 tons of trash including 1.5 million plastic bottles, 1.4 million foam containers, and 12.6 million cigarette butts. Trash wheels are being planned for Texas, California, and Panama.

AlphaMERS, an Indian company, makes stainless steel mesh fences that block river trash. They are strong enough to withstand fast currents that might overwhelm barriers. The angle of the barriers directs trash towards the shore where it is collected. Thirty-four fences are currently installed in eight Indian cities.

This year, a Dutch startup installed its first Bubble Barrier in an Amsterdam canal. A perforated tube placed diagonally at the bottom of a river pumps out air, generating a bubble curtain. The pump is powered by renewable energy if possible.

When the river current meets the bubble barrier, plastic waste is pushed to the side and into a catchment system. The technology enables ships and migrating fish to easily pass through the bubbles. A Bubble Barrier in Katwijk, Netherlands prevents plastics from reaching the North Sea, and others are being planned for Portugal and Southeast Asia.

Where is the rest of the ocean plastic?

Van Sebille's research estimated that there are 276,000 tons of small floating plastic on the surface of the ocean. But scientists believe that between 5.3 to 14 million tons of plastic entered the oceans in 2010 alone. If what is found floating on the ocean surface represents only one percent of the plastic that ends up in the ocean each year, where is the rest of it?

Microplastics

Scientists think that the ocean contains 24.4 trillion pieces of microplastics - fragments of plastic less than five millimeters in length, or about the size of a sesame seed - weighing between 82,000 and 578,000 tons. There is likely more. Most microplastics come from synthetic clothing, personal care products, tires, city dust, and from the breakdown of plastic debris. Current technology is not able to filter them out at sewage treatment plants, so most of it washes out to sea and ends up in the ocean or in the sediment.

A sediment sample taken off the coast of Santa Barbara, CA showed the contents of the sediment from 1870 to 2009. In the layers representing 1945 to 2009, researchers found plastic fibers one millimeter or smaller in size. As the years went on, the amount doubled every 15 years-an increase that reflects the actual rate of global plastic production. Australian researchers analyzing ocean sediments estimated that almost 15.5 million tons of microplastics now exist on the ocean floor.

Marine animals eat microplastics, which means they also ingest the toxic chemicals that were added to make the original plastic product flexible, colorful, waterproof, or flame resistant. Microplastics can also absorb other toxic chemicals and carry harmful bacteria. They have been shown to harm marine life by disrupting reproductive systems, stunting growth, and causing tissue inflammation and liver damage.

Because microplastics have been found in all marine life-even in the guts of tiny crustaceans in the ocean's deepest trenches-they are part of the food chain and are also consumed by humans. Microplastics have already been found in human blood, feces, and in the placentas of unborn babies, but so far there have been no large definitive studies on how microplastics harm human health.

Beizhan Yan is a Lamont Associate Research Professor at Columbia Climate School's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, where he specializes in plastic pollution. He is collaborating with researchers from the Columbia Chemistry Department and the Mailman School of Public Health to examine the presence of microplastics and nanoplastics (tiny pieces less than one micron in size) in humans-what exposure levels people have, how the plastic particles get into the blood, whether microplastics are transported to the organs, and whether they are able to cause adverse health effects.

Yan is also working with Riverkeeper, Philip Orton from Stevens Institute of Technology, and his colleague Joaquim Goes at Lamont to study the sources and environmental fate of microplastics in NYC waterways. Cleaning up microplastics while also protecting ecosystems will not be easy.

Yan said, "Those tiny microplastics coexist with many other minerals and fine particles, like silt, clay, plant debris, and black carbon-all sorts of other particles, whether natural or anthropogenic. They have a similar size and density, so it's difficult to efficiently separate microplastics from other particles. In terms of concentration or mass, the microplastics are probably less than 0.1 percent of the total mass of these particles." He believes that in the future, researchers may develop technology to separate the elements out efficiently, but today it does not exist.

There are, however, ongoing efforts to deal with microplastics. NASA's Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System can help track microplastics as they move by analyzing where the ocean surface is smoother and thus likely to have more microplastics. This enables organizations attempting to clean up microplastics to identify the areas of greatest density.

Numerous experiments are being conducted to capture microplastics. Wasser 3.0, a German company, uses a special non-toxic compound which, when circulated in a vortex, pulls microplastics into popcorn-like clumps that can then be collected. The technique could be used in sewage treatment plants or industrial processes. It is already being used in a paper processing plant and a wastewater treatment plant in Landau-Mörlheim where it has removed 600 pounds of microplastics.

Some scientists discovered enzymes that can break down polyester. Researchers from Hong Kong Polytechnic University devised a sticky biofilm from a bacterium that can incorporate microplastics. At the University of Adelaide, scientists created spring-shaped carbon nanotube magnets that grab microplastics and break them down into harmless water-soluble pieces. And a chemistry student in the Netherlands invented a device where microplastics attach themselves to a magnetic liquid; the contents can then be removed with a magnet, leaving only water behind.

Yan contends that the most cost-effective way to deal with plastic pollution, however, is to control its sources. For example, sewage is one of the primary sources of microplastics, though microplastics originate from the products people use. Studies show that most of the microplastics in sewage effluent are microfibers that come from laundry -washing machines and driers. Yan's study of New York City waters found that more than 90 percent of the microplastics greater than 0.2 millimeters were microfibers shed from clothing, transported by the wastewater of washing machines. With more and more people dressing in clothes made from synthetics that shed microfibers, it's unlikely that the fashion business will stop using these materials, so microfibers must somehow be prevented from getting into the sewage system to begin with. Yan and researchers from SUNY Stony Brook and North Carolina State University are proposing a study to NOAA to develop advanced filtration techniques that can capture microplastics and fibers from the laundry and repurpose them into new fibers for use in the fashion industry.

Plastic on the seafloor

In addition to the microplastics accumulating in sediments, larger plastic also sinks to the seafloor. One study found that 50 percent of the plastic in landfills is denser than seawater, which means these objects may sink on their own. The other 50 percent can be colonized by barnacles and other organisms over time, making them heavier than seawater, so eventually they sink as well.

An image that has become iconic is that of the plastic bag found in the Mariana Trench, the deepest point in the ocean, 36,000 feet below sea level in the Pacific Ocean. Other single-use plastics have also been found on the ocean floor and while there have been a few limited estimates of how much plastic resides in certain areas, there is no data for most areas of the overall seafloor.

According to Yan, the two fundamental questions about plastics on the ocean floor are: where are the macroplastics, and are they causing trouble?

"The scientific community can use models to figure out where most of these plastics are, because we don't know right now," he said. But cleaning up the plastics on the ocean floor is challenging because they settle so deep, and a cleanup would be very costly. Another concern is that plastics on the ocean bottom become part of the ecosystem. "Some of the animals use the plastics and live with them," Yan said. "How do you do a cleanup without interfering with the ecosystems of those animals?"

Yan believes that scientists may eventually develop an underwater drone that can identify macroplastics and gather them from the ocean bottom. However, this would be expensive because of the need to lower the drones, pick up the macroplastics and bring them to shore, and possibly the need for trained pilots to operate the drones.

Reducing ocean plastic

While cleanup technologies have a role to play in cleaning up ocean plastic, no single solution can effectively reduce ocean plastic. What is required is fundamental and systemic change that includes the banning of single-use plastics in favor of products designed to be recycled or repaired, and more recycling infrastructure. Breaking the Plastic Wave, a Pew Report, identified the measures which, if implemented, could cut annual dumping of plastic into the ocean by 80 percent in 20 years. These include reducing plastic consumption, substituting plastic with compostable materials, designing products and packaging with recycling in mind, increasing recycling, proper disposal of plastics that can't be recycled, and reducing the export of waste.

"To me, plastic is still a good thing," said Yan. "With it, you use less steel, wood, and other resources. But the only way to correctly use it is to recycle it, reuse it, and repurpose it, rather than discard it in the environment. Pathetically, less than 10 percent of plastics are recycled right now. We should actively research affordable solutions to prevent plastics from getting into the environment."

Towards that end, Yan is the director of the Plastic Pollution Analysis and Sustainable Solutions Network recently funded by the Columbia Climate School, bringing together more than 30 researchers working in environmental law, engineering, life cycle analysis, environmental health, and more.

"I think that for human beings, plastic pollution is the biggest pollution issue right now in terms of the total amount of the pollutants being generated, and how challenging it is to deal with," said Yan. "But if we work together, we can solve these issues in the future."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How Do We Clean Up All That Ocean Plastic?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
There are currently 75 to 199 million tons of plastic polluting our oceans, according to the World Economic Forum. This is a result of humans recycling only nine percent of plastic waste and dumping 10 million tons of it into the seas each year.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Truth About Bioplastics

Bioplastics are often touted as being eco-friendly, but do they live up to the hype?

The world has produced over nine billion tons of plastic since the 1950s. 165 million tons of it have trashed our ocean, with almost 9 million more tons entering the oceans each year. Since only about 9 percent of plastic gets recycled, much of the rest pollutes the environment or sits in landfills, where it can take up to 500 years to decompose while leaching toxic chemicals into the ground.

Traditional plastic is made from petroleum-based raw materials. Some say bioplastics-made from 20 percent or more of renewable materials-could be the solution to plastic pollution. The often-cited advantages of bioplastic are reduced use of fossil fuel resources, a smaller carbon footprint, and faster decomposition. Bioplastic is also less toxic and does not contain bisphenol A (BPA), a hormone disrupter that is often found in traditional plastics.

Kartik Chandran, a professor in the Earth and Environmental Engineering Department at Columbia University who is working on bioplastics, believes that compared to traditional plastics, "bioplastics are a significant improvement."

However, it turns out that bioplastics are not yet the silver bullet to our plastic problem.

How Biodegradable are Bioplastics?

Since there is often confusion when talking about bioplastics, let's clarify some terms first.

Degradable - All plastic is degradable, even traditional plastic, but just because it can be broken down into tiny fragments or powder does not mean the materials will ever return to nature. Some additives to traditional plastics make them degrade more quickly. Photodegradable plastic breaks down more readily in sunlight; oxo-degradable plastic disintegrates more quickly when exposed to heat and light.

Biodegradable - Biodegradable plastic can be broken down completely into water, carbon dioxide and compost by microorganisms under the right conditions. "Biodegradable" implies that the decomposition happens in weeks to months. Bioplastics that don't biodegrade that quickly are called "durable," and some bioplastics made from biomass that cannot easily be broken down by microorganisms are considered non-biodegradable.

Compostable - Compostable plastic will biodegrade in a compost site. Microorganisms break it down into carbon dioxide, water, inorganic compounds and biomass at the same rate as other organic materials in the compost pile, leaving no toxic residue.

Types of Bioplastic

Bioplastics are currently used in disposable items like packaging, containers, straws, bags and bottles, and in non-disposable carpet, plastic piping, phone casings, 3D printing, car insulation and medical implants. The global bioplastic market is projected to grow from $17 billion this year to almost $44 billion in 2022.

There are two main types of bioplastics.

PLA (polylactic acid) is typically made from the sugars in corn starch, cassava or sugarcane. It is biodegradable, carbon-neutral and edible. To transform corn into plastic, corn kernels are immersed in sulfur dioxide and hot water, where its components break down into starch, protein, and fiber. The kernels are then ground and the corn oil is separated from the starch. The starch is comprised of long chains of carbon molecules, similar to the carbon chains in plastic from fossil fuels. Some citric acids are mixed in to form a long-chain polymer (a large molecule consisting of repeating smaller units) that is the building block for plastic. PLA can look and behave like polyethylene (used in plastic films, packing and bottles), polystyrene (Styrofoam and plastic cutlery) or polypropylene (packaging, auto parts, textiles). Minnesota-based NatureWorks is one of the largest companies producing PLA under the brand name Ingeo.

PHA (polyhydroxyalkanoate) is made by microorganisms, sometimes genetically engineered, that produce plastic from organic materials. The microbes are deprived of nutrients like nitrogen, oxygen and phosphorus, but given high levels of carbon. They produce PHA as carbon reserves, which they store in granules until they have more of the other nutrients they need to grow and reproduce. Companies can then harvest the microbe-made PHA, which has a chemical structure similar to that of traditional plastics. Because it is biodegradable and will not harm living tissue, PHA is often used for medical applications such as sutures, slings, bone plates and skin substitutes; it is also used for single-use food packaging.

The Side Effects of Bioplastic Production

While bioplastics are generally considered to be more eco-friendly than traditional plastics, a 2010 study from the University of Pittsburgh found that wasn't necessarily true when the materials' life cycles were taken into consideration.

The study compared seven traditional plastics, four bioplastics and one made from both fossil fuel and renewable sources. The researchers determined that bioplastics production resulted in greater amounts of pollutants, due to the fertilizers and pesticides used in growing the crops and the chemical processing needed to turn organic material into plastic. The bioplastics also contributed more to ozone depletion than the traditional plastics, and required extensive land use. B-PET, the hybrid plastic, was found to have the highest potential for toxic effects on ecosystems and the most carcinogens, and scored the worst in the life cycle analysis because it combined the negative impacts of both agriculture and chemical processing.

Bioplastics do produce significantly fewer greenhouse gas emissions than traditional plastics over their lifetime. There is no net increase in carbon dioxide when they break down because the plants that bioplastics are made from absorbed that same amount of carbon dioxide as they grew. A 2017 study determined that switching from traditional plastic to corn-based PLA would cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent. The study also concluded that if traditional plastics were produced using renewable energy sources, greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced 50 to 75 percent; however, bioplastics that might in the future be produced with renewable energy showed the most promise for substantially reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Other Problems

While the biodegradability of bioplastics is an advantage, most need high temperature industrial composting facilities to break down and very few cities have the infrastructure needed to deal with them. As a result, bioplastics often end up in landfills where, deprived of oxygen, they may release methane, a greenhouse gas 23 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

When bioplastics are not discarded properly, they can contaminate batches of recycled plastic and harm recycling infrastructure. If bioplastic contaminates recycled PET (polyethylene terephthalate, the most common plastic, used for water and soda bottles), for example, the entire lot could be rejected and end up in a landfill. So separate recycling streams are necessary to be able to properly discard bioplastics.

The land required for bioplastics competes with food production because the crops that produce bioplastics can also be used to feed people. The Plastic Pollution Coalition projects that to meet the growing global demand for bioplastics, more than 3.4 million acres of land-an area larger than Belgium, the Netherlands and Denmark combined-will be needed to grow the crops by 2019. In addition, the petroleum used to run the farm machinery produces greenhouse gas emissions.

Bioplastics are also relatively expensive; PLA can be 20 to 50 percent more costly than comparable materials because of the complex process used to convert corn or sugarcane into the building blocks for PLA. However, prices are coming down as researchers and companies develop more efficient and eco-friendly strategies for producing bioplastics.

From Wastewater to Bioplastic

Kartik Chandran and Columbia students are developing systems to produce biodegradable bioplastic from wastewater and solid waste. Chandran uses a mixed microbe community that feeds on carbon in the form of volatile fatty acids, such as acetic acid found in vinegar.

His system works by feeding wastewater into a bioreactor. Inside, microorganisms (distinct from the plastic-producing bacteria) convert the waste's organic carbon into volatile fatty acids. The outflow is then sent to a second bioreactor where the plastic-producing microbes feed on the volatile fatty acids. These microbes are continually subjected to feast phases followed by famine phases, during which they store the carbon molecules as PHA.

Chandran is experimenting with more concentrated waste streams, such as food waste and solid human waste, to produce the volatile fatty acids more efficiently. The focus of his research is to both maximize PHA production and to integrate waste into the process. "We want to squeeze as much as we can [out of both systems]," said Chandran.

He believes his integrated system would be more cost-effective than the methods currently used to produce bioplastic that involve buying sugars to make PHA. "If you integrate wastewater treatment or address food waste challenges with bioplastic production, then this is quite favorable [economically]," said Chandran. "Because if we were to scale up and go into commercial mode, we would get paid to take the food waste away and then we would get paid to make bioplastics as well." Chandran hopes to close the loop so that, one day, waste products will routinely serve as a resource that can be converted into useful products like bioplastic.

Other Promising Alternatives

Full Cycle Bioplastics in California is also producing PHA from organic waste such as food waste, crop residue such as stalks and inedible leaves, garden waste, and unrecycled paper or cardboard. Used to make bags, containers, cutlery, water and shampoo bottles, this bioplastic is compostable, marine degradable (meaning that if it ends up in the ocean, it can serve as fish or bacteria food) and has no toxic effects. Full Cycle can process the PHA at the end of its life, and use it to make virgin plastic again.

Pennsylvania-based Renmatix is utilizing woody biomass, energy grasses and crop residue instead of costlier food crops. Its technology separates sugars from the biomass using water and heat instead of acids, solvents or enzymes in a comparatively clean, quick and inexpensive process. Both the sugars and the lignin from the biomass are then used as building blocks for bioplastics and other bioproducts.

At Michigan State University, scientists are trying to cut production costs for bioplastic through the use of cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae, that use sunlight to produce chemical compounds through photosynthesis. Instead of feeding their plastic-producing bacteria sugars from corn or sugarcane, these scientists tweaked cyanos to constantly excrete the sugar that they naturally produce. The plastic-producing bacteria then consume the sugar produced by the cyanos, which are reusable.

Stanford University researchers and California-based startup Mango Materials are transforming methane gas from wastewater treatment plants or landfills into bioplastic. The methane is fed to plastic-producing bacteria that transform it into PHA, which the company sells to plastic producers. It is used for plastic caps, shampoo bottles or biopolyester fibers that can be combined with natural materials for clothing. The bioplastic will biodegrade back into methane, and if it reaches the ocean, can be digested naturally by marine microorganisms.

The Centre for Sustainable Technologies at the University of Bath in England is making polycarbonate from sugars and carbon dioxide for use in bottles, lenses and coatings for phones and DVDs. Traditional polycarbonate plastic is made using BPA (banned from use in baby bottles) and the toxic chemical phosgene. The Bath researchers have found a cheaper and safer way to do it by adding carbon dioxide to the sugars at room temperature. Soil bacteria can break the bioplastic down into carbon dioxide and sugar.

And then there are those developing innovative ways to replace plastic altogether. Japanese design company AMAM is producing packaging materials made from the agar in red marine algae. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is developing a biodegradable and edible film from the milk protein casein to wrap food in; it is 500 times better at keeping food fresh than traditional plastic film. And New York-based Ecovative is using mycelium, the vegetative branching part of a fungus, to make Mushroom Materials, for biodegradable packaging material, tiles, planters and more.

Right now, it's hard to claim that bioplastics are more environmentally friendly than traditional plastics when all aspects of their life cycle are considered: land use, pesticides and herbicides, energy consumption, water use, greenhouse gas and methane emissions, biodegradability, recyclability and more. But as researchers around the world work to develop greener varieties and more efficient production processes, bioplastics do hold promise to help lessen plastic pollution and reduce our carbon footprint.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Plastics made from organic material are often touted as being eco-friendly, but do they live up to the hype?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Marine pollution is a combination of chemicals and trash, most of which comes from land sources and is washed or blown into the ocean. This pollution results in damage to the environment, to the health of all organisms, and to economic structures worldwide.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Article body copy

A garbage truck turns off the road, engine rumbling, brakes wheezing, and the smell of rot trailing in its wake. The truck stops short and starts to reverse- beep, beep, beep ing down a boat launch. With salt water lapping at its rear tires it stops, opens its tailgate, and dumps its load of cups, straws, bottles, shopping bags, fishing buoys, and nets.

A minute later, this plastic waste is floating away on a journey to pollute the ocean and poison the food chain. As the garbage truck drives away it passes another truck preparing to back down the ramp. And another pulling into the marina-one of an endless stream of garbage trucks, each lining up to dump its own load of plastics.

It doesn't happen like this, of course, but eight million tonnes of plastic does end up in the ocean every year-the equivalent of a garbage truck's-worth every minute. And the rate is increasing. If nothing changes, the amount of plastic sloshing around the ocean could double in 10 years. By 2050, that mass of plastic could exceed the weight of all the fish in the sea.

The costs to society and the environment are huge. A study by the consultancy firm Deloitte shows that, every year, up to 1,000,000 seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals and sea turtles die after ingesting or being entangled by plastic. Microscopic bits of plastic are working their way up the food chain, including in the seafood we eat. Plastic floating around the ocean carries invasive species that compete with or prey on native species. And when it washes onto beaches, plastic pollution affects tourism and devalues real estate. In its examination for 2018, Deloitte pegged the price of ocean plastic pollution at US $6-billion to $19-billion. That's cheap compared with another study, which calculated the cost at up to $2.5-trillion per year, or $33,000 per tonne. None of that accounts for plastic's costs to human health. Yet along its production cycle from oil and gas refining to use and disposal, plastic produces chemical emissions that have been linked to hormone disruption and cancer.

It's enough to motivate teenage entrepreneurs, philanthropists, corporations, nonprofit organizations, governments, university students, and afflicted communities around the world to take action. Their ideas are seemingly as diverse as the species living in the sea: a Korean program pays fishermen to collect plastic at sea. In Baltimore, Maryland, the cartoonish Mr. Trash Wheel skims up to 17 tonnes of garbage out of the city's harbor in a day. Inspired by the plankton-filtering ways of the whale shark, Singapore-based Drone Solutions created the WasteShark, an autonomous drone that sucks up floating bits of plastic in harbors. Chinese and Australian researchers are exploring the potential to use nanotechnology to pull microplastics out of the water in wastewater treatment facilities. Other efforts range from collecting old nets at harbors, to making plastic itself a currency to incentivize its collection, to using multimillion-dollar booms to skim plastic from the ocean's surface, to volunteers diving to the seafloor to clean it up. There's little doubt these efforts are well intentioned. But they are not all equal.

There is a harsh reality that all of us concerned with the mounting ocean plastic problem must confront: the vast majority of the plastic in the ocean is too small or too out of reach to ever be cleaned up. It is suspended in the water column, settled on the ocean floor, or degraded into microscopic particles that are difficult to detect, let alone collect.

That realization is vital. With the plastic pollution problem growing increasingly dire, and with so many potential solutions on offer-all competing for limited funding, resources, and public support-it is more urgent than ever to focus on the approaches that are most likely to succeed.

One of the best-known and best-funded efforts, the Ocean Cleanup, is instructional in understanding not only the size of the ocean plastic problem, but also the challenge of cleaning it up.

Founded in 2013 by then-18-year-old Boyan Slat, the nonprofit has raised more than $35-million to clean up the five gyres, convergence zones in the world's oceans where plastic tends to concentrate. Slat's first target is the North Pacific's infamous Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Slat's plan is to harness the currents and the wind to herd the bigger floating pieces of plastic into horseshoe-shaped booms. Just as windblown trash gets ensnared in a fence, the plastic should get trapped in the booms until a boat can come to haul the debris to shore. Sounds simple. But after its first two pilot projects failed to gather trash, the Ocean Cleanup is years behind schedule. With a successful test of its third design in 2019, the organization says it is back on track to deploy 60 of its devices in all the world's oceans within the next decade. In 2018, it estimated it could clean up 50 percent of the plastic in the ocean by 2023. It's an audacious claim that many doubt is possible (not just because, by 2021, the organization had yet to deploy any operational booms). Yet Slat notes he has hired more than 100 staff and experts to help develop the project's signature booms. He also likes to say that, sometimes, tackling big problems requires an outside perspective and a venture capitalist's attitude.

"Rather than doing many small things that you hope add up, it's much more effective to work on projects that are high risk and high reward," he told Digital Trends in 2019. "If one of them works, you can actually solve the whole problem, or at least a large part of it."

Through its trials, the Ocean Cleanup has helped spread awareness of the problem of plastic pollution. The organization has improved the scientific understanding of the kinds of plastic in the ocean and where it's coming from. But from its inception, independent scientists have been critical of the Ocean Cleanup. Some expressed concerns about the unintended harm the booms could pose to marine life, such as pelagic fishes, sea turtles, and marine mammals. A well-discussed issue has been the booms' effects on the neuston, a little-known community of organisms that lives in the ocean gyres. The neuston includes animals, plants, and microorganisms-like the Portuguese man-of-war, sea snails, and the sail jellyfish-that drift with the wind and currents. Neuston and plastic debris, maneuvered by the same forces, occur in the same areas. Collecting the plastic means collecting neuston, with unknown consequences for the open-ocean food chain.

But a more direct concern for the Ocean Cleanup's goal of cleaning up the five gyres is just how difficult it is to trap plastic in the open ocean. While there is plenty of plastic floating on the surface of the North Pacific gyre, even more is out of reach, suspended in the water column and degraded into tiny pieces that slip right through the booms.

Sönke Hohn, a biologist specializing in mathematical modeling at the Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research in Germany, is one of the Ocean Cleanup's many skeptics. Last year, in collaboration with researchers in the United Kingdom and Germany, Hohn published an analysis of what it would take for the Ocean Cleanup to collect only the floating plastic in the largest five gyres. Hohn and his colleagues took the current amount of plastic in the ocean, added annual inputs, and compared it with how much plastic the Ocean Cleanup's successful pilot collected. In the project's 20-year estimated timeline, Hohn's math showed that the Ocean Cleanup's efforts would have no noticeable effect on the amount of plastic in the ocean. To clean up a fraction of one percent of the total, the Ocean Cleanup would have to run nonstop until 2150. Even when Hohn artificially increased the fleet to 200 booms, the project still only recovered five percent of the floating plastic.

"That was with an optimistic scenario," Hohn says.

Logistics aside, Hohn also worries about the optics of the Ocean Cleanup's efforts. If the project even appears to be working, the rest of us could feel absolved from action, he says. "The media and the public love the story of a young guy coming along to save the ocean," Hohn says. "We like to think: he's solved the problem. We don't have to change anything. The truth is, we can't rely on technology to clean up the ocean."

Like many of his colleagues in marine plastic research, Hohn thinks the whole principle of cleaning up the ocean is misguided.

In July 2020, the Pew Charitable Trusts and Systemiq released a report called Breaking the Plastic Wave. Yonathan Shiran, the project director and author of an accompanying scientific study, compares cleaning up ocean plastic with mopping up a flooding house.

"First you have to turn off the source of the water," says Shiran, "then you wipe up the floor. I do worry [cleanup efforts] are distracting us from the real solution-closing the tap." No cleanup effort is cheaper and more effective than preventing plastic from entering the environment, the study found.

The cleanup quest is so futile, says John Hocevar, the ocean projects lead for Greenpeace USA, that he'd like to see every dollar earmarked for cleanup worldwide redirected to fixing the leaks. "We're making the problem worse at a pace that far exceeds what we can possibly clean up," he argues. "We need to close the tap as quickly as possible. Then I'll be more excited to clean up the mess."

But closing the tap may be an even more monumental task. In rich countries, cutting off the flow of plastic into the sea will require policy changes to encourage better waste management, a circular plastics industry, banning single-use plastics, and incentivizing reusable options. In poorer places, it requires all that and more widespread waste management.

People living in lower-income countries generally produce far less plastic waste per capita, but the Pew study found that two billion people are currently living without waste collection. With nowhere to put it, Shiran says, they'll often dump their garbage in the street where rain and wind wash it into rivers, which eventually carry it to the ocean. Estimates of how much of the plastic at sea first floated down a river vary widely. A study funded by the Ocean Cleanup put the range at 0.8 to 2.7 million tonnes per year, while one by researchers at the Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) in Germany found a range of 0.4 to four million tonnes per year. The same UFZ study also found that up to 95 percent of it came from just 10 rivers, mostly in Asia.* A growing population means that the number of people without garbage services will nearly double by 2040, compounding the problem. Expanding waste collection services to everyone would be nearly impossible, says Shiran.

Knowing the leak is unfixable, at least for now, strengthens the argument for mopping up in the meantime.

"We don't say, The oil spill is too big to clean up, so why bother," says Susan Baer, the executive director and cofounder of Clear Blue Sea, a nonprofit working on a fleet of what are basically ocean-going Roombas. "Leaving that much plastic in the ocean is detrimental to human health and the health of the ocean. Every animal in the sea will eat whatever plastic it can fit in its mouth," Baer says.

"Cleanup efforts are an important piece of the puzzle, right up until they're not needed," adds Chloé Dubois, cofounder of Ocean Legacy Foundation, a Canadian nonprofit that organizes beach cleanups and recycles marine debris among other activities. "They remove bigger pieces of plastic before they become impossible to clean up. They also help shift the narrative and public behavior. That's what drives policy changes."

So even if we are going to follow Hocevar's lead and put as much time and money as we can into closing the plastic leak, that still leaves us in the same spot: figuring out which of the many competing cleanup efforts deserve our funding, support, and attention.

But the struggles of the Ocean Cleanup, and the realization that most plastic in the ocean-small, sunken, and degraded-is nearly impossible to collect, are insightful. Taken together, they lead us to a stance shared by many experts: that the best way to clean up the ocean is to stop trying to clean up the ocean.

After its own research showed plastic's freshwater source, the Ocean Cleanup in 2015 diversified and started working on the Interceptor, a river boom system that funnels garbage into an anchored collection barge. The organization has installed three Interceptors: in the Klang River in Malaysia, in the Ozama River in the Dominican Republic, and in the Cengkareng drain in Indonesia. A fourth is in the works for the Mekong River in Vietnam. The organization is aiming to place an Interceptor in the 1,000 most polluted rivers by 2025.

But rivers are transportation corridors. To avoid conflicts with boats, the Interceptor only extends partway into the river. Plenty of trash slips by. When it does, it tends to collect in harbors. These sites, experts suggest, are ideal locations for concerted, targeted efforts-like the England-based Water Witch.

In the 1960s, Francis Caddick designed a boat custom made to clean up the water around the dock in Liverpool. More than 50 years later, the family-run company has evolved as marine litter has changed. "In our infancy, our vessels mostly worked clearing wood and vegetation," says Jackie Caddick, the company director. "Now I would say a good 90 percent of what we remove is plastic, and we have developed our vessels to deal with this."

The company's largest dredger can skim up to a tonne of litter every three minutes, gathering up to 100 tonnes a day. Port authorities, marinas, and resort areas operate Water Witch dredgers in 200 locations worldwide.

Another place plastic tends to accumulate is on beaches. Experts like the Ocean Legacy Foundation's Dubois and Marcus Eriksen, the chief scientist with 5 Gyres, an environmental research organization, say that beach cleanups are another effective way to tackle the plastic problem. Cleaning shorelines may not be flashy enough to draw a lot of attention, but doing so prevents plastic that has washed ashore from returning to the ocean where it can sink to the bottom, or from degrading in the sun and breaking into tiny pieces that are impossible to clean up.

Though humble, beach cleanups have impact. Over the past 27 years, volunteers have cleaned nearly 45,000 kilometers of Canadian waterways as part of the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup. The 2019 effort removed 160 tonnes of litter. In the northern Gulf of Alaska, a similar project, run by Gulf of Alaska Keeper, has cleaned up more than 2,400 kilometers of coastline since 2006, gathering more than 1,300 tonnes of plastic. That's with just one crew working only during the summer. Imagine what similar efforts could do with the Ocean Cleanup's $35-million. Even Greenpeace's Hocevar, who favors better garbage collection over all efforts, says volunteer beach cleanups should continue, because they provide a link between the public and the plastic problem.

An even more concentrated source of plastic debris is the 500,000 to 1,000,000 tonnes of commercial fishing gear that gets lost at sea every year, says Eriksen. By weight, this ghost gear makes up a large percentage of the garbage cleaned off beaches in Alaska- up to 70 percent in one analysis-and at least 46 percent of the large plastic objects floating in the ocean, according to a study by the Ocean Cleanup. This ghost gear is especially damaging, because as well as polluting the ocean, it continues to kill marine life.

The good news is, compared with other industrial sources of plastic, fishing gear is fairly easy to collect or prevent from being lost. Several programs have set up free dump bins at docks to make it easier and cheaper for fishers to safely dispose of old gear. Bureo, a California-based company, buys aging nets from South American fishermen and turns them into skateboards and sunglasses. And Fishing for Litter, a program run by KIMO International, a European pollution prevention and ocean health NGO, plays to fishermen's desire for sustainability. Since 2004, the program has encouraged commercial fishermen to gather ghost gear and other litter they find at sea and dump it in bins KIMO has set up at ports around Europe. Between 2016 and 2017, nearly 1,000 vessels gathered 470 tonnes of ocean plastics along with their catch-voluntarily.

"We're aiming to change behavior for the long term, so that fishers are seen as part of the solution to marine litter," says Arabelle Bentley, KIMO's executive secretary. For fishers, she says, "it's a feel-good factor."

That desire to be part of the solution unites all cleanup efforts. But passion can be misplaced. The unfortunate reality is that there is no key to cleaning up the ocean. The solution is not flashy or sensational. It's not an entrepreneur with a big idea-a person we can look to as the one who will solve the problem. It's the boring stuff: when you use plastic, dispose of it properly. If you want to do more, help clean up a river, harbor, or beach. But really, we need to slow the flow of garbage trucks. Because right now, they're speeding up. We are using more plastic every year. By 2050, the garbage trucks could be unloading every 15 seconds instead of every minute. We don't have all that long before the ocean is teeming with more plastic than fish.

Correction: This sentence originally read, "Surveys of plastic at sea, combined with studies looking at ocean currents and drift patterns, show that more than 80 percent of the plastic in the ocean first bobbed down a river- a quarter of it down just 10 rivers, mostly in Asia." The section has been updated to provide more accurate and comprehensive statistics.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Scooping Plastic Out of the Ocean Is a Losing Game | Hakai Magazine

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Open ocean cleanups won't solve the marine plastics crisis. To really make a difference, here's what we should do instead.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Ocean pollution poses a clear and present danger to human health and well-being, according to a from an international group of researchers. The study sounds the alarm that the growing global problem, which scientists are only beginning to understand, requires urgent and immediate action. It is a call to mobilize, say the authors who offer a path forward via pollution prevention and research recommendations.

"Ocean pollution is a widespread, worsening, and poorly controlled problem that is directly affecting human and ecosystem health," said lead study author Philip Landrigan, M.D., director of the Boston College Global Observatory on Pollution and Health. "It is a complex mix of toxins that, until now, has not received the systematic attention it deserves."

The study, funded in part by NIEHS and coordinated by the Centre Scientifique de Monaco with support from the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, is the first comprehensive examination of the impacts of ocean pollution on human health.

An Unjust Burden

Covering more than two-thirds of the planet, the oceans provide food, livelihoods, and cultural and recreational value to billions around the world. Ocean pollution, which stems primarily from human activities, threatens these many benefits.

More than 80% of ocean pollution comes from land-based sources, making its way to the seas through runoff, rivers, atmospheric deposition, and direct discharges. It is most highly concentrated along the coasts of low- and middle-income countries.

"Ocean pollution is deeply unjust. Its impacts fall most heavily on low-income countries, coastal fishing communities, people on small island nations, indigenous populations, and people in the high Arctic - groups that for the most part produce very little pollution themselves," explained Landrigan. "These populations rely on the oceans for food. Their survival depends on the health of the seas."

Multiple Pollutants, Multiple Health Effects

Ocean pollution is a complex mixture made up of mercury, plastic waste, manufactured chemicals, petroleum wastes, agricultural runoff, and biological threats, like harmful algal blooms. People are exposed to these toxins mainly by eating contaminated seafood.

Coal combustion is the major source of mercury pollution in the oceans. When coal is burned, mercury enters the atmosphere and eventually washes down into the sea. The authors noted that when a pregnant woman eats mercury-contaminated fish, the mercury can damage her child's developing brain resulting in IQ loss and behavior problems. In adults, consumption of mercury-contaminated fish increases risk for heart disease and dementia.

Plastic waste makes up an estimated 80% of marine pollution. About 10 million metric tons of plastic waste enter the oceans each year, killing seabirds, fish, and marine mammals. It breaks down into smaller pieces called microplastics that absorb a range of chemicals floating in the marine environment, including pesticides and toxic metals. These chemical-laden particles are ingested by fish and shellfish and then passed on to seafood consuming humans. Microplastics may harm marine and human health, but the risks are still largely unknown.

"There's a lot of work needed to better understand the composition, toxicity, and potential human health impacts of microplastics, but it's likely that it's pretty substantial," said Landrigan.

The chemicals used to manufacture a range of products, from consumer goods and food packaging to cleaning products and pesticides, also end up in the seas. The authors wrote that of the thousands of manufactured chemicals and chemical mixtures that pollute the world's oceans, humans are most likely to be exposed to polychlorinated biphenyls, dioxins, brominated flame retardants, perfluorinated substances, and pesticides through eating contaminated seafood. These chemicals have been shown to cause a wide range of health effects in humans such as cardiovascular disease, developmental and neurobehavioral disorders, metabolic disease, immune dysfunction, endocrine disruption, and cancers.

Algae are essential components of aquatic food webs and ecosystems. But too much of a good thing can be toxic. Harmful algal blooms (HAB) occur when toxin-producing algae grow excessively in ocean waters. Warming sea waters make formerly unsuitable habitats habitable, leading to a range expansion of HAB species and the human populations they affect. Industrial waste, agricultural runoff, pesticides, and human sewage can all spur a HAB event. People are exposed to HAB toxins from eating contaminated fish and shellfish. These toxins can cause dementia, amnesia, other neurological damage, and death.

Climate Change Magnifies the Problem

"Ocean pollution and climate change are both components of planetary health. The two problems largely arise from the same source: the combustion of fossil fuels, coal, oil, and gas that release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. That in turn leads to a whole series of problems," said Landrigan.

For example, a warmer climate melts glaciers and permafrost, freeing legacy pollutants from ice. Rising sea temperatures increase the number and expand the range of marine microbes that can cause disease. As carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere increase, so too does the amount that oceans absorb. This results in more acidic waters that can erode coral reefs and calcium containing organisms such as plankton that are the base of the marine food chain. Ocean acidification can also increase the toxicity of certain heavy metals and chemicals.

A Path Forward

The authors close with optimism and offer a series of case studies, policy, and research recommendations to save the planet's oceans.

"The key thing to realize about ocean pollution is that, like all forms of pollution, it can be prevented using laws, policies, technology, and enforcement actions that target the most important pollution sources," said Landrigan.

The authors call for eliminating coal combustion to reduce ocean bound mercury pollution and a transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. Banning single-use plastics, like straws and plastic bags, can reduce the amount of plastic pollution entering oceans. Controlling coastal pollution and expanding Marine Protected Areas, sometimes call the "national parks of the ocean," can safeguard critical ecosystems, protect vulnerable fish stocks, and improve human health and well-being.

"Many countries have used these tools and have successfully cleaned fouled harbors, rejuvenated estuaries, and restored coral reefs. The results have been increased tourism, restored fisheries, improved human health, and economic growth. These benefits will last for centuries."

A Role for Research

On the research side, the authors stress that a better understanding of the human health impacts of ocean pollution can provide the evidence base needed to inform protective policies. Among the research priorities, they call for improved ocean pollution monitoring, studies of human exposure to ocean pollutants and health effect biomarkers, and a better understanding of the effects of exposure to multiple ocean pollutants.

"There is a real need to better understand how exposure to mixtures, like ocean pollution, affect health. This is one area where I see the environmental health community playing a role in advancing ocean pollution and human health research," said John Stegeman, Ph.D., second author on the paper and director of the Woods Hole Center for Oceans and Human Health, which is co-funded by NIEHS and the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Another skill set environmental health scientists bring to the table is community engagement. "Globally, there is a need to involve communities and medical professionals in oceans research. NIEHS has long recognized the benefit of community engagement, and its grantees have developed community engagement best practices that could be key in helping us better understand and prevent ocean pollution exposures," said Stegeman.

NIEHS has supported research on marine-related health issues since the 1970s. Grantees are studying coastal populations to better understand how people are exposed to ocean pollutants and health effects of exposure. They are exploring how climate change affects distribution and toxicity of HABs and developing sensors and technologies to better predict HAB events and prevent exposure. In 2004, NIEHS and the NSF launched the Centers for Oceans and Human Health program that funds interdisciplinary research centers around the country.

Stegeman concluded that "Understanding ocean pollution is a highly interdisciplinary endeavor. In our center, we have basic biomedical scientists, toxicologists, biological and physical oceanographers, environmental modelers, chemists, and engineers all working together. It takes a collaborative environment like that created through the NIEHS-NSF Centers for Oceans and Human Health program to fully understand how our oceans impact human health."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
New Study Finds Ocean Pollution a Threat to Human Health

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Ocean pollution is widespread, worsening, and poses a clear and present danger to human health and well-being, according to a new study funded in part by NIEHS.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Plastic is one of the most enduring materials man has created. Nowadays, we all know that it can take hundreds of years for plastic to degrade, and research is showing that it is possible that it does not even fully degrade, but becomes what we call microplastic.

Microplastics are tiny particles of plastic that can be eaten by marine animals and end up in their bodies and tissues, entering the food chain and leading to disastrous consequences for the health of our planet and all its inhabitants.

Even if human beings are becoming more and more aware of the hazards this material poses to life, the presence of plastic in our ocean is continually increasing, and plastic pollution is still one of the main causes of marine species extinction, health problems for human beings and animals alike, and the destruction of our ecosystems.

In this article, we will look at ocean plastic pollution and lay out the data and statistics you need to understand the daunting issue we are facing. Most importantly, we will also look at what we can do as individuals and as part of our society to prevent plastic pollution and save our planet.

Let's start!

Plastic Pollution in the Ocean: Where does it come from?

It is clear that plastic pollution is one of the most pressing environmental issues we are currently facing, but how did it come to be? Moreover, where does all the plastic in the ocean come from?

Plastics produced from fossil fuels are just over a century old, but they revolutionized our life completely. It allowed the invention of many life-saving devices and the implementation of new technologies that changed the course of history.

However, the great advantages plastic offered led to a throwaway trend that made us discover plastic's dark side: the threat it poses to our environment and life.

The majority of plastic pollution in the ocean is caused by littering: we buy or use disposable plastic items (food wrappings, plastic bags, razors, bottles, etc.) and do not dispose of them properly, which cause them to end up in the waterways and eventually in the ocean.

Yet, not all-plastic waste in the ocean is an effect of littering: many plastics and microplastics are the product of improper manufacturing processes and about 20% of the ocean's plastic pollution comes from industrial fishing.

Plastic Pollution: Key Facts

Plastic waste makes up 80% of all marine pollution and around 8 to 10 million metric tons of plastic end up in the ocean each year.

Research states that, by 2050, plastic will likely outweigh all fish in the sea.

In the last ten years, we have produced more plastic products than in the previous century.

The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) has stated that basically 100% of all plastics human beings have ever created are still in existence.

Plastic generally takes between 500-1000 years to degrade. Even then, it becomes microplastics, without fully degrading.

Currently, there are about 50-75 trillion pieces of plastic and microplastics in the ocean.

This plastic either breaks down into microplastic particles (see below), or floats around and ends up forming garbage patches.

Garbage Patches in the Ocean

Most of the plastic we find in the ocean comes from land: it flows downstream through rivers all the way to the sea. At first, it may stay in coastal waters, but it can soon be picked up by rotating ocean currents, called gyres, and transported literally anywhere in the world.

According to National Geographic, scientists found plastic coming from Russia, the United States, Europe, South America, Japan, and China on Henderson Island, an uninhabited isolated atoll halfway between Chile and New Zealand.

Usually, marine plastic debris groups up in what we call garbage patches, plastic accumulation areas, in the center of the ocean's gyres. The biggest is the Great Pacific garbage patch, located between Hawaii and California.

Consequences

Today, plastic production and use is still at its highest, but the data on recycling are not at all promising: only about 10% of the plastic we produce is currently being recycled. The rest is either incinerated, causing air pollution, or it ends up in our oceans and environment.

Harm to Wildlife

Plastic pollution in the ocean has a devastating impact on marine life and ecosystems. The most obvious one being the damage plastic items cause to animals when they come into contact with or ingest them, which include suffocation, entanglement, laceration, infections and internal injuries.

17% of the species affected by the presence of plastic in the ocean are on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species.

Yet, there are more problems related to plastic: floating plastic items can help transport invasive species, which leads to threats for marine ecosystems, biodiversity and the food web.

Harm to Human Beings

As we explained above, microplastics have now become part of the food chain and have been found everywhere: in drinking water, salt, beer and in the soil where we grow our vegetables.

Plastic materials are carcinogenic and can affect the body's endocrine system, causing developmental, neurological, reproductive and immune disorders. Another health hazard is given by toxic contaminants that often accumulate on plastic's surface, and are then transferred to humans through the consumption of seafood.

Climate Change

Plastic pollution and climate change are two sides of the same coin: plastic production, as it is created from fossil fuels, highly contributes to the climate crisis.

Moreover, as we already mentioned, when plastic waste is incinerated, it releases carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere, increasing emissions and worsening global warming.

Economic effects

According to research, the yearly economic costs of plastic in the ocean are estimated to be between $6-19bn USD. These costs are given by its impact on tourism, fisheries and aquaculture, and (governmental) cleanups.

Images of Plastic Pollution in the Ocean

Here, we have decided to show you some recent images of plastic pollution in the ocean.

This will help you comprehend the magnitude of the threat that plastic pollution in the ocean poses to our planet and life, as we know it, and hopefully help you develop a deeper awareness of what is going on.

Why it is Vital to Prevent Plastic Pollution

Plastic pollution is undoubtedly an issue that requires worldwide cooperation. Its consequences affect the whole planet and its inhabitants: it threatens ocean health, the health of marine species, food safety and quality, human health, coastal tourism, and contributes to climate change.

Reducing the presence of plastic in our oceans will not only allow us to save marine species and ecosystems, but will improve our overall health and that of the environment in general, helping us fight climate change and working towards a more sustainable future.

How to Stop Plastic Pollution in the Ocean

It is quite hard to retrieve plastic from the ocean once it has entered it. New technologies allow us to catch larger marine debris, but small plastic items and microplastics are virtually impossible to reach, especially when they are deep in the ocean.

Therefore, many scientists and conservationists have declared that the best solution is to prevent plastic waste from entering rivers and seas in the first place.

This could be accomplished with the improvement of our waste management systems and the implementation of recycling. In addition, it is essential to reconsider the design and usage of disposable packaging, and the reduction in manufacturing of unnecessary single-use plastics.

What Can We Do

There are many ways to keep plastic out of the ocean! Here are some strategies you can adopt and share with your community:

Reduce plastic use
Think about all the plastic items you use in your daily life. Can you even count them all? Being more aware of the way you use plastic is a great starting point to reduce plastic waste.

We know, habits are hard to change, but even a small individual commitment can make a difference especially when talking about the single-use plastics we mentioned earlier which, according to data from the European Parliament, are responsible for 49% of all marine pollution.

Here are some new habits you can take inspiration from:

Swap plastic bags for reusable ones, made of cloth or fiber.

Reduce the use of disposable plastic cups, plates, cutlery and bottles. For example, bring your own reusable bottle to work and a reusable coffee cup for your morning take-away!)

Buy food and cleaning products in bulk to avoid useless plastic wrappings. Nowadays, there are plenty of options to choose from, and many supermarkets let you fill your own jars/bags.

Choose metal or glass food containers and storage options instead of plastic ones.

Avoid buying and using cosmetics that contain plastic microspheres or microbeads.

If you live by a sea or river, you can volunteer to pick up litter in your local community, thus remove plastics from the waterways and preventing them from getting to the ocean in the first place. There are many organizations you can join, or simply do it on the weekend with your friends and family. Every little helps!

Of course, it is essential to change our individual behaviors and habits, but unfortunately, this is not sufficient to prevent and stop ocean plastic pollution. It is also essential that you support legislation that aims at reducing the use and production of plastic, improve recycling facilities and better manage waste in general.

One of the main weapons we can use to stop ocean pollution is research. By deepening our knowledge of the effects of the issue, we can start implementing better policies for all.

There are many NGOs and non-profit that rely on donations to develop their projects and research for reducing and eliminating plastic from the ocean. Here are some examples:

Sylvia Earle, marine biologist, said: "It is the worst of times but it is the best of times because we still have a chance." So, let us make the best of this chance; we can all make choices to protect our planet, it is not too late!

References
https://www.itsafishthing.com/plastic-in-the-ocean/ https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/plastic-planet-how-tiny-plastic-particles-are-polluting-our-soil https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/plastic-pollution https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/hazards/marinedebris/plastics-in-the-ocean.html https://theoceancleanup.com/ https://www.iberdrola.com/sustainability/plastic-in-the-ocean https://www.wwf.org.uk/updates/how-does-plastic-end-ocean https://www.oceanicsociety.org/resources/7-ways-to-reduce-ocean-plastic-pollution-today/

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Plastic pollution in the ocean: data, facts, consequences

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Plastic is one of the most enduring materials man has created. It can take hundreds of years for it to degrade. What are the consequences?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Sign Up

Receive our best conservation research bi-weekly-stunning photos, wins, and action alerts.

Sign Up

Exclusive state-policy research, infographics, and stats every two weeks.

Sign Up

Receive our best conservation research bi-weekly-stunning photos, wins, and action alerts.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Plastic Pollution Affects Sea Life Throughout the Ocean

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Our ocean and the array of species that call it home are succumbing to the poison of plastic. Examples abound, from the gray whale that died after stranding near Seattle in 2010 with more than 20 plastic bags, a golf ball, and other rubbish in its stomach to the harbor seal pup found dead on the Scottish island of Skye, its intestines fouled by a small piece of plastic wrapper.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Coral reefs provide coastal protection for communities, habitat for fish, and millions of dollars in recreation and tourism, among other benefits. But corals are also severely threatened by rapidly worsening environmental conditions. Learn how NOAA works to restore these valuable habitats.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
33 U.S.C. §1251 et seq. (1972)

The Clean Water Act (CWA) establishes the basic structure for regulating discharges of pollutants into the waters of the United States and regulating quality standards for surface waters. The basis of the CWA was enacted in 1948 and was called the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, but the Act was significantly reorganized and expanded in 1972. "Clean Water Act" became the Act's common name with amendments in 1972.

Under the CWA, EPA has implemented pollution control programs such as setting wastewater standards for industry. EPA has also developed national water quality criteria recommendations for pollutants in surface waters.

The CWA made it unlawful to discharge any pollutant from a point source into navigable waters, unless a permit was obtained:

EPA's National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit program controls discharges.

Point sources are discrete conveyances such as pipes or man-made ditches.

Individual homes that are connected to a municipal system, use a septic system, or do not have a surface discharge do not need a NPDES permit;

Industrial, municipal, and other facilities must obtain permits if their discharges go directly to surface waters.

Compliance and Enforcement

History of this Act

More Information

The Office of Water (OW) ensures drinking water is safe, and restores and maintains oceans, watersheds, and their aquatic ecosystems to protect human health, support economic and recreational activities, and provide healthy habitat for fish, plants, and wildlife.

The EPA Watershed Academy provides training courses on statutes, watershed protection, and other key Clean Water Act resources.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
support delivery of services > public affairs > official information dissemination > public information & outreach > provide public information

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Clean Water Act regulates discharges of pollutants into U.S. waters, and controls pollution by means such as wastewater standards for industry, national water quality criteria recommendations for surface waters, and the NPDES permit program.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
No matter where you are in Maine, you’re always at the library!

# data[].attributes.headline
Gale's Environmental Studies and Policy Page

# data[].attributes.subject
Gale's Environmental Studies and Policy Page

# data[].attributes.body
You will need to log into Maine's Digital Library Collection to access this, so it may not work for LM 5050.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
NPR's full coverage of climate change and related issues.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Learn more about environmental issues of the US on our environment data trends page.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> The world is flooded with plastic garbage.

>> In this state, none of this is recyclable.

>> NARRATOR: Have efforts to solve the plastics problem made it worse?

>> Do you think the industry used recycling to sell more plastic?

>> Absolutely.

>> NARRATOR: "Frontline" and NPR investigate the battle over plastics.

>> We have to manage the waste right.

We have to fix this.

>> NARRATOR: And what's at stake.

>> For the oil and gas industry, plastic is their lifeline.

This is the big war.

>> NARRATOR: Now, "Plastic Wars."

♪ ♪ (water burbling) >> LAURA SULLIVAN: In 2015, a marine biologist came across a sea turtle in distress.

>> Oh.

>> I don't want to pull it too hard.

>> Yeah, I mean, it's bleeding already.

Oh, poor baby.

I'm sorry.

(bleep) (bleep) Christ.

That is plastico.

Oh, man.

>> That's plastic.

>> Don't tell me it's a freaking straw.

>> It's just freaking... >> SULLIVAN: Her video of the encounter quickly went viral.

>> This poor sea turtle.

>> SULLIVAN: It would attract more than 35 million views.

>> ...became a rallying cry for action.

>> SULLIVAN: And focused public attention on a growing problem.

>> That turtle video certainly did have an impact.

>> Plastic pollution: a planetary crisis.

>> SULLIVAN: Plastics in the oceans have been building up for decades.

>> In an underwater paradise, a plastic nightmare.

>> SULLIVAN: Recurring images of dead whales... >> 80 plastic bags found inside the whale.

>> SULLIVAN: Bloated seabirds... >> Oh.

>> SULLIVAN: ...and littered waterways have fueled a global anti-plastic movement.

>> Enemy number one-- the plastic straw.

>> Many U.S. cities are taking steps to ban plastic grocery bags... >> Save our Earth before it's too late!

>> SULLIVAN: And yet, despite the backlash, the industry that makes plastic is expanding.

>> The start of construction on that multibillion-dollar plastics plant... >> SULLIVAN: Plentiful supplies of natural gas are driving down the cost of making plastic.

The U.S. is now one of the world's largest plastic producers.

>> It's going to be the largest plant of its kind in the world.

>> SULLIVAN: And industry is investing tens of billions of dollars in new plastic plants.

>> Construction will eventually employ 6,000 people.

>> SULLIVAN: By 2050, it's estimated that global production of plastic will triple.

>> A plastic boom.

>> There's going to be more plastic than ever on the face... >> SULLIVAN: I wanted to understand how we came to this moment, how the plastic industry has been able to thrive all these years in the face of a growing crisis, and opposition that's now stronger than it's ever been.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ For decades, the national response to the growing plastic-waste problem has focused on one solution: recycling.

And few places have pursued recycling more aggressively than Oregon.

What we put in our recycling bins ends up in sorting plants like this one, outside of Portland.

>> We're actually very full right now.

>> SULLIVAN: This is, this is all coming in fresh.

This is the first unload, right?

>> Yeah.

So that's what it looks like when it comes in.

>> SULLIVAN: Vinod Singh is the outreach manager at Far West Recycling.

>> SULLIVAN: Every single piece of this has to be sorted in some way... >> Yeah, you have to separate paper and then the metals and then the plastics.

>> SULLIVAN: There are a lot of different kinds of plastics that have to be sorted.

>> And what we're doing here is we're sorting it out into the milk jugs, the natural HDPE, the pigmented HDPE, P.E.T.

water bottles... >> SULLIVAN: They're looking for plastics.

>> Yeah-- so all the plastic will come off before the line ends.

>> SULLIVAN: Some items, like soda bottles and milk jugs, are easier to recycle, so there's money to be made.

>> So, this is all plastic that has a home.

>> SULLIVAN: But most other types of plastic are technically difficult and often costly to recycle.

And that makes them nearly impossible to sell.

So they keep piling up.

This is plastic that has no home.

>> This is plastic that has no home, so it's your clamshells, Ziploc bags, film, a CD, a food, like, a food wrapper.

>> SULLIVAN: In the business, they're called mixed plastics.

>> Now, you're getting more mixed plastics, like pouches, and everything comes in a, in a clamshell now.

>> SULLIVAN: So, if somebody throws their Tide bottle into their bin, that's a win.

>> Yeah.

>> SULLIVAN: But what you're saying is you're seeing more and more of this stuff.

>> Packaging is evolving.

>> SULLIVAN: Most mixed plastics end up in a place like this.

>> What you're seeing happening right now is, that's a full-size, that's a, probably a 53-foot trailer.

>> SULLIVAN: In Medford, Oregon, Rogue Disposal's landfill takes about a hundred loads of trash a day.

And more and more of it is plastic.

>> Plastic films, plastic bags, the plastic wrapping that comes around a lot of packaged goods-- that all goes into the garbage.

It's margarine tubs, clamshells, deli containers.

Until there is a viable option for recycling those things, we should be putting it in a landfill.

>> SULLIVAN: But that's not what we've been told for decades, as the things we buy have been increasingly packaged in plastic.

Are you David?

I'm Laura Sullivan.

>> Very nice to meet you.

>> SULLIVAN: Nice to meet you, too.

>> Welcome to Portland.

>> SULLIVAN: David Allaway is a senior policy analyst with the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.

So much of all this stuff in the grocery store is plastic now.

>> It's really inexpensive.

>> SULLIVAN: It's an easy way to package it.

>> It is, and it performs, it performs very well.

It has really good engineering qualities, it protects food very well.

>> SULLIVAN: This is my basic question, because it seems like everybody is buying lettuce in a box now.

Is this recyclable?

>> In this state, none of this is, none of this is recyclable.

>> SULLIVAN: Okay, what about all these?

This is everywhere in every supermarket.

>> In Oregon, again, there are no curbside programs that would accept any of these tubs.

>> SULLIVAN: Okay, so, this is classic, when, a lot of Americans do this, like what you're doing right now.

>> Yep, that's right.

>> SULLIVAN: We flip it over.

What are we looking at?

>> At the bottom of all these plastic containers is this little chasing arrow, the little recycling symbol, with a number.

And the number, there's some words, it says, "1 P.E.T.E."

This package here is technically recyclable.

You could recycle this in a lab.

>> SULLIVAN: Okay.

>> But it's not economical to recycle it, given the current economics of recycling.

>> SULLIVAN: But if it's not happening in Oregon, it makes me wonder what's going on in the rest of the country.

>> Yeah, I would, I would say that this package is rarely recycled in most parts in the country.

>> SULLIVAN: Yeah.

>> Can I give you another example here?

>> SULLIVAN: Yes, please.

>> So, let's take a look at these blueberries.

>> SULLIVAN: Okay.

>> This is classic.

And if you turn this over, you see the chasing arrows.

On the bottom, it says, "100% recyclable."

There is no program in Oregon that wants this in the curbside mix.

But more than half of all people that live in the Portland area believe this belongs in the curbside container.

>> SULLIVAN : Well, it says it's recyclable.

>> It says it's recyclable.

It has the recycling logo.

It's very confusing to a lot of people.

>> SULLIVAN: This confusion about what can and can't be recycled, and where plastic ultimately ends up, is no accident.

Over the past year, we've been investigating the plastic crisis and found that many of the problems we face today were set in motion decades ago by the very companies who make plastic in the first place.

♪ ♪ One of those companies is DuPont, and on the grounds of the first DuPont family home, I found the Hagley Library.

(old movie score playing) It holds one of the world's largest collections of industrial history.

>> This is an American city, a real community of homes and homemakers like thousands of others across the nation.

We call it Plasticstown, U.S.A. >> SULLIVAN: I'd come to see what its archive could tell me about the evolution of the plastic problem.

>> The table is set with polyethylene products, too.

>> SULLIVAN: America's postwar boom presented endless opportunities for this new durable, lightweight material.

>> Modern-day miracles that were made with the help of petrochemicals.

>> SULLIVAN: From packaging to clothing to home furnishings... >> Very durable.

>> SULLIVAN: Plastic's wide-ranging applications... >> Glassine, polyethylene, Mylar... >> SULLIVAN: ...promised a new world through chemistry.

>> Step into the world of manmade materials that take up where nature left off.

>> The thing that made them unique was the ability to do more with just a little bit of material, to make things that we used lighter and more efficient.

So, plastic came to be used in many applications because it performed better.

>> That was not a trick.

>> It did a good job of doing what it was asked to do.

It made life more efficient and easier.

>> (chanting): Save our Earth!

>> SULLIVAN: But by 1970, the plastic industry would have to confront the turbulent times of America's environmental awakening.

>> One in every ten Americans took part in rallies... >> SULLIVAN: Earth Day was one of the largest mass protests in U.S. history.

>> Oh, Earth Day was profound in terms of people waking up to the fact that we live on a finite planet.

And there was a lot of concern about the trend that was happening towards the more throwaway, disposable lifestyle.

(dramatic music playing) >> SULLIVAN: In response, many companies, including plastic makers, and even some environmentalists, got behind an iconic ad campaign that focused attention on the public's role.

>> And I remember being a kid and watching those ads, the most famous one with the crying Indian.

>> Some people have a deep, abiding respect for the natural beauty that was once this country.

>> He was actually Italian, dressed up like an Indian, but the fake crying Indian, the most famous one, ends with this very dramatic sentence where they say... >> People start pollution.

People can stop it.

>> People all around the country bought that line and thought it was our responsibility to take care of litter.

>> Americans discard more trash than any other country in the world.

>> SULLIVAN: While the efforts to change consumer behavior helped clean up the more visible litter problem, they did little to address the root cause... >> What makes our lives convenient is burying us.

>> SULLIVAN: The unchecked growth in household waste.

>> A barge filled with garbage is causing quite an international stink.

>> Loaded with more than 3,000 tons of waste... >> SULLIVAN: By 1987, a wandering barge called the Mobro became an emblem of the growing crisis.

>> Greenpeace went and climbed aboard it and took a huge banner that we put on it.

We said, "Next time, try recycling."

It really became a metaphor of, "We are bumping up against limits here.

We cannot keep just continuing this mindless consumerism, mindless consumption, and dump it somewhere else."

>> American has a garbage problem too long ignored... >> SULLIVAN: At Hagley, we found a collection of internal plastic industry documents...

Thank you.

(voiceover): ...about this period of time, when the industry was in the crosshairs of the environmental movement, and plastics were under attack.

As we continued reporting, we found even more internal documents and court filings, and spoke with over a dozen industry insiders, including three top executives who represented the big plastic producers and agreed to talk publicly for the first time.

Back then, one of the vice presidents at the Society of the Plastics Industry was Lew Freeman.

He now heads a local environmental coalition, but he remembers a pivotal board meeting in the late '80s, when the industry was worried about its public image.

>> The vice president of the DuPont Company pulled me aside and said, "You, you guys better get up to Wilmington.

There's dissatisfaction about what's going on with the solid-waste issue."

We took a trek up to Wilmington, and this one DuPont executive, he said, "I think if we had $5 million"-- which seemed like a lot of money then.

>> SULLIVAN: Five million?

>> "If we had $5 million, we could, we could, we could solve this problem."

>> SULLIVAN: They created the Council for Solid Waste Solutions, drawn from their ranks of big oil and petrochemical companies that made plastic, like Amoco, Chevron, Dow, and Exxon.

The group had a plan and turned to a veteran of the industry, Ron Liesemer, to execute it.

>> They wanted to know, was I interested in being the guy who actually made recycling happen across the U.S.?

>> SULLIVAN: I mean, you got handed this task... >> Yeah.

>> SULLIVAN: ...to recycle plastic in the United States.

>> In the United States.

Literally me.

I had no staff.

But I had millions of dollars to do what I felt was necessary.

>> In a highly controversial action, one county in New York State has voted to ban all packaging made of two kinds of plastic.

>> SULLIVAN: It was a critical moment.

A growing backlash was threatening the future of plastic.

>> In what may be part of a national trend, the City Council of Saint Paul, Minnesota, voted to outlaw the use of polystyrene plastics.

>> SULLIVAN: Liesemer was sent to Minnesota on an urgent mission.

Brand-name companies that used plastic were facing bans on their products.

>> There was an attitude that if your product was not recycled, then it should not be in the marketplace.

So, it was up to us in the plastics industry to solve this problem so that they could continue to package their products in plastic.

>> SULLIVAN: And Liesemer found a solution.

To appease government officials, the industry funded a local recycling pilot project.

>> The industry attitude was, "We'll set this up and get it going, but if the public wants it, they are going to have to pay for it."

>> SULLIVAN: The plastic bans were averted.

Do you think that they took a lesson away from how to fight the bans?

>> Oh, yes.

It was, "We need to be doing things."

>> SULLIVAN: Like what?

>> Don't wait until legislation appears.

>> SULLIVAN: You're saying pre-empt it.

>> Yes, do it first.

And we did.

>> SULLIVAN: Did you feel like they cared more about selling plastic than they did about making recycling work?

>> Making recycling work was a way to keep their products in the marketplace.

>> SULLIVAN: It was a way to sell plastic.

>> Yes.

It's a win-win situation.

You get recycling going, that has its benefits, and it improves the image of the material.

>> SULLIVAN: The industry found another way to promote plastic using recycling.

Responding to pressure from states and environmentalists to better identify the many types of plastic, it created a code to tell them apart.

That code was a numbering system put inside the well-known symbol for recycling, the chasing arrows.

The problem, recyclers said, is that it left the impression that all those kinds of plastics were actually being recycled.

Coy Smith ran recycling centers in Southern California in the 1980s and early '90s.

All right, there you are.

>> During that time, the plastics industry, they went around to states, and they convinced those states to pass laws, and they did this very quietly.

They passed laws that required that symbol with the number on it be put on plastic containers sold in that state.

I mean, for most states, they did it in, recyclers didn't even know it happened.

And the next thing you know, all the plastic containers have these symbols on them.

>> SULLIVAN: Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

>> It's a bad thing.

>> SULLIVAN: Why?

>> Because the average person saw the symbol, they know the symbol, and said, "Well, it's recyclable, right?"

>> SULLIVAN: "It's got three arrows."

>> Well, like, all of a sudden, our own customers, they would bring it in and not only say it has the triangle, but it would, they would flat-out say, "It says it's recyclable right on it."

And I'd be, like, "I can tell you I can't give this away.

There's no one that would even take it if I paid for them to take it."

That's how unrecyclable it was.

>> SULLIVAN: Stuck with plastics they couldn't sell, Smith and other recyclers met with representatives from the plastic industry.

Do you see the one... >> Yeah, there's my name, right there.

>> SULLIVAN: And came up with a report identifying key problems with the numbering code.

>> Some firms are using it as a green marketing tool.

"The code is being misused."

>> SULLIVAN: The plastic industry that you were working with agreed to these and signed onto this report.

>> They did.

>> SULLIVAN: So they knew that these problems existed.

>> They knew these problems existed, absolutely.

>> SULLIVAN: Recyclers and the plastic makers couldn't agree on how to change the code.

Industry would only switch to a triangle, which recyclers said was too similar to the chasing arrows.

Industry wouldn't even consider, say, no triangle, or a circle, or, I mean... >> They didn't want to go anywhere near no triangle.

We said, "Go to a square, go to some other symbol, just not the triangle," and they, they said, "No."

Coming up with ways to have their product perceived as more recyclable and more environmental makes their product look better.

They want to sell more plastic containers.

>> SULLIVAN: Recyclers also appealed to government regulators, but they sided with industry.

They said that the chasing arrows symbol was okay, as long as it was small and on the bottom of packaging.

What if it's got a chasing arrow sign on it, and you think that means it's getting recycled?

>> Uh, that, that was one of the comments early, that it implied that those products were being recycled.

That wasn't the intent.

>> SULLIVAN: Were they?

Were they misleading the public?

>> I don't think so, because when I looked at them, at the arrows, I thought, "This is a way to identify the products so that recycling, the early stages of recycling can take place."

>> SULLIVAN: But even as Liesemer and his colleagues were publicly promoting recycling, privately, the industry had long expressed doubt it was ever going to happen on a broad scale.

One internal document from the Society of the Plastics Industry cautioned, "The techniques of cleaning and separating the mixed plastics... has not been developed for large-scale economic application."

Another said, "There are no effective market mechanisms for mixed plastic."

And this document was candid: "There is serious doubt" widespread plastic recycling "can ever be made viable on an economic basis."

How could they go into all of these communities and tell people, "You just have to recycle," when they knew there were so many problems and so many hurdles?

>> Some were very skeptical but felt they had to do it.

I think others were, were more hopeful.

There was never an enthusiastic belief that recycling was ultimately going to work in a significant way.

>> SULLIVAN: Freeman's boss at the time, Larry Thomas, the head of the Society of the Plastics Industry, was blunt about it.

>> I was the front man for the plastics industry.

No getting around it.

>> SULLIVAN: Thomas wouldn't sit down for an on-camera interview, but agreed to talk on the phone.

>> If the public thinks the recycling is working, then they're not going to be as concerned about the environment.

I think they knew that the infrastructure wasn't there to really have recycling amount to a whole lot.

>> SULLIVAN: Thomas wrote a confidential memo in 1989 about the precarious position the industry was in.

"The image of plastics among consumers is deteriorating at an alarmingly fast pace," it says.

"We're approaching a 'point of no return.'

Business is being lost.

Analysts are beginning to take notice.

We must immediately undertake a major program of unprecedented proportions to reverse this fast-moving tidal wave of growing negative public perception."

So the big plastic producers came up with a multimillion-dollar solution... >> When you look at plastic... >> SULLIVAN: Advertising.

>> ...helps things stay fresh and safe and light.

>> It spent most of its money, millions and millions of dollars, on advertising... >> Plastic also saves energy.

>> To tout the virtues of plastics as a way of heading off the criticism the industry was experiencing.

>> When we started that advertising program, I think the image of plastics was in the mid-30s-- you know, 30, 35% favorability.

>> SULLIVAN: That's pretty low.

>> If you're in politics, you're in deep trouble with a 35% rating.

>> Presenting the possibilities of plastics.

>> When they were running the advertising on television, they were not about how plastics can be recycled, but all the wonderful things that plastics bring to us.

>> Plastics make it possible.

>> The fact that you now don't have to worry about dropping a shampoo bottle that was made out of glass on the bathroom floor because it's plastic.

And there's nothing wrong in an industry promoting those kind of things, but that's not addressing the problem that people are criticizing you about.

>> SULLIVAN: And it worked?

>> And it worked.

>> SULLIVAN: (chuckles) 'Cause you went from 30% favorability... >> From let's say mid-30s to mid-60s.

>> SULLIVAN: Favorability.

>> Mm-hmm.

(commercial music playing) >> Glass?

That's the past.

ThermaSet is the future.

>> SULLIVAN: Over the next several decades... >> What once was glass will soon be plastic.

>> SULLIVAN: Plastic became the unrivaled material of choice for consumers.

>> Busy lifestyles and a growing urban population mean an increase in demand for food that is fresh... >> SULLIVAN: Plastic sales exploded.

>> Convenient... >> SULLIVAN: From 1990 to 2010, production more than doubled.

>> And fast.

Flexible packaging has become part of our daily lives.

>> SULLIVAN: And with all that new plastic came mountains of plastic waste.

>> Here we are at our GDB South Brunswick facility.

>> SULLIVAN: South, okay.

In New Jersey, I met a man who built a $180 million recycling business off of that waste.

>> Use and discard, and then this is where it all ends up.

>> SULLIVAN: Sunil Bagaria is national chairman of the plastics division for ISRI, the Institute for Scrap Recycling Industries.

His company buys throwaway plastic from some of the largest big-box stores in the U.S. Oh, my God, what is this?

>> This is just hangers, one type of plastic.

>> SULLIVAN (gasps): Why are these all here?

>> Well, you would imagine that when you, you know, you take a garment off the rack and take it to the checkout counter... >> SULLIVAN: Yes.

>> Then this should go back.

>> SULLIVAN: That they would just reuse it.

>> Yeah, but they said, "Oh, you know what, we'll just buy new hangers.

In the meantime, let me just recycle this."

>> SULLIVAN: Oh, boy.

This hanger gets used one time.

>> One time.

>> SULLIVAN: Starting in the late '90s, Bagaria and other recycling brokers had a one-word answer to the growing plastic-waste problem: China.

>> I mean, China did a big one for the recycling industry, I must say.

>> SULLIVAN: Yeah.

>> You know, because, as long as it remotely resembled plastic, they wanted it.

>> SULLIVAN: They would take it.

>> Yeah-- polystyrene, P.E.T., PVC, polypropylene.

Because that's how big a demand of manufacturing was there in China.

They wanted raw material.

"Give me raw material," that's all they wanted.

>> SULLIVAN: How long did that go on for?

>> Almost 20 years.

But later, we surely realized that there was always another aspect of what was going on in China.

>> SULLIVAN: Which was what?

>> They would just take, like, the low-hanging fruits.

>> SULLIVAN: The good stuff.

>> Good stuff, easy to do.

>> SULLIVAN: Yeah.

>> And the remaining plastic waste will then be disposed of.

>> SULLIVAN: Eventually, the reality of what was happening in China became clear.

>> These Chinese children spend most of their waking hours between plumes of smoke and mountains of plastic.

>> SULLIVAN: And in 2018, China stopped taking imported plastic waste.

>> Now the country is trying to clean up its image.

>> Because we thought that it was getting recycled gave us the freedom-- "Okay, no problem, let's, let me continue to use it.

It is ultimately getting recycled.

What is the, what is the problem?"

We never asked the question, "Are they doing it the, the right way?

Are we damaging the environment more in the name of recycling?"

♪ ♪ >> SULLIVAN: When the recycling market in China went away, Bagaria and other brokers scrambled to find a new home for their plastic.

And countries like Indonesia saw a business opportunity.

Last fall, I met up with Bagaria there.

He was checking out a recycling company that he sells his plastic to.

>> This is his factory.

>> SULLIVAN: This is your factory.

>> Yeah.

>> SULLIVAN: Bagaria had come to make sure his plastic was actually being recycled and turned into tiny pellets that are used to make new plastic products.

>> This is your pellets.

>> SULLIVAN: Ah, there they are.

>> This is the holding tank.

>> SULLIVAN: Hot pellets.

How much responsibility do you feel like you have over what's happening here?

>> Oh, we, we are the shipper of the scrap.

It all originates with us.

We could ship scrap and hope that it is being recycled in the way it should be.

Or the other way is, come here, see how serious he is about doing it the right way.

♪ ♪ >> SULLIVAN: But there are growing concerns here that a lot of plastic waste is not being handled the right way, and Indonesian officials are trying to prevent what happened in China from happening here.

Is this one of the big priorities here?

>> Yeah.

(speaking local language) >> SULLIVAN: So, contaminated plastic trash is as big a problem for you guys as narcotics and drugs coming into the country?

>> Yeah, yeah, yeah.

>> SULLIVAN: Wow.

Last year, customs found that half the containers of plastic waste they inspected... >> Sir, sir, can you explain little bit?

>> SULLIVAN: ...were contaminated with trash and plastic that can't be recycled.

♪ ♪ We wanted to see for ourselves what was happening to the plastic coming here.

Oh, it's here, right there?

>> Yeah.

>> SULLIVAN: That opening?

One recycling company here caught our attention... Yeah, PT New Harvestindo.

(voiceover): Based on Indonesian customs documents we'd obtained.

191 containers being held right now.

Let's just go knock and see if maybe someone will talk to us.

(voiceover): With the help of an Indonesian journalist, we tried to speak to someone at New Harvestindo.

But we were told there was no one available.

>> We need to confirm... (speaking local language) Is the data that we have is correct or not?

>> SULLIVAN: Can we come in and look?

(journalist speaking local language) (guard responds) >> SULLIVAN: Looks like a lot of shipping containers.

>> Yeah.

>> SULLIVAN: I think we're in the right place.

>> Yeah.

>> SULLIVAN: The customs document we had said the company was getting plastic from the U.S. With no one from New Harvestindo willing to speak to us, we still wanted to know what they were doing with all those bales of plastic waste and whether it was all being recycled.

We'd heard about an environmental activist who's been tracking what happens to the plastic coming into Indonesia.

Hi.

I met up with Yuyun Ismawati in a small rural community nearby.

This place, it's huge.

>> Yeah.

It's huge and very wide.

You can see from that corner to the end of that valley over there.

>> SULLIVAN: What's it like to look at a field this size and see it covered in plastic trash?

>> I can show you the pictures.

>> SULLIVAN: Oh, really, you took pictures?

>> Yes.

>> SULLIVAN: Yeah, I'd love to see that, yeah.

We took a seat by the side of the road, and she showed me pictures she'd collected of plastic that locals said had been dumped here.

>> The sacks are from a plastic company.

When I came here in June, I asked them, where did they get this from?

And then they said it's from Harvest, they call it.

>> SULLIVAN: Harvest.

(voiceover): Waste pickers would look for plastics of value, and the rest would be burned.

>> So, this is how it looked like when they burn it.

>> SULLIVAN: So it's like a big, sort of a big fire on this pit.

>> Yeah, yeah.

People with respiratory problem, they really get affected.

And some children got hospitalized.

(horn honks) >> SULLIVAN: After the community complained to the government about the burning, the dumping stopped here.

I mean, how, how big a problem do you think these kinds of dumping grounds are in Indonesia?

>> Big.

They are everywhere around this area.

Here, the recycling system that we have at the moment is not really recycling, because some part of it exported, being exported all over the world, to be "recycled."

>> SULLIVAN: Yeah.

>> But you never know whether it's really recycled, being recycled overseas or not.

There is no proof.

>> SULLIVAN: We reached out to the two recycling companies known locally as Harvest.

New Harvestindo still wouldn't respond to us, and the other company denied it was behind the dumping.

But later that night, on a back street, I met up with a New Harvestindo worker who agreed to talk to me about what the company does with its plastic waste.

Hi.

>> Hi... >> SULLIVAN: Thank you so much for coming to meet me.

(voiceover): As long as we didn't disclose his identity.

When you get a bale of plastic, how much of that bale is plastic that the company wants, and how much of it is stuff that is just plastic that you're not going to do anything with?

>> (speaking local language): >> SULLIVAN: What do you do with the rest of it?

>> SULLIVAN: How long has that been going on for?

♪ ♪ >> SULLIVAN: He told me he could take me to a place where the company had recently been dumping plastic.

After a 30-minute drive, we reached a quiet neighborhood with an area hidden from the road.

The smell of burnt plastic was in the air.

And all around, there were sacks of plastic and big piles, too.

This is from Purchase, New York.

This is totally American.

This is from California.

This is a pile of U.S. recycling.

(voiceover): New Harvestindo eventually got back to us and denied it was responsible for doing anything that damaged the environment.

It said in an email that it had a comprehensive system to handle plastic waste, and it follows all Indonesian laws and regulations.

The company has not been charged with any wrongdoing related to dumping.

>> In last 20 years, we've seen more environmental degradations and environmental problems in Indonesia because we are struggling to, to clean up the modern debris and modern litter in Indonesia.

The additional burden of waste from overseas, I don't know how we are going to handle it.

>> SULLIVAN: You're saying you've got plenty as it is.

>> Yes, because we, we are struggling to handle our own waste.

>> SULLIVAN: A lot of that waste is ending up in the ocean.

One study estimates that 60% of ocean plastic comes from Asia.

What do you think Americans need to know?

>> Americans need to know that your waste ended up here.

And the consumption and lifestyle that you have, I think it's, you have to rethink, because we have to reduce the amount of plastics that we, that we produce at the moment.

>> Save our Earth before it's too late!

>> SULLIVAN: That message is reinvigorating a backlash against plastic, the likes of which the industry hasn't seen for decades.

>> I can talk loud.

>> SULLIVAN: It's facing opposition to the construction of new plants.

>> Everybody up here said they don't want the plant.

There shouldn't be any more talk about it.

>> As of today, plastic bags are banned in Jersey City.

>> SULLIVAN: And plastic bans are spreading across the country.

>> This is our moment, California.

Let's get these bills passed.

Let's do right by our future.

>> SULLIVAN: A major showdown is shaping up in California.

The legislature wants to impose new fees on plastic makers and restrict single-use plastics.

>> This is a big moment.

>> SULLIVAN: This is big moment.

>> Yeah, so, if the California market changes, we know it's going to put pressure on kind of, the kind of products that are out there.

♪ ♪ >> SULLIVAN: Amid the backlash, I headed to the Texas Gulf Coast, where oil and gas companies are under pressure from climate change and increasingly turning to plastics, now their biggest growth market.

We reached out to more than a dozen major plastic makers.

The only one that would sit down with us was Chevron Phillips.

Jim Becker is the vice president of sustainability.

You've seen California, the legislation... >> Yeah, yeah.

>> SULLIVAN: Some bans across the country, and a lot of targets on single-use plastic.

>> Uh-huh, yeah, our view is, you have to be very careful with that, 'cause sometimes the substitute products can have a bigger environmental impact than the thing you are banning.

>> SULLIVAN: Right.

>> So, we don't think banning these products is necessarily the, the right way to go.

>> SULLIVAN: What does Chevron Phillips want to see happen?

>> We support, actually, the A.C.C.

goals-- American Chemistry Council.

>> SULLIVAN: Yeah.

>> Goals of getting plastic waste out of landfills by, I think, the date is 2040.

>> SULLIVAN: Chevron Phillips would like to see all of that plastic recycled back to make new plastic things?

>> Yeah.

>> SULLIVAN: How, how do you get it to a place where 100% of this plastic getting recycled?

How do you get there?

>> Much more education needs to happen... >> SULLIVAN: Yeah.

>> ...on how to recycle.

You also have to really build up the infrastructure for collection.

We're going to have to invest in innovation, because some of these technologies still need to be further developed.

>> SULLIVAN: If the oil industry is able to get 100% of, of the material recycled... >> Yeah.

>> SULLIVAN: Doesn't that affect the bottom line?

>> Yes, it would, it would, but the alternative is, having plastic waste in the environment.

We don't want that.

>> SULLIVAN: You think that the company feels so strongly that it is willing to make less money?

>> I think that's true.

>> SULLIVAN: Wow.

>> I guess I think of it more as an investment in managing plastic waste.

♪ ♪ >> SULLIVAN: Once again, the industry is pushing recycling.

Today, its main lobbying group is the American Chemistry Council, and until recently, its vice president of plastics was Steve Russell.

You fundamentally think that in the United States, recycling could ramp up to a capacity to handle the vast majority of plastic that's being produced?

>> So, I understand that there's a lot of skepticism around that, because the systems today have not kept pace.

Our system is woefully inadequate, and it needs dramatic investment.

It needs improvement.

But the proof here is the dramatic amount of investment that's happening right now.

Our member companies, SABIC and Shell and LyondellBasell, all of whom have made major announcements in traditional and advanced recycling to begin to intervene in that space in order to bring their scale, their technical know-how, and their capacity to start providing products that are based on waste... >> SULLIVAN: But you're talking about a couple of companies.

There's also an entire industry that's going to triple production by 2050.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> SULLIVAN: How are those two things going to meet anywhere in the middle?

>> It's not going to happen this month or by the end of the year, but we're moving now.

Old types of recycling need to be modernized, and new types of recycling need to be brought on board.

The good news is they're coming.

♪ ♪ >> SULLIVAN: Back in Oregon, I found one of these new technologies.

In South Portland, the plastic industry was showcasing a demonstration project.

>> Has everybody got their gear?

>> SULLIVAN: And on the day I stopped by, local lawmakers had been invited in to hear about the benefits of a new sorting machine that industry says will make recycling plastic more economical.

>> If you want to step up, up above, you can see the machine in action.

>> SULLIVAN: One of the sponsors was the American Chemistry Council.

>> The idea behind that particular facility is if, if we improve the way that, that recyclables move down the conveyor belt, right, so they get separated, we're going to create better, cleaner streams of like materials.

When we do that, we end up with bales that are more easy to sell and that are more easy for consumer-goods companies to incorporate into their packaging.

>> SULLIVAN: But as we continued our reporting in Oregon, we heard about a surprisingly similar effort that took place more than 25 years ago, at a recycling company 50 miles away called Garten Services.

>> We're going into the office.

I've got a couple of newspaper articles I want to show you from the past.

>> SULLIVAN: The plastic industry had brought a demonstration project here in 1994.

>> The Garten Foundation of Salem unveiled a new sorting machine that may change the way we recycle forever.

>> This million-dollar plastic sorting system in Salem is the first of its kind in the world.

>> So here, we've collected some old newspaper articles from 1994.

>> SULLIVAN: Will Posegate is the chief operating officer of Garten.

>> I mean, it says, "Sorts out the problem."

>> SULLIVAN: A sorting... >> A sorting machine, that's right.

>> SULLIVAN: You got this from... >> From the Plastics Council.

>> SULLIVAN: The Plastics... >> They wanted us to sort plastics, when people thought plastics might be starting to be a problem.

>> Today, the American Plastics Council unveiled the machine.

>> They say residents will put all their plastic containers in one bag.

>> It just keeps getting better, doesn't it?

>> SULLIVAN: What, what happened to it?

>> Years later, we, it, we shut it down, because there was no way to make money at it.

And we sold that $1.5 million machine for scrap.

>> SULLIVAN: You sold the machine for scrap.

>> For scrap, that's right.

It didn't make any sense.

And I'm afraid that that same thing is happening right now.

This is the plastic that nobody wants.

The whole idea about, "Oh, just sort better, it'll be great.

Let's make more single-use plastics"-- don't buy into that.

Not a good idea for the environment, not a good idea for the Earth, not a good idea for your wallet.

>> SULLIVAN: You can't sort your way out of this.

>> No, no, period.

>> SULLIVAN: It all made me wonder whether the plastic industry is just recycling old ideas.

>> They said I couldn't dream.

Called me a piece of trash and swore that's all I'd ever be.

>> SULLIVAN: Like in the '90s, the industry has been spending money on ads... >> And now I'm what I've always wanted to be.

>> SULLIVAN: ...encouraging consumers to recycle.

>> Remember, a lot of the plastic packaging that you have in your kitchen is recyclable.

>> Smoke jumping is the pinnacle of wildland firefighting.

>> SULLIVAN: And touting the virtues of plastic.

>> We're covered in plastic-based gear from head to toe.

(commercial music playing) (commercial music playing) >> This is the world we see.

>> Let's be the ones... >> That came together to change the world.

>> SULLIVAN: What do you think?

>> Déjà vu all over again.

>> SULLIVAN: Why do you say that?

Tell me about that.

>> This is the same kind of thinking that ran in the, in the '90s.

>> SULLIVAN: What do you think the messaging is here?

>> It's showing the people picking up the litter.

That kind of implies that that's where the responsibility lay.

I think the chemical industry, and the plastics industry specifically, need to take very seriously this reaction that's going on.

I don't think this kind of advertising is, is helpful to them at all.

>> Lately, there's been a lot of talk about how plastics impact our lives, for better or worse.

>> SULLIVAN: The reality is, for all the ads and promises over the years, it's estimated that no more than ten percent of plastic has ever been recycled.

And the guy industry tapped decades ago to get recycling going isn't surprised.

I showed Ron Liesemer industry reports we found dating as far back as the 1970s.

And this one talks about the cost of separating plastics from other trash, there're various types of plastics, and that the cost of new plastic is so low that sorting and reprocessing used plastic can't be justified economically.

And this was in 1973.

Have we made any progress?

>> I would say that their conclusions-- in 1973, you said-- are still true.

The economics that are described there still prevail today and likely will prevail tomorrow.

>> SULLIVAN: It's hard to have faith in the plastics industry, when it got out of its crisis in the '90s by telling Americans to recycle, even though they knew it was not economically viable.

The crisis passed.

Now here we are again in a crisis.

Plastics are once again on the, the low end of the public's opinion, and now the industry is telling the public again to recycle.

>> The industry is not telling the public just to recycle.

We've got to fix the recycling system, clearly, that's, that's job one.

But more importantly, we have to look at reuse models, using less where we can, developing new materials-- which is the plastic makers' responsibility-- that can be better recycled, and also really important that we deploy the technologies that are now available to us at scale.

>> SULLIVAN: So you don't think this is just an industry coming up with a way to get out of a crisis?

>> No, no, this is about all of us understanding that we each have a role to play in, in making the system that we have better and achieving the goals that I think everybody would have to say, "We cannot continue with business as usual.

It's time for change, and this is that time."

>> SULLIVAN: Hmm.

>> Let's put these away.

And let me show you another recycling label.

>> SULLIVAN: Back in Oregon, I put the question to David Allaway.

The question that people are going to have is what are they supposed to do to make this better?

>> The common refrain in this whole field is that it's all up to consumers.

And that's the way recycling has been sold, as well, okay?

And, "You just need to sort out your recyclables and do your part.

Do your part, save the Earth, recycle."

And when it comes to understanding and reducing the environmental impacts of materials, including packaging, consumers have the lowest amount of leverage.

The big leverage is with the producers.

Producers should disclose the environmental impacts of their materials publicly.

And by impacts, I don't mean whether or not it can be recycled.

I mean, what is the carbon footprint?

What are the toxics emissions?

How much water was withdrawn to produce this product?

>> SULLIVAN: The effect on the planet.

>> The effect on the planet... >> SULLIVAN: That this product has.

>> That's right.

Here's this flexible bag, and it's a, it's a plastic-metal laminate... >> SULLIVAN: Allaway is a leading authority on the environmental impacts of materials like plastic.

So you're saying consumers stand here and think, "What can I recycle?"

But the question really is, "How do I reduce?"

>> Reduce the impact.

The producers know what the environmental impacts of these different formats are, but they don't disclose it.

Instead, what they disclose is the recycling logo.

Because what it allows industry to do is, it allows industry to keep the conversation focused on recycling, and never move the conversation on to the bigger issues, which are the full environmental impacts of all this stuff.

>> SULLIVAN: But it isn't just industry that's kept consumers focused on recycling for so long.

Environmentalists have, too.

Looking back, do you think putting the banner on the Mobro was a mistake?

>> You know, I have looked at that picture and pondered that for decades.

I think we were naive.

I think we were overly optimistic about the potential of recycling.

And perpetuating that narrative led us astray.

I mean, absolutely, society-wide, we bought this myth that recycling will solve the problem and we don't need to worry about the amount of plastic being produced.

>> SULLIVAN: In Washington last November, during America Recycles Week... >> Welcome to E.P.A.

's 2019 America Recycles Innovation Fair.

>> SULLIVAN: E.P.A.

administrator Andrew Wheeler was talking up the future of recycling.

>> In many ways, we're just getting started.

We need to increase the interest in and demand for recycled materials and more products made from recycled materials.

>> SULLIVAN: Companies came with their latest ideas.

>> It's 100% recycled content.

>> SULLIVAN: Some, like Keurig, saw a need for better technology.

Hi, I'm Laura Sullivan, NPR and PBS "Frontline."

What's happening with K-Cups?

>> K-Cups are going recyclable.

>> SULLIVAN: I mean, you got a, a couple of hurdles, in the sense that you're going to have to have people sorting out tiny cups, right?

>> Ideally, mechanical sorting.

>> SULLIVAN: How many K-Cups do you sell?

>> About 11 billion.

>> SULLIVAN: 11 billion, a year?

>> A year.

>> SULLIVAN: So, the idea would be mechanical sorters pick out 11 billion K-Cups, right?

>> Ideally, we want all of them back.

>> SULLIVAN: Others, like Colgate-Palmolive, saw a need for better education.

>> So, we're here today to showcase our first-of-its-kind recyclable tube.

>> SULLIVAN: So, if, if you put this in your curbside tonight, do you think that this tube would be recycled?

>> We need more work.

We're working with other organizations to get the word out.

>> SULLIVAN: So, not yet?

>> Not yet, not yet.

>> SULLIVAN: I notice that you guys put the big chasing arrows.

>> Correct.

>> SULLIVAN: Do you think that because it's not quite recyclable yet, that that might be a little misleading?

>> We don't think that we're being misleading because technically it is recyclable.

>> SULLIVAN: As I made my way through the innovation fair... >> We are Keep America Beautiful, we're a non-for-profit.

>> SULLIVAN: You guys have been around for a long time.

>> We've been around for over 65 years.

>> SULLIVAN: The mood was optimistic.

Less than ten percent of plastic has actually ever been recycled.

What do you think?

>> Well, that is a, it's a challenge, and I think what's good is that we're all working together to help improve some of those recycling habits and understanding behavior.

>> SULLIVAN: Do you think that America can recycle its way out of this plastic crisis?

>> I believe with the proper infrastructure and the proper education, and we all work together, as a collective, we can.

>> The world is flooded with plastic garbage.

>> 18 billion pounds of plastic waste end up in the ocean every year.

>> The equivalent of a garbage truck dumped every minute.

>> SULLIVAN: How does this conflict compare to what you saw happen in the '80s and '90s, when this sort of last came up with this kind of fervor?

>> Well, one thing that's different is, the, the actual ecological context is different, that we're really bumping up against ecological limits.

Like, we can't delay this for another ten, 20, 30 years, or we're going to... >> SULLIVAN: So, this is it.

>> This, this is it.

For the oil and gas industry, the stakes are higher, too, because single-use plastic is their plan B.

They're not going to be able to continue drill that oil and gas and burn it for energy anymore, because the climate can't sustain it.

So this is their lifeline.

They are going to double down on single-use plastic like we have never seen.

So we're heading towards a real battle.

This is it.

This is, this is the big war.

>> The U.N. estimates, by 2050, there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish.

>> Plastic in your food.

>> Microplastics are invading our water supply.

>> SULLIVAN: How big a moment is this?

>> I think it's a transitional moment.

I think it is a big moment.

>> SULLIVAN: Biggest you've seen, in your career?

>> It's the biggest I've seen.

This is the first time you've ever seen companies from across the whole supply chain all coming together to, to say, "We need to fix this."

So you can talk about this stuff a lot.

We have to show hard results.

We have to start showing success.

And we know that.

♪ ♪ >> SULLIVAN: 40 years on, despite a plastic crisis that's been getting worse, the industry's future seems bright.

Demand for low-cost plastic continues to grow.

And the production of new plastic is rapidly expanding.

♪ ♪ >> Science tells us that we need to significantly reduce our use of materials overall, and yet for the most part, the policymakers are still focused with laser-like intensity on recycling.

There's nothing wrong with promoting recycling, except when recycling sucks all the oxygen out of the room, and we never do anything else.

For the last 40 years, the conversation in this country has been about the recycle part of "Reduce, reuse, recycle."

>> SULLIVAN: That wasn't an accident.

>> No, it was not an accident.

It was created.

It was manufactured.

♪ ♪ >> Go to pbs.org/frontline for more on what consumers need to know about recycling.

>> The little recycling symbol with a number.

>> And follow our latest reporting on the coronavirus, including a new series of our podcast, "The Frontline Dispatch."

>> ...if you could look at Italy.

What is the advice you're hearing from the doctors to those of us living in America?

>> They're saying get ready because this is very, very real.

>> Connect with the "Frontline" community on Facebook and Twitter, and watch anytime on the PBS Video App, or pbs.org/frontline.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> For more on this and other "Frontline" programs, visit our website at pbs.org/frontline.

♪ ♪ "Frontline's" "Plastic Wars" is available on Amazon Prime Video.

♪ ♪

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
FRONTLINE | Plastic Wars | Season 2020 | Episode 8 | PBS

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
FRONTLINE and NPR investigate the fight over the future of plastics.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
TIME for Kids nurtures today’s learners and tomorrow’s leaders with authentic news and the critical-thinking skills that shape active global citizens.

# data[].attributes.body
You will need to log into our district's Clever page to access this, so it may not work for LM 5050.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Enter the Access ID and Passcode provided by your school to access Britannica School.

# data[].attributes.body
You will need to log into Maine's Digital Library Collection to access this, so it may not work for LM 5050.