Natural Environment Blog

These days, we hear a lot about the tragic consequences of plastic bags on the environment. In particular, plastic bags are causing significant damage to our oceans and marine life. But what about other plastic items?

In today’s world, we are surrounded by plastic. We live in a plastic world. What’s more, we throw out most of our plastic products at an alarming rate. Some plastic items, such as packaging, won’t even last a day before it’s tossed into the bin - or even worse, discarded onto the street or ocean. Other items - you know, those items that are supposed to last a long time - might be lucky to reach their 2nd birthday! Occasionally, we might purchase a plastic item that we keep for say, 5 - 10 years.

The ironic thing about this is that, one of plastic’s outstanding benefits has always been it’s incredible resilience and durability - plastic will last for hundreds of years. Yet, we throw it out, sometimes within a day of product purchase.

The fact that plastic doesn’t break down for hundreds of years causes a major issue for the environment. In particular, plastic is killing thousands of animals around the world every day.

Here are some (grim) facts/statistics on the impact that plastic is having on our oceans.

• Plastic causes the deaths of more than a million seabirds every year
• Plastic causes the deaths of more than 100,000 marine mammals each year
• About 90% of the rubbish floating in the ocean is plastic
• According to estimates by the UN Environment Programme in 2006, every square mile of ocean contains 46,000 pieces of floating plastic
• Hundreds of millions of nurdles (plastic pellets) find their way into the oceans each year. These nurdles act as a chemical sponge - they attract man-made chemicals, such as hydrocarbons and pesticide DDT. This makes them even more toxic. The nurdles then find themselves into marine creatures, then onto our dinner plate. We are indirectly eating our toxic waste.
• Plastic photodegrades. This means that it breaks down into much smaller parts. These smaller parts are continuously being eaten by marine creatures, who mistaken them for food. Many marine creatures actually feed their young on plastic items - again mistaking it for food. One turtle found dead in Hawaii had over a thousand pieces of plastic in its stomach and intestines.
• Floating plastic can sometimes transport marine life to a new location - one of which is outside their normal habitat. This can result in the migrant becoming a pest in the new habitat.
• Not all plastic floats. Much of it - up to 70% - ends up on the ocean floor. This ends up killing the marine life which is found there. Dutch scientists estimate that there’s up to 600,000 tonnes of plastic on the sea bed of the North Sea alone.
• The Pacific Ocean has a garbage dump twice the size of continental United States. The dump is so large that scientists believe it would be impossible to clean it up. Most of this gigantic dump consists of plastic.