Friday, January 6, 2012

Our Oceans: A Plastic Soup

by Renee Cho | 1.26.2011 posted in Earth's Institute at Columbia University

Photo credit: cesarharada.com

“Humanity’s plastic footprint is probably more dangerous than its carbon footprint,” said Captain Charles Moore, who, in 1997, discovered the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Its name is misleading because the huge expanse of floating marine debris is actually more like a soup of confetti-sized plastic bits, produced by the runoff of our throwaway lifestyle that has made its way into our oceans.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the most notorious stretch of plastic debris, is located northeast of Hawaii, about 1000 miles from Hawaii and California. It’s an enormous and immeasurable area of marine debris, trapped by one of the five major subtropical gyres (systems of ocean currents) that corrals and carries marine garbage into its vortex. 5 Gyres, an organization that partners with Moore’s Algalita Marine Research Foundation to study plastic pollution in the ocean, has sent expeditions across the North Pacific Gyre, the North and South Atlantic Gyres, and the Indian Ocean Gyre, and found plastic in every one of them, though concentrations vary. Some reports have estimated the Great Pacific Garbage Patch to be twice the size of the continental United States, but no one can accurately measure the boundaries of the trash gyres because they are vast, remote and always shifting with ocean conditions. In any case, plastic marine debris is now found on the surface of every ocean on Earth.

Ocean gyres. Photo credit: NOAA

Some plastic and marine debris comes from fishing gear, offshore oil and gas platforms, and ships. But 80 percent of it comes from the land—litter that gets stuck in storm drains and is washed into rivers and out to sea, the legal and illegal dumping of garbage and appliances, and plastic resin pellets inadvertently spilled and unloaded by plastic manufacturers. Trash Travels, Ocean Conservancy’s 2010 report, states that 60 percent of all marine debris in 2009 consisted of “disposable” items, with the most common being cigarettes, plastic bags, food containers, bottle caps and plastic bottles. And no matter where the litter originates, once it reaches the ocean, it becomes a planetary problem as garbage travels thousands of miles carried by the gyres.

The lightness and durability that make plastic such a useful and versatile material for manufacturers also make it a long-term problem for the environment. Trash Travels estimates that plastic bags can take 20 years to decompose, plastic bottles up to 450 years, and fishing line, 600 years; but in fact, no one really knows how long plastics will remain in the ocean. With exposure to UV rays and the ocean environment, plastic breaks down into smaller and smaller fragments. The majority of the plastic found in the ocean are tiny pieces less than 1 cm. in size, with the mass of 1/10 of a paper clip.

Photo credit: Chris Jordan

The Sea Education Association’s (SEA) expedition to the western North Atlantic Ocean found bits of HDPE (high density polyethylene), LDPE (low density polyethylene), and PP (polypropylene) from items such as milk containers, plastic bags, and straws, which float on the surface because they are less dense than seawater. It did not find PET (polyethylene terephthalate), PVC (polyvinyl chloride), and PS (polystyrene solid), which sink because they are denser than seawater. Algalita, which sampled down to depths of 100 hundred meters throughout the eastern side of the North Pacific Gyre, found LDPE, styrene, PP and PET.

Last year, SEA released the results of its 22-year study of plastic pollution in the western North Atlantic and Caribbean Sea. The greatest amount of plastic was found in the North Atlantic Gyre, which contains the Sargasso Sea. The most plastic collected during a 30-minute tow was 1069 pieces, which, if scaled up, would be equal to about 580,000 pieces per square kilometer. The average concentration of samples would roughly equal 20,300 pieces per square kilometer. While discarded plastic in the U.S. quadrupled between 1980 and 2008, however, the concentration of debris in the Atlantic did not appear to increase. Where has it all gone? Lead scientist Kara Lavender Law speculated that some is being eaten by marine animals, some has broken down into bits too small to be captured by tow nets, some gets washed up onto beaches, and some is sinking to the ocean floor. According to Project Kaisei, a non-profit also studying marine debris, 70 percent of the man-made waste that enters the ocean sinks to the bottom. That means that the plastic soup is only the 30 percent of the debris that floats. No one knows what lies deep down because so far, there have been no studies of the plastic on the ocean floor.

But we know the plastic debris on the surface of the ocean is taking its toll on marine life. Animals get strangled in fishing lines, nets, and plastic litter. Fish and seabirds ingest bits of plastic they mistake for food that can block their intestinal tracts and kill them, or make them feel full so that they do not eat real food.One of Moore’s expeditions collected hundreds of samples of fish, and conducted necropsies on them: over 1/3 had ingested polluted plastic fragments, including one 2.5 inch fish that had 84 pieces of plastic in its tiny gut. In 1999, Moore’s research in the Central Pacific found six times more plastic than zooplankton in the water. In 2002, off the coast of Southern California, he discovered the ratio of plastic to plankton was 2.5. Preliminary results on samples Algalita took in 2008 already show that there is a significant increase in the ratio of plastic to plankton in the water. Plastic bits also create habitats for microorganisms and other species, allowing would-be invasive species to hitch rides to new areas of the ocean.

A recent study found that plastics take up and accumulate persistent organic pollutants (POPs) such as carcinogenic and endocrine-disrupting polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and organochlorine pesticides such as DDD, a derivative of DDT. Over 50 percent of the plastic samples studied contained PCBs, and over 75 percent contained PAHs. According to Moore, plastic debris can attract and concentrate POPs up to a million times their levels in the surrounding seawater, and when consumed by marine animals, the POPs endanger both the creatures that ingest them and humans higher up on the food chain, especially infants. Moore has said, “No fish monger on Earth can sell you a certified organic wild-caught fish.”

Despite all these environmental and potential human health impacts, most scientists agree that it is not feasible to clean up the plastic soup in our oceans. The areas are huge, and the debris is unevenly distributed and always shifting. A cleanup would entail filtering enormous amounts of water, and the by-catch of plankton and other marine organisms would be harmful to ocean ecosystems. Moreover, the fact that the trash gyres are in the open ocean, in international waters, makes it difficult to get governments to invest in research or cleanup efforts.

Undaunted, Project Kaisei, on its two expeditions to the North Pacific Gyre, has been working to develop and test new methods for removal of some of the plastic waste. Its goal is to learn more about how to efficiently remove the floating plastic, and to use new techniques to recycle the material into fuel or other products. Project Kaisei plans to test new, and scaled-up catch methods on future expeditions, as well as passive netting and catch methods that require little fuel and have low impacts on marine life.

Moore and Algalita believe that the best way to deal with the plastic debris is to stop the waste from entering the ocean in the first place: to replace, reduce, reuse and recycle our plastics. Marcus Eriksen, one of the founders of 5 Gyres, also promotes beach cleanup because “What we now know is that if we stop adding more plastic to the ocean, in time the gyres will kick out the plastic pollution they currently hold. If you want to clean the gyre, clean your beach.” In 2010, approximately 500,000 volunteers did just that, taking part in the 25th Annual International Coastal Cleanup and removing millions of pounds of marine debris from 6,000 sites around the world, including all 50 U.S. states.

Photo credit: Ocean Conservancy

The Algalita Marine Research Foundation has launched a three-year scientific study expedition to the Antarctic Ocean, and is planning a voyage to the North Pacific gyre in July. This spring, 5 Gyres is preparing to sail across the South Pacific Gyre from Chile to Easter Island. Findings from these expeditions and others will be shared at the 5th International Marine Debris Conference in March, 2011.
–
Columbia Water Center demonstrates research-based solutions to global freshwater scarcity. Follow Columbia Water Center on Facebook and Twitter

Thursday, December 22, 2011

From the Washer to the Sea: Plastic Pollution

posted Oct. 19, 2011 By LESLIE KAUFMAN in the New York Times

Areas where researchers found significant concentrations of microplastics along shorelines.

Environmental Science and TechnologySome areas where researchers found significant concentrations of microplastic.

When most people think of plastic pollution in the sea, they tend to picture bottles washing up on beaches, say, or the vast garbage patch in the Pacific.

What few may realize is that waste water from washing machines is an important source of plastic pollution in oceans, according to a recent article in Environmental Science and Technology.

Over the last decade, scientists have become increasingly alarmed about a type of pollution that cannot be seen. Micrometer-size fragments of plastics like acrylic, polyethylene, polypropylene, polyamide and polyester have contaminated the surface waters of the northeast Atlantic as well as shoreline habitats in Britain, Singapore and India, the researchers write.

Environmental Science and Technology

The scientists said there was evidence that the microplastics are being eaten by animals, who store them in their tissues and cells for months with probably negative consequences for their health and that of the humans who eat marine creatures.

To discover the sources of the microplastics, a team of scientists led by Mark Anthony Browne, a biologist with University College in Dublin, took samples from shore environments on six continents.

Researchers found that the proportions of synthetic fibers in marine sediments were akin to those found in artificial textiles. Examining washing-machine waste water, they found that 1,900 fibers can rinse off a single garment during a wash cycle and that those fibers look just like the microplastic debris on shorelines.
As the human population increases, they say, the problem is likely grow.

The authors suggest that clothing and washing machine designers need to be aware of the problem and to seek ways to reduce the release of fibers into waste water.

Sunday, November 27, 2011

4 Innovative plans to reduce plastic pollution in oceans

posted Nov. 16th on ecofriend.com by Garima Goel

Humans have been discarding waste into the water bodies for ages. Over the years, the plastic pollution in our oceans has become one of the major environmental problems. The marine debris is not only creating the unsightly beach litter, but it also poses a serious threat to the marine life and the coastal habitation. The major problem is due to the range of plastics that does not biodegrade. Let’s take a look at some of the innovative plans that could help reduce plastic pollution in oceans.

1. Recycled island

Recycled islandThis beautiful island is a research project proposed by Dutch architect Ramon Knoester

This beautiful island is a research project proposed by Dutch architect Ramon Knoester. The ‘recycled island’, as it is aptly called, is situated between Hawaii and San Francisco in the Pacific Ocean. The project is aimed to create a habitable area using the oceanic debris that includes the plastic waste, cleaning the oceans vividly. Moreover, by doing this the waste plastic will be converted from rubbish to a constructing material. The Hawaii sized recycled island won’t be depending on other countries for resources needed to survive, but will have its own food and energy resources, generating power from the sun and wind. The floating island is self sufficient, non polluting and in harmony with environment and will therefore not disturb the global ecology. The sustainable island will be developed with all sorts of modern lifestyle with mingled usage of environments. The idea is purely green and ambitious, but the obstacles like time span and the cost for giving the proposal an actual shape, cannot be ruled out.

2. Eco mobile robot

Eco mobile robotThe Eco mobile robot designed by Ejiuson Ueda

The Eco mobile robot, designed by Ejiuson Ueda, is an advanced system created to clear up the garbage from all the oceans of the world. These floating platforms aim to acquire an international group action to be performed in case of aquaculture and also to minimize the temperature increase of the oceans, which further renders to an increase in the water level. These floating buoys might look similar to oil rigs but work in quite a dissimilar way. The eco mobile robots consist of a sensor to canvas the quality of the water and the powerful pumps that suck up the plastic dump and toxins from within the deep regions below water. Clean and non toxic saline water is released back to the ocean. The dangerous waste materials are collected in a special container and dumped in a safe and suitable place. The Eco Mobile Robot is connected to the satellites all around the world and the site that needs to be treated immediately is monitored. The innovative system will help the marine life to get a cleaner environment for survival, making the oceans non toxic.

3. Plastic harvesting ship

Plastic harvesting ship

Plastic waste contamination is one of the major issues today. Although the waste systems clear up the apparent plastic from the ocean surface, the nurdles, often called as mermaid tears, can be found on almost every shoreline. These nurdles that resemble fish eggs are consumed by other marine creatures, which are killed due to plastic ingestion. Kieran Jones, Azusa Murakami, Alexander Groves, a graduate team of Royal College of Art, UK has come up with ‘the Sea chair project’ that turns out to resolve the marine contamination trouble. These designers propose to convert an old fishing trawler into a fully functioning chair making factory where the plastic nurdles are collected and are then separated by their size. The plastic nurdles that are found floating every square mile of an ocean, is either leaked from factory storage or spilled during transit. These small granules of virgin materials will be collected and used to make plastic sea chairs.

4. Ocean´s plastic waste collecting ships

Ocean´s plastic waste collecting ships

The purpose of creating these unmanned ships is to collect the plastic litter in the North Pacific Ocean. These automated ships are powered by solar and wind energy, along with the bio fuels. The ship is navigated using GPS technology. Two sets of rotating, lightweight but firm paddle wheels are designed to collect the plastic waste. While the front paddles collect the large waste, the rear one collects the smaller granules. The debris collected by the maintenance ships can be recycled on the mainland.

What's a Nurdle?

Before listening to an interview on the Diane Rehm show with Captain Charles Moore, founder of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation and author of the new book "Plastic Ocean", I had no idea what a nurdle was and just how much they were contributing to the ocean's plastic pollution. Here's what I found...

From Wikipedia:

A handful of nurdles, spilled from a train in Pineville, Louisiana in the United States.

Plastic particles are an increasing cause of water pollution. The particles include nurdles, microbeads from cosmetics products and the breakdown products of plastic litter. Nurdles are pre-production plastic resin pellet typically under 5 mm (0.20 in) in diameter found outside of the typical plastics manufacturing stream. Pellets are an intermediate good used to produce plastic final products.^[1] "Mermaid's tears" is a term sometimes used to describe the pollution.^[2]

Approximately 60 billion pounds (27 million tonnes) of nurdles are manufactured annually in the United States.^[3] One pound of pelletized HDPE contains approximately 25,000 nurdles (approximately 20 mg per nurdle).

Environmental impact

Nurdles are a major contributor to marine debris. During a three month study of Orange County beaches researchers found them to be the most common beach contaminant.^[4] Nurdles comprised roughly 98% of the beach debris collected in a 2001 Orange County study.^[5] Waterborne nurdles may either be a raw material of plastic production, or from larger chunks of plastic that have been ground down.^[6] A major source of plastic may be the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a growing collection of marine debris known for its high concentrations of plastic litter.

Nurdles that escape from the plastic production process into waterways or oceans have become a significant source of ocean and beach pollution. Marine life is severely threatened by these small pieces of plastic: the creatures that make up the base of the marine food chain, such as krill, are prematurely dying by choking on nurdles.^[7] Nurdles have frequently been found in the digestive tracts of various marine creatures, causing physiological damage by leaching plasticizers such as phthalates. Nurdles can carry two types of micropollutants in the marine environment: native plastic additives and hydrophobic pollutants absorbed from seawater.^{[citation needed]}

Concentrations of PCBs and DDE on nurdles collected from Japanese coastal waters were found to be up to 1 million times higher than the levels detected in surrounding seawater.^[8]
Plastic microbeads used in cosmetic exfoliating products are also found in water.

Recent article about nurdles posted 10-31-11 in Infrastructure Solutions.

Officials Work to Eliminate Plastic Pellets from San Francisco Bay

written by jzagoudis

Federal, state and municipal authorities have launched a first-in-the-nation enforcement effort to eliminate the discharge of pre-production plastic into the waters of California. The San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board (Regional Water Board), State Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have joined forces on the program.

The collaborative enforcement effort is being done under the authority of the State Water Board’s Statewide Industrial Storm Water Permit. The first environmental cleanup ordered as a result of this joint effort is underway in San Leandro.

“This collaborative effort is part of a new front in the battle against plastic debris and trash,” said Bruce Wolfe, executive officer of the SF Bay Regional Water Board. “Storm water runoff is becoming a large part of our enforcement focus, because it affects water quality in every part of our region, and the state.”
Pre-production plastic pellets are often called “nurdles”.

They are very small and contribute to the growing problem of plastic debris in inland and coastal waters of California and the United States. Nurdles are often discharged while being unloaded from railcars at plastic manufacturing facilities, or being handled at those operations. They then wash into storm drains and out to open water with storm runoff.

Fish, birds and other marine life eat spilled nurdles and other small pieces of plastic. The plastic does not break down quickly, displaces food in the animals’ stomach, and can lead to starvation.

"Nurdles may sound harmless, but these small plastic pellets can do great damage to water bodies like San Francisco Bay," said Jared Blumenfeld, EPA's regional administrator for the Pacific Southwest. "To protect our water resources, EPA is partnering with the state to require manufacturers to take steps to prevent pellet spills."   

Oyster Bay Regional Shoreline in San Leandro is the first cleanup site because of the collaborative effort between state and federal environmental agencies. Surprise inspections at four plastic manufacturers resulted in the discovery of nurdles discharges from those facilities, some of which ended up in Oyster Bay.   

The cleanup area includes habitat for both the endangered California clapper rail and salt marsh harvest mouse. The contracted cleanup crew will therefore do its work during the lunar high tide, when the animals will have moved to higher ground and the plastic debris will float to the surface.

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Tons of L.A. River trash to be captured before hitting the sea

Environmental news from California and beyond

published in the L.A. Times

Tons of trash normally swept to the ocean by the Los Angeles River should be captured by thousands of trash screens that have been installed beneath nearly every storm drain in the lower reaches of the river.

The project is believed to be the largest debris-capturing effort in the nation and marks the most aggressive attack yet on river trash in the Los Angeles region.

The project spans 16 cities and is expected to keep 840,000 pounds of debris -- the equivalent of about 450 Volkswagen Beetles -- from reaching the ocean each year, according to the Gateway Authority, a coalition of cities and public water agencies in southeastern L.A. County.

The biggest winner from the project is Long Beach, where workers routinely have to scoop floating islands of plastic bottles, grocery bags and other debris flowing from dozens of communities upstream before it litters the city’s coastline.

In August 2010, crews began installing the stainless-steel, full-capture trash devices inside nearly 12,000 catch basins.

The simple mesh contraptions sit just below the drains where water from city streets flows into the storm-water system and can catch debris as small as a cigarette butt.

Another 5,400 drains in the most-littered areas also were outfitted with street-level retractable screens as a second layer of defense.

For complete story, see LANow.

Tsunami Debris Field Floating to West Coast Landfall

by Michael van Baker on November 4, 2011 on The Sun Break.com

110313-N-5503T-176 PACIFIC OCEAN (March 13, 2011)

An aerial view of debris from an 8.9 magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami

that struck northern Japan. The debris was inspected by a helicopter-based

search and rescue team from the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76).

Ships and aircraft from the Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group are searching

for survivors in the coastal waters near Sendai, Japan.

(U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Alexander Tidd/Released)

Something Sendai this way floats, and Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) doesn’t want to wait until its projected 2014 arrival on West Coast shores to get ready for it. (Hawaii should see tsunami debris in 2013.)

After the 9.0 earthquake hit Japan on March 11 of this year, the ensuing tsunami swept more than 200,000 houses (not to mention boats and cars) out to sea, where oceanographers predict they will make a slow journey to the West Coast, stopping off first at the Hawaiian Islands.

The massive sea-going debris field is said to measure 350 miles wide by 1,300 miles long, and to travel at ten miles per day. Eventually, some part of it will reach U.S. shores, and Cantwell would like to know how we are going to deal with it before then.

This week, Cantwell “introduced and secured passage of an amendment to address the threat approaching tsunami debris poses to industries up and down Washington’s coastline,” says the press release. The Senate Commerce Committee approved the amendment at a markup hearing, along with Cantwell’s Pacific Salmon Stronghold Conservation Act. (Also this week, Cantwell and Alaskan senators Lisa Murkowski and Mark Begich asked Senate Appropriations for funding to test for a deadly-to-salmon virus, rather than depending on Canadian test results alone.)

“We in the Washington economy depend on our waterways for a great deal of our commerce,” argued Cantwell. “We have everybody from workers at restaurants to tourist visitors that are all going to be impacted by this. We can’t wait until all of this tsunami trash washes ashore. We need to have an aggressive plan on how we’re going to deal with it.”

NOAA satellites tracked the debris field for about the first month after the tsunami, but as it dispersed in the water, they began to lose sight of it. However, the U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet has caught up to a portion of it, with the largest agglomeration of debris reaching 69 miles in length.

No one really knows how much will reach the West Coast; a good deal of it is likely to join other ocean garbage, in the much larger debris field known as the”North Pacific Garbage Patch“–it’s a little sickening to note that as immense as the tsunami debris is, it’s a drop in the ocean compared to what ends up there because we have thrown it into the ocean. “Patch” is actually inaccurate two ways. It’s more of a plastic-particle soup, and so you can describe it as having various sizes depending upon what concentration of plastic particles you are comfortable with: If you are comfortable with not much at all, it’s about the size of Texas.

Plastics in Oceans: More Damaging Than Climate Change

published in Voice of America.com November 03, 2011

Zulima Palacio | Washington

Check out the really great video that goes along with this story featuring Capt. Charles Moore =>

The United Nations estimates that each one of us uses nearly 140 kilograms of plastic each year. At least 6.4 million metric tons of that plastic has ended up in the oceans. Environmental activist Captain Charles Moore has found that in some areas, plastic outweighs zooplankton - the ocean's food base - and is entering the food chain. Our reporter talked to Capt. Moore about his efforts to document ocean pollution.

Once upon a time, the oceans of our planet were beautifully clean. Not any more. Captain Charles Moore calls this 'the age of plastic.'

“Between 250 and 300 million tons of plastic are produced every year," said Capt. Moore. "To get that into terms you can understand, every two years we make enough plastic to be the equivalent of the weight of the 7 billion people on earth.”

In his new book, Plastic Ocean, Moore says less than five percent of all plastic is recycled and nearly three percent of world production is dumped into the ocean. That debris kills millions of sea creatures every year.

“We know over 100,000 albatross chicks are dying every year with their stomachs full of plastic; we have evidence that about 100,000 marine mammals die every year being tangled in plastic," he said.

Moore has spent his life on the ocean, and witnessed its transformation. In his book he tells about his 1997 voyage, discovering tons of plastic, floating in an endless spiral. In what is now known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, plastic outweighs plankton, by a factor of six to one.

Moore created the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, and began to collect samples from the world's oceans. He says plastic waste flows into oceans from rivers, beaches... and ships.

“Not only all the navies of the world but all the merchant vessels of the world, until the 1980s were routinely dumping all their garbage at sea," said Moore.

Moore says today ships of all flags and functions continue to ignore international agreements, dumping their trash into the ocean - synthetic chemicals, pesticides, nuclear waste, nerve and mustard agents.

He says he is upset by the destruction of his own habitat.

”Whether I am surfing, whether I am sailing, whether I am swimming, I am touching, seeing, running into persistent waste that will be there longer than any of our children, any of our grand children. It will be there for centuries, it doesn’t go away, we are adding to it," said Capt. Moore.

The pollution expert carries with him a bag of sand, collected from a beach in Hawaii. He had it analyzed. It is more than 90 percent plastic.

Captain Moore has worked with environmental filmmaker Bill Macdonald to document the plastic takeover of the oceans. Macdonald provided most of the video in this story, including this octopus living in a plastic shower head

“There is not a lot of beauty in a river full of trash, I see herons that are frightened by Styrofoam floating around them," said Macdonald. "I see sea gulls trying to eat rubber gloves and all sorts of animals foraging around in what used to be natural debris is now contaminated with synthetics.”

And so the campaign continues. In Plastic Ocean, Captain Charles Moore calls plastic pollution more damaging than climate change, and issues a call to protect the oceans - where life began - for future generations.

Related Items:

Diane Rehm interviews Charles Moore