Stephanie Carrow: In the waters of Trash Creek

Published in CT Post, Friday, July 19, 2013 by Stephanie Carrow

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Summer is a time of abundance, and most of it -- the blossoms, sunshine and songbirds -- we welcome appreciatively. But it's also the time for a proliferation of another sort -- that of plastic garbage in our waters. This plastic endangers marine wildlife and human health, both locally and as it makes its way out to sea. 

 

I've been paddling the lower Connecticut coastline for 16 years, and every day in the season that I go out on my kayak, I come back in a mini garbage scow.

After every trip, the back well of my sit-on-top holds a variety of balloons (latex and Mylar), shopping bags, food wrappers, Styrofoam cups, plastic bottles, bottle caps, lighters, beer cans, yards of monofilament line with floaters and hooks, and empty No. 2 bottles for cleansers, motor oil and other toxic fluids. I've also picked up basketballs, soccer balls, beach balls, a good pair of men's sneakers, two-gallon buckets, a bright pink Croc shoe, and countless neon green tennis balls, apparently used in forfeited games of fetch with dogs. And I'm retrieving only a small part of what's out there.

While I've observed -- and picked up -- plastic refuse throughout my kayaking excursions, I'm sad to note that Ash Creek, between Fairfield and Bridgeport, has by far the highest concentration of garbage I've seen in waters along the coast -- so much so, that on my first or second paddling trip there, I dubbed it "Trash Creek."

It's a shame, too, because Ash Creek is also a place of sublime summer beauty: I don't think I've seen more of a range of shorebird species in one discrete patch of this coastline as I've seen while paddling Ash Creek. But the herons, egrets, osprey, cormorants, belted kingfishers and others there must wade and fish amidst garbage.

Knowing the damage that plastic refuse can do to marine life, I can't in good conscience pass it by -- I feel compelled to pick it up. I think of sea turtles choking on plastic bags and balloons they mistake for jellyfish, and of albatross chicks dying with bellies full of bottle caps and other plastic debris mistaken by their parents for lookalike zooplankton. I imagine all this local refuse drifting seaward and choking marine animals; or adding to the toxic Atlantic Garbage Patch, cousin to the now infamous Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

But this plastic does its damage even here in local waters. I myself came upon a lifeless cormorant who, tangled in snagged plastic fishing line, had drowned just inches below the water's surface. I met a man who'd saved an osprey from a similar fate -- both birds dive for their fish. And I met a couple who similarly saved a horseshoe crab -- not a cuddly animal, but vital to the ecosystem and even to human health (its blood is used in pharmaceuticals).

A reading of the book Plastic Ocean, by Capt. Charles Moore (with Cassandra Phillips), provides an even more vivid picture of the magnitude of the problem, some of which begins in coastal waters. Capt. Moore is credited with having discovered the Great Pacific Garbage Patch -- which he describes as actually a soup of microplastic fragments and whole objects that swirl in two vast gyres in the remote North Pacific Ocean.

The fragments occur when plastics, which never biodegrade, become brittle and break into pieces that mix with and mimic plankton, the oceans' food base. These fragments are accumulating in the oceans in such tonnage that they have been found to outweigh plankton by a ratio of six to one -- or greater in some places.

Since his discovery in 1997, Moore and others have engaged in rigorous scientific samplings of the plastic soup and its multiple consequences, among them: well over 140,000 marine animals -- birds, sea turtles, whales, dolphins, otters and seals -- die each year from plastics ingestion, entanglement or strangulation. Much of the plastics involved are bottle caps, shopping bags, balloons and fishing lines -- among the very items we can find in abundance along our shoreline and floating in our local waters.

The largest animal ever to roam the earth, the blue whale, lives solely on tiny plankton -- meaning that it is now ingesting large quantities of plastic with every giant gulp.

Another consequence is to our own health, since the toxic microplastics are also eaten by the fish that we consume. Plastics leech toxins into our waters, and they also attract other pollutants such as PCBs and pesticides -- which means that anything consuming plastics becomes contaminated. It's been determined that our favorite food fish -- including tuna and salmon -- consume plastic, or eat the fish that eat the plastic.

It doesn't require a kayak trip to see our contribution to the problem. On any given day in this season, many of our beaches are strewn with plastic, ready to be washed out into the Sound and the sea beyond in the next high tide.

A stroll by the shoreline could fill multiple garbage bags with plastic bottles, bags, cups and utensils, food wrappers, straws, cigarette butts (also plastic), lighters, a plethora of bottle caps, and the occasional tampon applicator or condom. There are also perfectly usable plastic beach toys -- pails, shovels, sand molds -- and shoes left for the tide to take them.

It's as though they were easily disposable, and they are: the cheapness of plastic has made them so. We live in a throwaway culture; but in the process, we might be throwing away the very health of our waters that makes coastline living so appealing.

The solutions to the problem are multilateral -- and a few beach cleanups per season aren't enough to tackle this scourge. Along with Moore's book (a lively, compelling and absorbing summer read), the website 5gyres.org provides clear steps we all can take to stem the plastic tide. Moore's website, algalita.org, also provides further information on the problem and solutions. We can begin by steering clear of single-use, disposable plastics; and by recognizing that everything we leave behind has a consequence.

It's a conundrum that our most disposable products are made from the least destructible, longest-lasting material.

For my part, I will continue to pick up garbage as I walk the shoreline or paddle the waters, with this vision in mind: My most astonishing sighting in Ash Creek was of an American white pelican, on the day after Hurricane Irene.

 Unheard of in this part of the world, it had been blown perhaps a thousand miles north of its home, as had dozens of other non-indigenous species, according to local birding groups. That dazzling survivor embodied for me the essence of Ash Creek, and our Sound beyond, as a haven of beauty and wonder -- not a careless dumping ground. Our efforts together as a coastal community can, for all our sakes, set things right again.

Stephanie Carrow, of Fairfield, is a writer, psychotherapist and avid kayaker, and has been published in Fairfield Magazine and other local publications.

California coastline hosts ‘Great Pacific Garbage Patch’

Please watch this video that accompanies the story:
http://rt.com/usa/great-pacific-garbage-patch-494/

Published on July 23, 2013 in RT.com by Ramon Galindo

Millions of pieces of trash are floating in the world’s oceans and fundamentally changing the makeup of Earth’s food chain.

Tons of plastic have accumulated in an area between Hawaii and California, and the convergence of currents swirls the trash into what is now known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Bottle caps, trash bags and broken plastic are now part of the diet of many birds and sea creatures around the world.

“It’s very depressing, initially, to realize the extent of the problem,” said Captain Charles Moore, founder of Alagalita Marine Research Institute.

One of the largest concentrations of marine debris is in the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Hawaii and California. It’s called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Moore accidentally found the garbage patch in 1997 while sailing through a gyre, where ocean currents circulate and accumulate trash.

“It’s a piece here, a piece there. It’s not a solid island. In general what we see is a soup of plastic. Not really an island of plastic,” said Moore.

Next year, Captain Moore is planning to spend a month at the Garbage Patch to research its effects on the food chain.

It is difficult to see the collection of trash from above because it’s made up of pieces of plastic the size of a finger nail. Researchers believe that there could be 2 million of these little pieces of plastic per square mile.

“Millions of creatures are dying every year, tangled in plastic,” said Moore.

“It’s not just the wildlife that is being fooled into eating this stuff and getting tangled in it, it’s we ourselves that are changing our biological being with these chemicals in this hyper-consumptive world that we live in,” Moore added.

Scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego have also been trying to figure out how the marine debris is changing the world. A Scripps study estimated that fish in the intermediate ocean depths of the North Pacific Ocean ingest plastic at a rate of roughly 12,000 to 24,000 tons per year.

Cleaning up the mess that’s already been made is likely impossible, but experts believe the problem could potentially be saved with a radical change in economic and social culture.

“When you hear politicians talk about growth, you would think it’s one of the 10 Commandments,” said Moore.

“Our very being is consumers of products. This defines us these days. The type of car we have, the type of shoes we wear. The type of hair gel we do. The band of clothing we have. This is how we get our identity,” Moore added.

Moore argues that consumption habits and our creature comforts have led to an earth shattering problem: where to put all of the trash we generate.

“We have to really redefine ourselves as human beings, as something other than a consumer in order to beat this problem,” said Moore.

New shorelines created of trash are appearing in all oceans, and even in America’s Great Lakes.
As world economies continue to thrive on mass consumption, Captain Moore will continue to sail and study the plastic oceans.

Plastic for dinner? Big fish eat more than you expect

Published in Phys.org on Jul 24, 2013

Examples of marine debris found in fish stomachs

Large, predatory fishes from the offshore waters around Hawai'i have been ingesting a surprisingly large amount of plastic and other marine debris, according to new research by scientists at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa. These observations are the first of their kind in scope and in number, and they suggest that more attention should be given to marine debris in subsurface waters, as well as to the potential food web implications for human consumption.

Over a six-year period, researchers investigated the stomach contents of 595 fish representing 10 predatory open-ocean species, including commercially valuable tunas and billfishes. Seven of the 10 species were found have ingested some form of debris, with varying degrees of frequency.

"One of the species we looked at is opah, or the moonfish (Lampris guttatus), a delectable and popular fish consumed in Hawai'i and around the world," said Anela Choy, a UH Manoa graduate student and lead author of the study, which was recently published in the scientific journal Marine Ecology Progress Series. "In the two species found in Hawaiian waters, 58 percent of the small-eye opah and 43 percent of the big-eye opah had ingested some kind of debris. This was based on looking into the stomachs of almost 140 opah.

"Another large fish species, the longnosed lancetfish (Alepisaurus ferox), had a 30 percent debris ingestion incidence," continued Choy. "Although this is not a species consumed by humans, it is a very common fish in open ocean waters globally and is very frequently caught by fisherman around Hawai'i."

The study was based on observations collected during multiyear diet studies, the primary objective of which was to describe food habits and trophic ecology of large fish species in the region, according to Choy and her co-author Jeff Drazen, an associate professor in the Oceanography Department of UH M?noa's School of Ocean and Earth Sciences and Technology (SOEST).

From sea birds to turtles to small fish, and even to bottom-dwelling echinoderms like sea cucumbers, many types of marine animals are known to ingest marine debris. Still, despite the prevalence of studies documenting the environmental implications of plastic debris in the world's oceans, there have been few reports of plastic ingestion by large marine fishes.

"What was most surprising was that the fish that most frequently ingested debris are all thought to be deeper water species, generally those that live beneath the sunlit upper 500 to 600 feet of the water column," Choy said. "Deeper water fishes may have been coming up close to the surface to ingest debris, which is an unusual and unexpected behavior."

Or the debris could be coming to them. Buoyant plastics are known to sink into the deep ocean when waterlogged or perhaps weighted down by algae or encrusted by small sea animals. Wind-driven ocean mixing or water currents could also possibly transport debris to deeper waters.

The effects of plastic ingestion on the health of these predatory fishes remain uncertain. Researchers don't know how long debris stays in the stomachs of large fishes, or whether they are able to pass such debris. Many plastics are known to absorb or take up PCBs, organochlorine pesticides, metals, and petroleum hydrocarbons from sea water. However, it is not known whether the toxins are transmitted to the fish that consumes the plastic, or ultimately to humans who consume the fish.

Explore further: Discovery of the 'Plastisphere': A new marine ecological community

Journal reference: Marine Ecology Progress Series
Provided by University of Hawaii at Manoa

Getting Trashed

Battling the plastic pollution problem with Team Out of Sight Out of Mind

Published By: CanoeKayak.com / Posted on June 19, 2013

By Conor Mihell

 

As professional sea kayakers and whitewater paddlers, Jason Self, Shay Bickley and Chris Bensch have seen more than their fair share of trash on the shores of rivers, lakes and oceans. Initially, Self says the collective reaction of the Portland, Ore.-based friends was to “get angry and say things like ‘What kind of asshole would do this?’ as we paddled past it, not actually picking it up.” But Self says that attitude quickly got tiring. A pledge to pick up “at least one piece of litter every time we paddled” quickly evolved into “removing everything we could find every time we paddled,” says Self.

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was another impetus for change. “We felt an obligation as paddlers to do more,” says Self, “but with so many challenges facing oceans and rivers around the world, we had to be realistic about what we could actually do to change things.” And so they became Team Out of Sight Out of Mind and committed to document the plastic pollution and to battle the root of the problem—the ambivalence most people have for the environment—by promoting outdoor recreation. OSOM’s goal became, in Self’s words, “to give people a reason to care about the problem, and also to inspire them to get outside and take action to make things better.”
We contacted Self to learn more.

CanoeKayak.com: What inspired you to launch the Trashpedition last spring?
Jason Self: We discussed several ideas and exotic locations before we realized we have one of the largest watersheds in North America right in our backyards with plenty of problems. The Columbia River system drains an area of over 500,000 square miles and was the perfect waterway to tackle given our familiarity with it and budget constraints.

We decided we would do something idiotic like tow a canoe behind our sea kayaks for 100 miles from Portland, Ore., to the Pacific Ocean to collect all the trash we could find along the way and film it. We figured, if we could do something as ridiculous as that, then maybe someone would be inspired to pick up one or two pieces of litter they see while going about there daily lives. The Trashpedition footage is included in our current project, a film series titled The Search for the Perfect Day, set for completion in August 2013 (see the trailer above).

How much garbage did you pull from the shores of the Columbia?
We collected enough to fill the canoe four times. I’d guess in total we collected somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000 pounds—mostly single-use plastic water bottles.

What was the weirdest piece of trash you found?
There were hundreds of interesting finds. The ones that stick out the most to me are a USA Aid grain bag with Arabic writing on it, a Rocky DVD in the case and a plastic skull decorated with rhinestones.

Don’t you feel somewhat hopeless in the sheer scope of the ocean/waterway litter epidemic?
I don’t feel hopeless about it at all. There are literally thousands of people around the world working hard to educate the masses about the problem of plastic pollution and marine debris. The tide is turning and knowledge of the problems of single-use plastics is becoming commonplace. People are beginning to realize that using a material that’s designed to last forever in a product that’s made to be used for five minutes is incredibly stupid. It’s a slow ship but it’s turning around. When the market (consumers) demands alternatives to single-use plastic, industry will follow.

What makes you hopeful you can make a dent in the problem?
We are no different than most. We don’t want to see trash all over the place when we’re paddling pristine water or walking the sidewalk of a major city. Litter is not the issue, but consumerism is. The problem of plastic pollution in the world’s waterways is caused by people like us—people who care and try and do the right thing. We put our recycling on the curb just like everyone else but until a few years ago, we really had no idea what happened to it after that. It was out of sight, out of mind. Since then we’ve followed garbage trucks, visited transfer stations, dumps and recycling centers. What we’ve realized is that the process is imperfect. Much of our recycling is shipped to Asia. Less than a third of plastics in the U.S. actually gets recycled. In America we purchase 1,500 single-use plastic water bottles every second, and 80 percent are not recycled. If it floats or blows, it makes its way out of the dumpster, truck, or landfill and into a river, and out into the ocean, where it collects in ocean gyres. Plastics in the ocean breaks down into small particles and act like chemical sponges. These tiny toxic particles are ingested by filter feeders at the bottom of the food chain and eventually make their way to the top and onto your dinner table. We believe that the majority of people, if made aware of these issues, will likely make changes to lessen their impact. When it becomes the norm to have a Klean Kanteen and reusable grocery bags at the ready, we might actually gain the upper hand on plastic pollution.

Tell us about the Never-Ending Clean Up Contest.
We decided to take our message to Facebook in an effort to rally the paddling community to take an active role in the stewardship of the places we play, so we started a virtual cleanup contest online. People could take a photo of the litter they picked up while paddling and post it to our wall. At the end of each month we’d pick a winner at random from all entries to win a prize from one of our sponsors. We’ve been running the Never Ending Cleanup Contest for about three years now and have had thousands of entries and have seen spin-off contests popping up in paddling and other communities around the world.

How does this all dovetail with your current Perfect Day project?
After Trashpedition we realized we weren’t dealing with litter but rather consumerism. We realized that a large percentage of the population never engages in outdoor activity of any kind. It’s hard to care about something you’re not involved in. We wanted to show some of America’s most beautiful natural areas and the people there who are living the dream and making a difference in their own unique way. The Search for the Perfect Day is about other inspiring people, from paddlesports icons to everyday people off the street. Our goal is to motivate people to get off the couch and into nature by showing its beauty, adventure and fun.

Follow Team Out of Sight Out of Mind on Facebook and Twitter and take part in their Never-Ending Clean up Project.

Plastic pollution a problem in the Great Lakes

Posted July 2, 2013 by Sharon Hill in WindsorStar.com

 
Microbeads from samples in the eastern half of Lake Erie. (Courtesy of Marcus Eriksen)

Tiny bits of plastic found in cosmetic products from toothpaste to body washes are posing a growing pollution threat to the Great Lakes, according to researchers.

The first survey of plastic pollution in the Great Lakes discovered spots in Lake Erie with more than 450,000 plastic particles per square kilometre, double what similar surveys have found in oceans, the study’s principal investigator Sherri Mason said Tuesday.

“We’re plasticizing our water,” said Mason, an associate chemistry professor at the State University of New York’s College at Fredonia, N.Y.

The research, which was done from the Flagship Niagara, a reconstructed flagship of the 1813 Battle of Lake Erie, found plastic microbeads in surface water samples last year from lakes Superior, Huron and Erie. Mason was on the Detroit River in May conducting more research. The study has been submitted to a marine pollution journal but is not published yet.

Mason said they were collecting bits of plastic less than a millimeter in size in fine netting dragged behind the boat. The majority of the particles appear as spherical balls when seen under a microscope.

Microbeads come from all sorts of personal care products and give a creamy feel to cosmetics and lotions.

Mason did the study with the 5 Gyres Institute which researches plastic pollution in oceans and has a campaign against microbeads.

Marcus Eriksen, the institute’s executive director and the lead author of the study, said microbeads are the same size and color as many kinds of fish eggs and absorb chemicals such as DDT, PCBs and flame retardants in our lakes. This could allow a path for pollutants to enter the food chain, he said.

“There could easily be billions of microplastic particles in the Great Lakes system,” Ericksen said via email Tuesday.

The campaign to get consumers to stop using products with microbeads and to get manufacturers to stop making them has prompted Unilever, Body Shop and Johnson & Johnson to say they will discontinue using them by 2015, Eriksen said. Those companies could be joined by 2017 by Proctor & Gamble.

The amounts found by the researchers ranged from 600 plastic particles per square kilometer to 460,000 per square kilometre. The larger amounts were found in Lake Erie near Erie, Penn., across from Long Point. Near Essex County, researchers found about 6,000 plastic particles per square kilometre.

More research is being done to determine what type of plastic they are finding and if it is being found in fish. More samples will be taken in Lake Ontario in July and Lake Michigan in August.

Mason said product labels may identify microbeads or micro abrasives. Microbeads can also show up as polypropylene or polyethylene on the label, she said.

Some products use natural abrasives such as apricot seeds, almonds or cocoa beans, Mason said.

Plastic microbeads aren’t being directly studied by the International Joint Commission but they are on scientists’ radar, said John Nevin, the public affairs adviser at the IJC Great Lakes Regional Office in Windsor.

The IGC has been collecting research on the impact of personal care products since 2007 and it would be good to have more research on the plastic, he said.

Plastic microbeads are not found in drinking water since they cannot get past the finer filters, Nevin said.

While you may have heard of the great Pacific garbage patch of trash in the ocean, these microbeads are the next big marine debris concern, said Kirk Havens, a researcher at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, the graduate school of marine science for the William and Mary College.

Havens is testing a biodegradable polymer that could be eaten by bacteria as a replacement for the plastic.

He said the non-degradable plastic microbeads which can be ten to a few hundred microns in size, like dust or a miniscule flake of cayenne pepper, are in many cosmetic products. They go on the skin smoothly, feel creamy and are good for filling in wrinkles, Havens said. But they never really go away and we keep adding them to our lakes.

“You don’t really want to know all the things they are in,” he said listing toothpaste, sunscreen, lip gloss, eyeliner, shampoo, deodorant, soaps and exfoliating creams.

Beat The Micro Bead - A "5 Gyres" Campaign

This is from the 5 Gyres website, one of many campaigns to address plastic pollution.

BEAT THE MICRO BEAD

is a Campaign To Stop The Flow of Plastic Micro-beads Used in Personal Care Products From Drain To Ocean

Did you know that in the past decade, more and more personal care products sold in The United States and around the world contain micro-plastic particle abrasives employed as an exfoliant? We think this is one of the most egregious sources of plastic pollution because this plastic is actually designed to be washed down the drain.

WHAT ARE WE ASKING?

Retailers to STOP selling consumer products that contain micro-plastics and micro-beads.

Manufactures to STOP using micro-plastics and micro-beads in consumer products worldwide and switch to organic materials that have the same performance attributes, but do not pollute the environment.

Consumers to check their products for plastic content and REFUSE to purchase them.

Legislators to execute a ban on micro-plastics and micro-beads in consumer products.

Together with our Global Partners, Plastic Free Seas (Hong Kong) (Plasticfreeseas.org) and The Plastic Soup Foundation (Netherlands) (plasticsoupfoundation.org) it’s our goal to eliminate this plastic from all consumer products by demanding that companies cease using them in their products.

Why We Hate Micro-Beads
Analyzing facial cleanser products, 5 Gyres estimates that a single product can contain over 300,000 of these beads! In samples taken from our expedition to The Great Lakes in 2012 we found these beads, in some cases numbering more than 600,000 per square kilometer! This is unacceptable.

The issue is that after use, micro-beads travel through the sewage system. Many municipal waste treatment plants will occasionally divert wastewater directly into local rivers during heavy rain, which puts micro-beads directly into the environment. There also exists scientific evidence that micro-plastics are escaping through sewage treatment as well. 5 Gyres is examining sewage effluent to bolster this evidence. In the case of septic tanks micro-beads will eventually escape and be introduced directly to the environment.

Micro-plastic particles are found in all oceanic gyres, bays, gulfs and seas worldwide. And we know micro-plastics are pervasive in the environment, that they absorb persistent organic pollutants, and are consumed by a variety of marine life, including the fish we harvest for food. We also know that natural alternatives such as apricot shells and cocoa beans can be used as a sustainable alternative to plastic. We are confident that the scientific evidence of micro-plastics and micro-beads in the environment and a targeted, grassroots public awareness campaign will convince industry to end the use of micro-plastics in consumer products worldwide and switch to available alternatives. That, in short is the goal of the campaign.

TALKING POINTS
1. Products like facial scrubs, soaps and toothpaste contain thousands of polyethylene and polypropylene micro-plastic particles, ranging from 50-500 microns, or ½ mm in diameter.
2. Some products can have between 1-5% micro-beads.
3. One product, Neutrogena’s “Deep Clean”, contained an estimated 360,000 micro-beads in one tube.
4. These micro-beads do not embrace the “Cradle to Cradle” philosophy at all. They are not recoverable, and are not benign in the environment. They are designed to wash down the drain and into the environment.
5. Many sewage treatment facilities do not capture synthetic, floating particles the size of micro-beads, and during rainy days some treatment facilities let sewage overflow go right into our waterways.
6. Micro-plastics are persistent organic compounds that attract other pollutants in the environment, like DDT, PCBs, flame-retardants, and other industrial chemicals.
7. Micro-plastics, including micro-beads, have been found floating in America’s waters, as evidenced by our findings in The Great Lakes during our 2012 expedition.
8. Micro-plastic particles have been found in fish, marine mammals and reptiles, and in the digestive and circulatory systems of mussels and worms.
9. Fish that humans harvest have been known to eat micro-plastic particles.

Californians Take Stand in the Sand for Plastic-Free Seas

Posted: 07/03/2013 in the Huffington Post by Lisa Kaas Boyle

It's summer and Californians are at the beach. Surfers and swimmers are enjoying all the classic spots glorified in Beach Boys songs. What's up at the beaches besides the famous waves? Well, the battle to keep the beach and water plastic free is hot as the late afternoon sand.

Outgoing Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa added an environmental feather to his cap by signing legislation to ban single-use plastic bags in the City of Los Angeles. Similar legislation at the state level recently failed by an 18-17 vote in the Senate, 3 votes short of the majority needed for passage. The current number of local ordinances in California now stands at 56 covering 77 cities/counties.

This means 11,461,641 people, or 30 percentage of California's population, is now covered by single use plastic bag bans passed by local jurisdictions. Speaking about the recently enacted Los Angeles City ordinance, Sarah Sikich, Science and Policy Director for Heal the Bay, said,

We congratulate the LA City Council for taking a stand against plastic pollution and making Los Angeles the largest city in the nation to ban plastic bags and charge for paper, driving a transition to the most sustainable alternative, reusable bags. This measure will inspire a shift in mindset from our addiction to single-use convenience to conscious thinking about simple lifestyle changes individuals can make to improve our communities and the environment.

Local California environmental groups have worked hard on passing the bans and will continue their work until the whole state is covered like the State of Hawaii. Kudos go to Heal the Bay, Environment California, Surfrider and Clean Seas Coalition for the many successes on the plastic bag and polystyrene bans (the current number of California Polystyrene Bans stands at 72.)

Plastic Pollution Coalition, a global alliance founded in California, is working hard to spread the message of reducing single use plastics to people around the globe, most recently at a conference on solutions called Think Beyond Plastic and at Bonnaroo music festival where the group worked with artists and the festival to reduce plastic consumption. Country-Punk LA based band Nocona teamed with PPC to share ways to reduce personal consumption of single use plastics during their show on the Rock the Earth curated Solar stage. The band, featuring 5 Gyres board member Elan Glasser on harmonica, showed the crowd how to hydrate responsibly with reusable water bottles. After the show, members of the band posed with a sign that read "Please Stop Plastic Bottles."
The Bonnaroo venue, on a large Tennessee farm owned by the concert producers, has well water hydration stations strategically placed for concert-goers to refill their reusable water containers for free.

In California's Palm Springs, The Coachella Music Festival 2013 had free filtered water available for refilling and a demonstration called The Oasis by Global Inheritance of tap water and even filtered, reclaimed waste water that tested and tasted as clean as any mountain spring. Really. I tried it.

Los Angeles-based We Tap is behind a smartphone application to locate public water fountains in California. Their mission is to help people locate good, fresh water on-the-go for refillable bottles or a quick drink, instead of relying on plastic packaged water.

Santa Monica-based 5 Gyres Institute is a national leader in the battle against plastic microbeads in products that wash straight into our streams, rivers, lakes and ocean the drains in our homes. These plastic micro-beads have become common in cosmetic, toothpaste and cleaning products as exfoliants replacing natural and biodegradable scrubbers. 5 Gyres is publishing groundbreaking research on plastic micro-beads accumulating in the Great Lakes. With the help of partners Plastic Free Seas and Plastic Soup Foundation, 5 Gyres has claimed some major victories in removing plastic beads from products produced by Unilever, Colgate-Palmolive, Johnson & Johnson and L'Oreal/The Body Shop. One big target remains: Procter & Gamble. After a massive letter writing and social media blitz, The 5 Gyres Institute received word from Procter & Gamble's Harald Schlatter, that Procter & Gamble will remove plastic micro-beads from their products by 2017. The 5 Gyres site reports,

Though we applaud this move, The 5 Gyres Institute along with core campaign partners The Plastic Soup Foundation, Plastic Free Seas, and a coalition of nearly 100 NGOs worldwide believe this phase-out timeline is far too long. We have made demands with other manufacturers that all beads be removed by no later than January 1st, 2015 and wrote a letter to this effect that went unanswered by Mr. Schlatter.

5 Gyres is leading a campaign to get this giant global corporation to remove plastic micro-beads from its products worldwide by 1/1/2015. You may add your name to the campaign here.

Los Angeles-based sports television personality Angela Sun is on a national tour of film fests with her excellent documentary Plastic Paradise about the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" a collection of plastic waste in the Pacific Ocean 1000 miles off the California coast.

And more than 3,500 kids in Los Angeles took a stand in the sand against plastic pollution on the 20th anniversary of Kids Ocean Day in Los Angeles, forming a with their bodies on the beach asking for us to LISTEN to the ocean and stop polluting it with our plastic trash. Similar Kids Ocean Day events were held in San Francisco and San Diego.

California, known for its seemingly endless beautiful coastline, is also a source of endless ingenuity and passion for protecting our natural resources from plastic waste. Way to go, Californians!

Boulder's bag fee goes into effect Monday

Officials, activists hope fee on disposable bags will change behavior

Posted:   06/30/2013

By Erica Meltzer Camera Staff Writer

Violet McKee, of Alfalfa's in Boulder, uses paper bags to bag groceries on Thursday. New grocery store bag fees for paper and plastic will go into effect today. ( CLIFF GRASSMICK )

 

For more information visit BroughtItBoulder.com.

 

Starting Monday, Boulder shoppers will need to pay 10 cents for disposable paper or plastic bags at city grocery stores, convenience stores and big-box retailers like Target.

Boulder has handed out more than 36,000 free reusable bags to area residents and shoppers in preparation for the fee going into effect, and city sustainability workers will be outside area grocery stores distributing whatever remains of the 40,000 bags they bought in May.

"Everyone loves free bags," said Boulder business sustainability specialist Jamie Harkins. "Everyone has been really excited to get the bags, and I've been getting good feedback from the store owners. A lot of the big stores have been training their employees."

The City Council adopted the bag fee back in November, but the city put off implementing the fee to give time for an education campaign and for stores to prepare.

The fee came about after students with the Net Zero Club at Fairview High School argued for a ban on all plastic bags and a fee on paper bags.

The City Council decided to pursue a fee on all disposable bags after representatives of Eco-Cycle said banning plastic would cause people to switch to paper, which has its own environmental problems, rather than to reusable bags.

The bag fee applies at all food retailers. Gas station stores will be exempt if food sales account for less than 2 percent of their business.

Retailers will get to keep 4 cents to cover their costs of administering the program. The county recycling center will get 0.9 cents to cover the costs of retrieving plastic bags from recycling equipment.

The city plans to use the rest of the money collected from the fee to pay for education and outreach about reusable bags and to cover the costs of free bags.

The city projects it will collect $216,000 this year from the bag fee and $325,000 in 2014.

Washington, D.C., which has a similar bag fee, saw a 75 percent decrease in the use of disposable bags within a year of adopting its fee, but Boulder is projecting only a 50 percent decrease because so many shoppers here already bring their own bags.

Sonja Tuitele, a spokeswoman for Alfalfa's Market, said more than 80 percent of shoppers there already bring their own bags, so they expect the impact to be small.

The store is doing away with its bag credit, though, in response to the policy change.
"We hope that everyone will bring their bags, and this is the new reality," she said.

Whole Foods will keep its bag credit program, in part because so many people donate their bag credit to community projects.

"Our 'Your Change Creates Change' program is alive and well in stores and gives customers the opportunity to donate 10 cents per reusable bag to schools and non-profit organizations of their choice," said Heather Larrabee, regional associate marketing coordinator for Whole Foods.

King Soopers spokeswoman Kelli McGannon said Boulder locations of that grocery store are prepared and support the city's efforts.

"We've been able to come up with a plan that should adequately serve our customers and prepare them for the changes," she said. "It's something that has become important to a lot of people, and we're happy to support the desires of the community."

A spokeswoman for Safeway was traveling Friday and couldn't be reached for comment.

Harkins said city officials are aware that the change could affect low-income residents more and they have worked closely with services agencies like Emergency Family Assistance Association, Boulder Housing Partners and Workforce Boulder County to get free bags into the hands of those who most need them.

They also went door-to-door in Boulder's trailer parks and other poorer neighborhoods to hand out bags.

Randy Moorman, community campaigns manager for Eco-Cycle, said the company looks forward to finding fewer plastic bags in the recycling waste stream. The bags get stuck in equipment, forcing EcoCycle to stop work and manually remove them. But the environmental impact should be much greater, he said.

"From a zero-waste perspective, we're looking to see less of the disposable bags, whether that's in the environment, caught in trees and becoming a hazard to wildlife, and we hope to see less of these bags going to our landfill," he said.

Shoppers at local stores last week mostly spoke positively of the fee.

"I don't have an issue with it," Boulder resident Lisa Searchinger said as she grabbed some reusable bags from her car before entering Target on Friday. "It's what's best for the environment and best for our community."

Matt Flournoy shopped at the Sprouts Farmers Market located on Arapahoe Avenue Friday. He said he previously lived in Australia for a time and became accustomed to using reusable bags there. He said he is happy to see Boulder making efforts to curb wasteful disposable bag use.

"I think it will have a positive impact on other people and they habits they might not otherwise change," Flournoy said.

Jan Pringle carried her groceries in reusable bags as she prepared to leave the King Soopers on Arapahoe Friday, but said she does not support the bag fee.

"I don't like it," Pringle said. "I don't use plastic bags but for travelers and visitors to the city -- things like that -- I think it's pretty rotten. I have been a visitor to another city where you buy what you think you're paying for and suddenly they're tacking on taxes and extra fees. It's like a visitors' tax."

Camera Staff Writer Joe Rubino contributed to this report.
Contact Camera Staff Writer Erica Meltzer at 303-473-1355 or meltzere@dailycamera.com.

Read more: Boulder's bag fee goes into effect Monday - The Denver Post http://www.dailycamera.com/news/boulder/ci_23563794/boulders-bag-fee-goes-into-effect-today#ixzz2XphUkp4q

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Microbes Make Cozy Homes in Ocean's Garbage

published by Wynne Parry, LiveScience Contributor June 27, 2013 in LiveScience
 
For about four decades, it's been known that plastic is collecting in the open ocean. Now, scientists have found this debris harbors unique communities of microbes, and the tiny residents of this so-called plastisphere may help break down the marine garbage.

 Inhabitants of the plastisphere include members of a group of bacteria, the vibrios, known to cause disease, and microbes known to break down the hydrocarbon bonds within plastics, genetic analysis revealed. But most important, the communities of microbes on the plastic pieces were quite different from those found in samples of surrounding seawater.

"It's not a piece of fly paper out there with things just sticking to it randomly," said study researcher Tracy Mincer, an associate scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, referring to the plastic. "There are specific groups of microbes that are attracted to that environment and are adhering to it and living on it."

Potential pathogens & plastic degraders 

Vibrios accounted for nearly 24 percent of the residents on one of the six small pieces of plastic used in the study. samples of plastic debris collected in the ocean. "Because most plastic originates from land it begs the question how far these vibrios are coming from. … And are they potential pathogens, not just of humans, but for animals, such as fish," said study researcher Linda Amaral-Zettler, an associate scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory.

 
Using net tows, the students collected samples of plastic debris (shown here) in the ocean.
CREDIT: E. Zettler, Sea Education Association
 
Some species in the genus Vibrio cause disease, but it’s not clear what species were within the samples, since the analysis for this study did not identify individual species of bacteria.

Burrowed in 

 Meanwhile, microscope images revealed microbestucked into pits that conformed to the shape of their single-celled bodies. The pits suggest the microbes are perforating the plastic and accelerating the natural weathering process, breaking it down, Mincer said. (The researchers aren’t certain which bacteria are in the pits; most bacteria cannot be identified through microscope images.)

"Either the cells have to settle into the perfectly shaped pits or they have something to do with creating the pits," said study researcher Erik Zettler, associate dean and professor of oceanography at the Sea Education Association in Woods Hole, Mass. If the microbes are indeed burrowing into the plastic, they may be doing so mechanically or they could be metabolizing, otherwise known as "eating," the plastic, Zettler said.

The presence of hydrocarbon-degrading bacteria, related to those that bloomed after the Deep Horizon oil spill, indicates that bacteria may indeed be responsible for the pits.

Good or bad for ocean life? 

The scientists aren't sure if bacteria-aided breakdown of plastics is good or bad for ocean ecosystems. Whereas smaller pieces may accelerate the removal of plastics from the oceans, they may also have negative consequences.

Smaller trash bits have a larger surface area (and more contact with the surrounding water) relative to volume so they can release more of the pollutants that plastics can absorb. These itsy bits of plastic are also morelikely to enter the bottom of food chains when animals such as tiny, floating creatures called zooplankton consume them,and accumulate in the predatorsat the top, Zettler said.

 Much of the plastic debris in the ocean has been broken down into confetti-size pieces. During voyages in the North Atlantic, researchers and students onboard a Sea Education vessel collected bits of plastic for this study, which was published online by the journal Environmental Science & Technology on June 7.


Undergraduate students on the SEA Semester vessel SSV Corwith Cramer collect plastic samples of ocean debris using a neuston net.
CREDIT: E. Zettler, Sea Education Association This research is part of a National Science Foundation-funded project to study microbes living on marine plastic. Going forward, Mincer is interested in finding the genetic mechanism that has enabled the plastic colonizers to attach to it so quickly and effectively. "We think it may lead to a story of microbes adapting to a changing world," he said, pointing out that plastics are quite different from any surface upon which open ocean microbes would naturally settle.

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