Trashing the Oceans
An armada of plastic rides the waves, and sea creatures are suffering
At Taco Bell on Main Street in Ventura, Calif., you can take out the chalupa of your choice--Baja, Nacho Cheese, or Supreme, with ground beef, chicken, or steak. But it will always come in a small plastic shopping bag. The bags arrive preprinted from a factory in Asia--usually. One brilliant summer morning in 2000, the small private research vessel Alguita discovered a 10-mile-wide flotilla of the disposable sacks, an estimated 6 million of them destined for Taco Bells around the country, bobbing more than 1,000 miles west of the Ventura store. "We were out in the middle of the Pacific, where you would think the ocean would be pristine," recalls the Alguita's captain, Charles Moore. "And instead, we get the Exxon Valdez of plastic-bag spills."
Most plastic bags end up in landfills, part of the millions of tons of plastic garbage Americans dump each year. But whether jettisoned illegally by ships at sea, washed out from land during storms, or, as in the case of the chalupa bags, accidentally lost overboard from containerships, countless tons of plastic refuse end up drifting on the high seas.
Lethal litter. Many Americans know about the hazard posed by six-pack rings, the plastic yokes that can grasp a seagull or otter's neck as tightly as they do a soda can. But researchers are finding that plastic litter doesn't just strangle wildlife or spoil the view. "Plastic is not just an aesthetic problem," says marine biologist David Barnes of the British Antarctic Survey. "It can actually change entire ecosystems."
The largest pieces of plastic--miles-long discarded fishing nets and lines--take an obvious toll. These "ghost nets" snare and drown thousands of seals, sea lions, and dolphins a year. Researchers have also watched in horror as hungry turtles wolf down jellyfishlike plastic bags and seabirds mistake old lighters and toothbrushes for fish, choking when they try to regurgitate the trash for their starving chicks. As Barnes is documenting, tiny marine animals riding rafts of plastic trash are invading polar seas, while Japanese researchers are finding high concentrations of deadly chemicals clinging to floating, tapioca-size plastic pellets called "nurdles." And Moore, back from a three-month North Pacific voyage last week, is tracking it all and discovering that tiny fragments of plastic are entering the food web right near its bottom.
A member of the prominent Los Angeles-area Hancock Oil family, Moore is anything but a typical researcher. He grew up as an avid surfer and sailor in a comfortable waterfront home in Long Beach and ran a furniture restoration business. But in 1995, at the age of 48, Moore sold his business, set up the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, and designed a unique double-hulled sailing research vessel, the Alguita. Both ship and captain found their true calling after a 1997 yacht race to Hawaii.
On his return voyage, Moore veered from the usual sea route and saw an ocean he had never known. Every time he stepped out on deck, "there were shampoo caps and soap bottles and plastic bags and fishing floats as far as I could see. Here I was in the middle of the ocean, and there was nowhere I could go to avoid the plastic." Ever since, Moore has dedicated his time, and a small personal fortune, to seeking it out. "It's an overlooked problem, and this guy is making a really important contribution," says oceanographer Dale Kiefer of the University of Southern California.
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