Trashing the Oceans
An armada of plastic rides the waves, and sea creatures are suffering
Normally that means living things. These convergences are favorite hunting grounds of seabirds and other predators, which pick zooplankton, fish eggs, jellyfish, and other delicacies out of the long, frothy windrows. Alien-seeming gelatinous creatures usually float just below, spinning fantastic webs of mucus to sieve out every last particle. Not this time, says Moore. "We found all the refuse of civilization, but there were no zooplankton at all." He's at a loss to explain why.
The Alguita team did see albatrosses and tropic birds circling above the line of trash. With little else to choose, they were apparently eating plastic. The birds seemed to be picking and choosing "the reds and pinks and browns. Anything that looks like shrimp," Moore says. Earlier in the trip, the Alguita had visited the French Frigate Shoals, off Hawaii, home to endangered monk seals and seabird rookeries. In the birds' gullets, researchers found red plastic particles.
Lines of trash like this one may also help explain the woes of the monk seals, which are usually killed by large masses of nets, more than any one fishing vessel is likely to lose or cut loose at a time. The Alguita's crew plucked several of these net balls from the Langmuir windrow. The converging currents evidently brought nets together and tangled them into makeshift deathtraps as they rolled in the sinking water.
Expect the trashing of the oceans to continue. An international convention called MARPOL bans the dumping of plastics at sea, but enforcement on the open ocean is nonexistent. Accidental losses are forgiven, notes Moore, and shippers don't even have to report them. "That means do-gooders like me don't even get a chance to clean up after the polluters," says Moore.
Rob Krebs of the American Plastics Council notes that people value plastics for exactly what creates problems at sea: their durability. Manufacturers are not to blame for the trash, he says. "The responsibility is with the people who control the material, not those who produce it." Moore agrees that greater efforts to prevent spills will help. But, he adds, "there's no reason why a six-pack ring or a peanut butter jar should have to last for 400 years." Manufacturers have tried for years to perfect biodegradable packaging, and at least one company, EarthShell, may finally be making some headway. Government agencies like the National Park Service are already using EarthShell's biodegradable plates and packaging, and hundreds of McDonald's restaurants have experimented with its clamshell boxes.
Moore, meantime, says he'll keep hunting marine plastic as long as his money holds out. After all, there is a link between his own advantages and the plastic flotsam he has been tracking. Oil made his grandfather's fortune--and oil is the raw material for most plastics manufacturing. "In a way, part of all this is remediation for the consequences of my grandfather's life," he says. "I guess maybe I need to make amends."
Caught in a gyre
Some of the plastic drifting in the North Pacific is swept to shore, like the thousands of Nike shoes that washed up in the Pacific Northwest. But much is trapped by calm winds and sluggish water within the North Pacific's current gyre.
"Eastern Garbage Patch"
At the eye of the gyre, plastic reaches concentrations of a million pieces per square mile. Researchers have mapped a giant spill of bags and a mile-long strip of wind-driven garbage.
[Map is not available.]
[labels]
Hawaii
North Pacific gyre
Shoes found
1990
Running-shoes spill
2000
Plastic-bag spill
2002
Garbage strip
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