Algalita Marine Research Blog

With the official start to summer just around the corner (can you believe it’s almost here?), what better way to get ready for upcoming summer “funtivities” than to plan ahead to make them green and sustainable? Here are a few easy-to-follow tips  to reduce plastic use and make this summer a fun, eco-friendly one:

-Make picnics and camping trips green (via earthshare.org)

Earthshare’s “Green Picnic Guide” and “Green Your Camping Trip” page suggest several helpful, easy ways to reduce unnecessary waste this summer, such as purchasing local grown fruit and veggies from farmers markets (which eliminates the need for pre-packaged plastic wrap), and opting for reusable, biodegradable, compostable, and/or recyclable supplies (ie, reusable grocery totes instead of plastic bags and reusable canisters instead of individual disposable beverage containers). Both pages also emphasize making sure that all waste is properly disposed of and not left at picnic/camping sites where it can make its way to storm drains/the ocean or harm any other natural habitats or creatures.

-Avoid using disposable bottles

With all the traveling about that usually takes place over the summer, it can be hard to resist the temptation to stock up on disposable plastic bottles. However, making use of reusable bottles can be just as effective and greatly reduces the amount of potential plastic waste produced. For example, if you’re going on a long road trip, you can fill large thermoses, canisters, and/or coolers with spouts with water to refill your smaller bottles on the trips.  Moreover, most parks, beaches, and other public places usually have water fountains, which makes it easier to refill reusable bottles and eliminates the need to purchase additional disposable bottles.

-Tupperware vs. plastic baggies

Taking the kids out to the park for a day? Instead of using up a bunch of disposable plastic baggies to transport snacks, why not store the snacks in reusable containers like Tupperware? Most brands offer containers in various sizes, making it easy to store and access snacks and eliminating any unnecessary waste from plastic bags. Plus, you only have to purchase the containers once and can use them for multiple trips rather than spend to restock on bags every time. (And you can transport the containers in your reusable grocery totes – it’s and eco-friendly win-win all around).

Imagine using a thimble to empty a bathtub, with the faucet still running. That’s how experts on ocean plastics pollution generally see schemes focused on extracting the debris from the open ocean instead of strategies to prevent plastic waste from getting there in the first place.

Interest in methods to rid the oceans of plastic debris is motivated by very real threats to the entire ocean food web. The “North Pacific Garbage Patch” is the most studied of the five subtropical gyres, gigantic whirlpools where waste is picked up and concentrated by slow-swirling currents. There, plastic debris already outweighs zooplankton, tiny creatures at the base of the food web, by a factor of 36:1, according to the latest trawls by Algalita.

Conventional plastics do not biodegrade on land or in water, but become brittle in sunlight and break apart into ever smaller bits of plastic, still containing toxic substances introduced during manufacture – like phthalates, bisphenol-A and flame retardants. Plastics also attract and concentrate persistent oily pollutants present in seawater. So plastic debris not only threatens sea creatures through entanglement or by clogging their digestive tracts, but also introduces dangerous chemicals into the food chain.

Except for the tiny fraction of plastics which has been incinerated, all plastic ever manufactured is still somewhere on the planet. And, with virgin plastics production still greatly outpacing recycling – which in the United States averaged only eight percent in 2010 – our oceans will continue to become more polluted with plastics until something is done to stop it. But given the vastness of the oceans, which cover 71% of the earth’s surface or some 360 million square kilometers, the question is, what realistically can be done?

There are obvious realities which have to be confronted in any offshore cleanup plan, starting with how to find the debris. Gyres are loosely-defined expanses the size of continents. Even in the center where debris accumulation peaks, the effect is of a plastic soup with fragments distributed throughout the water column to a depth of roughly 20 meters. And, plastics are in no way confined to gyres, but amassing throughout marine environments as diverse as shoreline mangroves and the Arctic seafloor.

Next is the challenge of selectively extracting plastics, which become microscopic over time, without destroying sea life, and what about plastics already colonized by sea creatures? Then follows the dilemma of what to do with the plastics once extracted and, of course, how to fund the operation. Moreover, any device deployed in the sea would have to contend with the highly corrosive forces wrought by constant motion, violent storms, and accumulation of bird droppings and barnacles.

Two very different, recently proposed cleanup schemes serve to illustrate inherent challenges.

The Clean Oceans Project (TCOP) is a Santa Cruz-based non-profit proposing to build a manned, 65-foot sailing catamaran designed to skim from the sea’s surface four common types of plastics that float: #2HDPE, #4LDPE, #5PP, & #6PS. Polymers that don’t float, like nylon or #3PVC, could not be targeted. However, as 80 percent of marine plastic pollution is from land-based sources and predominantly from single-use products made of the targeted polymers, a meaningful dent might be made in the millions of tons of plastic debris believed to pollute the N. Pacific Gyre alone.

Gyre currents conveniently sweep floating debris into “streams” called windrows, visible to the naked eye. TCOP’s co-founder, Jim Holm, says that sophisticated technologies already on the open market enable both pinpointing the densest streams for cherry picking and removing floating debris from the water. Plastics are reaped onto a conveyor that, by vibrating, wards off turtles and swimming fish. Creatures which have colonized the debris would be stripped by hand and returned to the sea.

The plan is to target only debris captured by a ¼ inch mesh, as removing the larger stuff should, consequently, diminish microplastics over time. A hand-held spectrophotometer would aid in sorting plastics by polymer.

For TCOP, the game changer was stumbling upon a Japanese company, Blest, that already markets a plastics-to-light crude oil converter that can generate a gallon of fuel from eight pounds of plastic waste. There are no toxic air emissions (just water vapor and carbon dioxide) because the plastics are not incinerated, just heated for distillation into fuels.

TCOP hopes to create the first-ever shipboard converter to generate enough fuel to supplement the wind and solar sail technology that would power the catamaran. The costly transfer of collected plastics to landfills or recyclers (located primarily in China) would be eliminated. Priced at $199,000, the converter is designed to handle ~500 pounds of plastic in a day.

TCOP is seeking funding to deploy a test run in the N. Pacific Gyre. Holm is forthright in dismissing any fantasy that the endeavor would be profitable, acknowledging the indispensable support from corporate and philanthropic organizations.

A Dutch engineering student, Boyan Slat, recently made a media splash for a different cleanup design which capitalizes instead on a gyre’s natural currents to sweep debris to a fixed collection vessel anchored to the seafloor. Though few details are offered at this point, Slat conceives of a giant manta ray-shaped platform sporting two long, arm-like booms in an open “V” configuration for trapping floating debris ushered in by the current.

The round-surfaced booms would encourage plankton and other creatures to slide under unharmed, while plankton captured accidentally would somehow be separated out by gentle centrifugation. Slat has boldly predicted that only 24 such devices, staggered in a zigzagging line spanning one radius of the N. Pacific Gyre, could virtually clean it up in just five years by removing an estimated 7,250,000,000 kg of plastic debris. He postulates that the venture could be paid for by selling collected plastics to recyclers.

Slat’s design is still in the early idea stage, as his Ocean Cleanup Foundation was just founded this year, and he is seeking donations totaling $80,000 to conduct feasibility studies.

There’s been no shortage of skepticism about Slat’s proposal. For example, Stiv Wilson, policy director for the non-profit 5 Gyres Institute dedicated to remediating ocean plastic pollution, points out that the average depth of the open ocean is nearly 4,000 feet, twice the deepest successful moorings to date, and that a violent storm can destroy the sturdiest anchoring. Wilson also believes the cost alone of hauling plastics back to shore and to recyclers would exceed their market value. Add to this costly spectrophotometric analysis for sorting by polymer.

The issue of whether there could ever be a market for plastics reaped from the sea definitely looms. Recycling weakens plastics’ polymer bonds, so plastics are generally “down-cycled” just once into end-products destined for landfills, like lumber. The first-ever plastic bottle with any post-ocean content, so far housing just one “Method” brand soap, is being marketed primarily to raise awareness about the need for packaging with recycled content. Infrastructure for recycling plastics in general within the United States remains very limited. Also, whether China will continue to accept the majority of U.S.’s plastic waste is brought into question by Operation Green Fence, China’s new policy blocking highly contaminated waste materials from entering.

Even if any gyre cleanup devices are ever successfully deployed, alone they could not solve the crisis of ocean plastics pollution, a conclusion that both Holm and Slat share. After recycling, the average American still generates a half pound of plastic refuse daily (USEPA). As consumption of plastics generally parallels development, worldwide plastic waste generation is expected to continue to rise into the future. It seems delusional to believe that open ocean cleanup schemes could keep pace with new plastics entering the oceans.

The only rational approach is to focus first and foremost on stemming the flow of plastics into marine environments. In addition to maximizing recycling and placing barriers at obvious ocean entry points like river mouths, significant societal transformations are needed: for consumers, a shift away from single-use plastics and, for industry, embracing “extended producer responsibility” policies which make producers responsible for the sustainability of what they manufacture.

A good start might entail a producer fee on products made of virgin plastics, asking manufacturers to take back and recycle their products, and an end to planned product obsolescence. A study recently published in Marine Pollution Bulletin confirms that marine litter is reduced when plastics are better managed on land.

For plastics pollution already at sea, oceanographer and flotsam expert Curtis Ebbesmeyer points out that maybe half a gyre’s contents is jettisoned each rotation, ferried eventually by currents onto shores. This means anyone can lend a hand in gyre cleanup by participating in the annual International Coastal Cleanup organized by the Ocean Conservancy. The next one is on Sept. 21. (Photo right: Ocean Conservancy)

After visiting Algalita’s lab and seeing how much plastic there can be in a small sample of ocean water, I decided to turn my research towards trying to find out just how plastic-filled our oceans are. Not so surprisingly though, the research has proved a bit difficult as there isn’t exactly a counter that ticks away numbers as plastic and other trash makes its way into the ocean.

Many sources cite a United Nations Environment Program figure, which estimates that there are about 13,000 pieces of plastic per square kilometer of ocean. The figure sounds a bit unbelievable, but after seeing how many plastic particles there can be in a small Petri dish, it unfortunately may not be too far off. Other sources report that of the amount of marine debris found in the ocean, 60%-80% of it is made up of plastic.

What’s worse is that the size of most of the plastic makes it difficult to simply clean up or scoop out. When I spoke to Katie, a member of Algalita’s staff about the misconceptions concerning marine debris size, she mused that she almost wished it was a “plastic island” we were dealing with because that implies we could go in and take it out, but she noted that the situation is much more complicated than that.

Sadly, complicated might not even begin to cover it. As one source points out, “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” (Cho). This not only makes the plastic difficult to see/distinguish (as I learned in the lab), but the size of the particles makes it difficult to extract too. NOAA explains that “straining ocean waters for plastics (e.g., microplastics) would capture the plankton that are the base of the marine food web and responsible for 50% of the photosynthesis on earth…roughly equivalent to all land plants!” (marinedebris.noaa.gov).

Working in the lab and learning from the research really helped to put the scope of ocean plastic pollution into greater perspective for me. And even though it might be easy to become discouraged from the findings, I think the experience and research has increased my resolve to make efforts to keep any more plastic and other trash from reaching the ocean. Just as I’ve written about before, we all have the chance to make a positive impact on the situation by opting for more responsible, sustainable alternatives, reducing our consumption, and making sure our trash is properly disposed of.

Last Saturday I had the privilege of attending Algalita’s Cheers for Change Fundraiser in Long Beach. There I was able to meet more of Algalita’s team, and had the great honor of meeting Captain Moore. It was a truly wonderful and gratifying experience to see supporters come out, and I’m told that the silent auction went very well.

Staying true to sustainable practices, the fundraiser was kept plastic free. When we think of traditional social gatherings that involve serving food and drinks, this feat might sound quite difficult, but Algalita and its partners proved that plastic isn’t always necessary and that a plastic-free night is possible. Rather than Styrofoam or plastic cups, plates, or trash bags, the caterer (Whole Foods) brought eco-friendly plates and brown paper trash bags while glass glasses were provided by Algalita. To top it off, the plates and any leftover food were collected in the paper bags to be composted at a later time.

After observing these efforts, I think that what I got most out of the experience at the fundraiser was a sense of what a difference even a little bit of effort can make in reducing waste and helping the environment. It was just as easy to have compostable supplies over non-compostable ones, and all it took were simple decisions and requests on behalf of the consumers. As a result, there were a few paper bags of reusable/compostable materials versus the typical bulging plastic trash bags full of items that would have simply been discarded. I think it was nice to see how a little bit truly does go a long way towards reducing our environmental footprint and how it really isn’t as difficult as it may seem to incorporate sustainable practices.

A couple weeks ago while I was on my spring break, I had the chance to spend a couple of afternoons at Algalita’s lab, located at the SEA Lab in Redondo Beach. There I met Ann, one of Algalita’s biologists and my source of information and guidance during my visits.

Once I arrived, Ann gave me a brief overview of the different types of tasks she performs and set me right to work on gaining some experience of my own.

The majority of my time at the lab was spent picking plastic particles out of water samples (a task dubbed by Ann as my “lab training”), which proved to be a lot more difficult than I anticipated. Ann showed me how to prepare a sample in a Petri dish from a larger sample of water collected from the ocean. I examined the Petri dish sample under a dissection microscope and used a couple different tweezers to separate and pick out plastic particles from other materials in the sample, like tiny pieces of wood and even microscopic organisms. The plastic particles I collected were placed in a smaller separate vial where I could watch as pieces of plastic slowly but surely accumulated.

If it sounds a bit tedious to pick plastic particles out of a water sample, it’s because it is. But more than that, the experience was also pretty eye-opening and insightful. I found that I was (and still am) most taken aback by how tiny a majority of the plastic particles I collected were, which made identifying the pieces a task in and of itself. The sheer amount of plastic I was able to collect from Petri dish-sized samples was also something to mull over; on both days that I visited, I spent two hours working with each sample and was not able to collect all the plastic particles from either. My second sample was particularly riddled with tiny pieces of Styrofoam that liked to stick to the sides of the dish (and pretty much everything else in the sample), making them especially difficult to collect.

As I worked, I had several thoughts running through my head: if I couldn’t always distinguish plastic particles from organic materials, how could fish and other marine life be expected to do the same? And if a small sample of ocean water contained that much plastic, how much would larger samples hold if they were to be examined? How much is actually floating around in the ocean? When I showed Ann how many pieces I collected and how there were still several pieces left in each sample at the end of my “training sessions,” she remarked that if anything, it was indication of how bad ocean plastic pollution actually is.

Along with developing even greater appreciation and admiration for Algalita’s research and work, I also came away from my time in the lab with a new outlook on waste disposal. Most of the time it seems like the general attitude about leaving trash behind is that a couple of pieces here and there can’t do much harm, but from what I saw in the lab, those few pieces left behind turn into thousands of harmful pieces when they’re left to decompose in places they shouldn’t. But just as a little bit goes a long way to add to the problem, a little bit can go along way in solving it too, and it may be as easy as tossing that abandoned water bottle in the recycling bin instead of leaving it behind.

Perhaps you already bring your own reusable grocery bags, have kicked the bottled water habit and know better than to microwave in plastics, but still find daily life swimming in plastics and want to use less of it.  After recycling, the average American still generates a half pound of plastic refuse daily, a concrete indicator of how deeply entrenched are plastic materials in our 21^st century lifestyle (USEPA, 2010).

Rational reasons to cut back on plastics fall into one of two spheres: limiting exposure to hazardous chemicals associated with plastics – like bisphenol-A, phthalates and flame retardants – or reducing the harm to the environment incurred at all stages in plastics’ lifecycle, from extraction of the petroleum needed for manufacturing to disposal of the non-biodegradable finished products.

Short of adopting a Tarzan-like jungle existence, it’s probably impossible to completely eliminate plastics from modern day life, but with a little digging and shopping savvy, you can enlarge that dent in your plastics consumption.  Some ideas follow.

GROCERIES:  It can be daunting to find anything at conventional supermarket chains (e.g. Albertsons, Ralphs, Vons/Safeway) not packaged in plastic.  Stores select inventories based on their market niche which, for conventional supermarkets, is mainstream brands that emphasize value at competitive prices.  Plastic packaging is simply cheaper to produce and transport than, say, glass, so packaging choices are limited for most products.

Avoiding plastic packaging is much easier at so-called natural foods markets that serve a different market niche.  They stock a plethora of brands where the manufacturer has responded to consumer interests in a healthier lifestyle and alternative packaging.  Non-plastic options are available for most items storewide, many of which are also organic, though you can expect to pay more than for the mainstream brands.  Here are some specifics I found perusing my local Mothers, Sprouts and Whole Foods markets.

There are anywhere from a few to many options in glass containers for common pantry items including ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, molasses, spices, nut butters, steak & barbeque sauces, vegetable oils, vinegars, fruit juices, sodas and bottled water.  Many of the labels might be less familiar to mainstream shoppers, like Cadia, Annie’s Naturals, Lakewood Organic, and OOgavé.  A wide assortment of vitamins and dietary supplements are sold in glass too.

Milk typically comes in plastic jugs or plastic-coated paperboard cartons.  I located four brands in returnable/refillable glass bottles: Straus Family Creamery, Broguiere’s, Claravale Farm and Whole Foods label.  Likewise, two yogurt brands come in pint or quart glass jars, White Mountain and Saint Benoit, and the latter also offers single servings in ceramic cups.  Though butter in paper or foil-wrapped sticks is commonplace, I found only one margarine brand, Earth Balance, in sticks instead of plastic tubs.

No matter where you shop, you’ll cart away less plastic by investing in a handful of reusable bags designed for fresh produce and bulk items like nuts and dried fruits.  Many washable produce bags are available on the web, made from mesh or cloth.  Or, they are easy enough to sew yourself from fabric scraps.

PERSONAL HYGIENE:  Natural foods stores also stock several lines of facial care products (cleansers, toners) and skin moisturizes offered in glass, like Suki, John Masters Organic and Evanhealy.  Some cosmetics brands have committed to using glass or metal containers too.  There is even a brand of deodorant sold in glass spray bottles (Weleda), or you can go for a deodorant bar made of Himalayan crystal salt in paperboard packaging (Deo-Bar).  All-cotton swabs, without the plastic stick, are available too.

My personally favorite find is Eco-DenT, a brand of dental floss offering silk floss and vegetable oil wax alternatives to mainstream nylon floss with petrochemical wax.  It comes in a recyclable cardboard case.

DINING:  Keep a few sets of silverware in the car’s glove box for visiting eateries that serve plastic utensils, and carry reusable take-out containers in the trunk for leftovers.  If frozen coffee store drinks are your weakness, keep a travel drink container handy too.  When throwing parties, do like our grandmothers did, use real dishes and silverware, or at least choose service items carried at natural foods stores made from renewables, like corn starch and wheat straw.

HOME MAINTENANCE:  Though powder detergents are sometimes packaged in cardboard, even environmentally friendly liquid cleaning agents are sold in plastic.  However, it’s quite easy to make your own cleaning supplies from simple ingredients like vinegar, baking soda and lemon.  Enter “homemade cleaning products” in your search engine for recipes to tackle every household cleaning job.

When undertaking home remodeling, choose renewable materials whenever possible, like wood windows & doors, cork flooring and cellulose or cotton insulation.  Be aware that plastic decking lumber can’t be recycled so will eventually be landfilled.

SCHOOL AND OFFICE:  Choose backpacks made of canvas over vinyl ones.  Use paper lunch bags or reusable cloth totes in lieu of vinyl lunch boxes.  Waxed, parchment and butcher papers are all good substitutions for plastic sandwich bags and cling wrap.

The Center for Health and Environmental Justice in New Yorkmaintains extensive online inventories of non-plastic alternatives for every sort of school/office supply and where to purchase.  In addition to necessities like 3-ring binders, files, organizers and address books, the listing includes some surprising options, like bamboo-cased flash drives and highlighter wood pencils.  Many items are available at mainstream office supply stores.

DRIVING:  A vehicle’s interior plastics (dashboard and seating, e.g.) contribute to that infamous “new car smell” by off-gassing dozens of volatile chemicals, many known to be hazardous.  To help car buyers avoid the biggest offenders, last year the Ecology Center in Michigan released its latest rankings of over 200 recent models.  The Honda Civic and Toyota Prius were rated first and second best.  Eliminating polyvinyl plastics from interior components contributed to the Civic’s high status, though other plastics were substituted.  So consumers might still be limited to selecting a car with safer, but not less, plastics.

The explosion of consumer plastics was an outgrowth of petroleum-based industries developed in World War II.  That plastics are so durable and do not biodegrade seemed a good thing at the time, and the toxic nature of many chemicals associated with plastics was unknown.  Today, the wisdom of a culture so entrenched in plastic materials is being reevaluated.  While scientists continue to delineate all the health and environmental impacts of plastics, we already know that fetuses and young children are most susceptible to toxins and that plastics are amassing in even remote ocean regions.

It’s incumbent on us all to rethink our consumer choices and opt for materials we know are safer for our children and the rest of the planet too.

“Regardless of the exact size, mass, and location of the garbage patch, human-made debris does not belong in our oceans and waterways”

                        -National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)¹

Some say it’s the size of Texas. Others say it’s at least big enough to be called a “trash island.” But in actuality, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch isn’t even a “patch.”

As Algalita and several other organizations describe, a more appropriate description would be to refer to the “patch” as a “plastic soup” whose ingredients are things that should’ve never made their way into the ocean in the first place.  The main non-so-secret ingredients: thousands upon thousands of pieces of plastic.

How did this plastic soup get cooking? As the National Geographic explains it, plastic and other debris is drawn in toward the center of ocean gyres (circular ocean currents) where it accumulates. A lot of the plastic particles that make up the patch are so small they’re not visible to the naked eye, while other pieces of debris sink to the ocean floor.²

photo from marinedebris.noaa.gov

As unpleasing as the sight of trash in the ocean is, the environmental effects of all that garbage are even worse. Fish, turtles, and seabirds unknowingly eat the plastic and other debris and often starve or rupture organs because they cannot digest the trash.² And as Algalita’s own Captain Charles Moore explained in an interview with Forbes, “about half a dozen species of fish that are consumed by people in Southern California…are consuming plastic so we’re starting to see plastic invading the human food chain as well as the animal food chain in the ocean.”³

Capt. Moore with an example of debris found in the patch (from forbes.com)

Unfortunately, the size, scope, and depth of the garbage patch make it very difficult to simply scoop up all the debris and remove it. NOAA reminds us that most of the plastic debris is microscopic in size, and that in the process of trying to capture the microplastic, we’d be taking essential microscopic plankton along with it.

So what can we do? Again, one of the greatest changes we can make is to incorporate more sustainable practices into daily life. This can be as easy as opting for reusable products over disposable ones whenever possible (which saves money in the long run). Making sure materials are properly recycled is another step, and is one we can directly benefit from right away; any stored up or lingering disposable bottles and cans that we might have right now can be taken to local recycling centers and exchanged for cash vouchers. There is always the option of participating in cleanups around our communities and beaches too.

References:

[1] NOAA (2012). De-mystifying the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch.” http://marinedebris.noaa.gov/info/patch.html#5

[2] National Geographic (2013). Great Pacific Garbage Patch: Pacific Trash Vortex. http://education.nationalgeographic.com/education/encyclopedia/great-pacific-garbage-patch/?ar_a=1

[3] Hoshaw, Lindsey. Article. “Game Over: An Ocean Hero’s Call to Action.” http://www.forbes.com/sites/lindseyhoshaw/2011/10/10/game-over-an-ocean-heros-call-to-action/

Algalita.org

http://www.algalita.org/AlgalitaFAQs.htm

The scene is set: A gorgeous day out on the beach, sun shining, and water pleasantly warm. But as you get closer to the water, the record playing the soundtrack to this idyllic sight suddenly scratches. It’s not that the water was colder than expected, or that you realized you forgot to put sunscreen on. It’s that there’s a plastic bag touching your foot instead of seaweed and plastic bottle caps washing up on shore instead of seashells.
Okay, these details may have been exaggerated a bit for effect, but this nightmare could easily be the new reality. The culprits: one-time use plastic bottles and bags.
But what could possibly be so bad about products that add so much convenience to everyday life? For starters, the fact that these products are both ready to use and easily disposable also means they accumulate waste. A lot of waste.
The Clean Air Council reports that annually, Americans use about 1 billion shopping bags which create 300,000 tons of landfill waste.1 Additionally, 38 million plastic bottles make their way to American dumps every year, and that number doesn’t even include soda bottles.2
To make matters worse, while these products overwhelm landfills, they simultaneously empty pockets and oil barrels. It costs $4,000 to recycle 1 ton of plastic bags and millions of barrels of oil each year to produce plastic bottles.1
The environmental consequences paint an even bleaker picture, especially for the ocean. Thousands of pieces of plastic can be found per square mile of ocean, and every year, plastic pollution causes the deaths of thousands of marine animals and birds.3 Plastic bottles and bags left in oceans never completely go away either. Even though light breaks the plastic down, there are still toxic particles left behind. Research is showing that these particles enter our food chains when marine animals like fish ingest them and we in turn eat the fish.
The silver lining is that it’s not too late to turn things around. In fact, it only takes a few simple changes to incorporate sustainable, ocean-friendly practices.
Instead of lugging heavy 24-packs of plastic water bottles home every week, why not invest in reusable bottles? A one-time investment of around $7 will save countless trips (and dollars) to buy disposable bottles each week, and will help to significantly reduce plastic waste. If you feel like splurging a bit, many brands offer sleek, stylish reusable bottles for a few dollars more.
With more and more SoCal cities banning one-time use plastic grocery bags, why not phase out the use of these bags too? Investing in reusable grocery bags is both eco-friendly and cost-effective. Many grocery stores charge 10 cents per disposable plastic bag, while others will actually knock 5 cents off a bill for every reusable bag brought in. And just as reusable bottles come in stylish designs, so do reusable bags and totes.
As a college student fortunate enough to go to school by the beach, keeping the oceans plastic free is a cause near and dear to my heart. The best part is, going-green has proved easier and more convenient than I thought. I save much-needed gas and textbook money by using a reusable water bottle (which I always get compliments on because of its cute design), and reusable grocery totes have served me well as makeshift gym and book bags.

________________________________________
[1] Clean Air Council. Waste and Recycling Facts.
www.cleanair.org/Waste/wasteFacts.html

[2] Llanos, M (2005, March 3). Article. “Plastic Bottles Pile Up As Mountains of Waste.”
www.nbcnews.com/id/5279230/#.UUSbqhdJP4t

[3] Envirosax. (2012). Dangers of Plastic Bags.
www.envirosax.com/plastic_bag_facts

Hello Algalita Readers!

My name is Justinne and for the next couple months or so I’ll be contributing blog posts and articles to Algalita’s site. I’m a senior at Cal State Long Beach, and even though I’m an English major, I love learning about the ocean and the environment. A couple semesters ago, I was able to incorporate the state of the ocean into a research paper and learned about the different issues plaguing the ocean. I was shocked to learn about the amount of man-made pollution that makes its way into marine environments and causes serious damage. Since then, I’ve developed a great interest and concern for issues of ocean pollution, particularly plastic pollution because it affects humans too.

For the most part, the blog posts and articles will focus on bringing issues of plastic pollution in marine environments to light, which I hope will be just as insightful a learning experience for readers as it is for me. I will also be sharing tips on how to reduce disposable plastic use and describing some of my own experiences with using greener alternatives.

Thanks for reading!

In pregnant women, exposure today to endocrine-disrupting substances common in everyday plastics might not only be adversely affecting the health of their fetuses, but the health and fertility of their future great grandchildren might also be at risk, according to a laboratory study just published in January.¹  The health risks are not handed down via changes to the genetic DNA code (i.e. gene mutations), but rather through a parallel biological scheme of coding known as “epigenetics.”

Background
Traits are passed from one generation to the next through two distinct but interacting vehicles of inheritance.  The genes that make up our DNA were once thought to contain the entire blueprint for all inherited traits. For some time, however, scientists have understood the critical role of another coding system that literally sits atop the DNA and instructs genes to turn on or off.  Because all cells in a given animal or human have the same DNA sequence as the original fertilized egg and sperm, another mechanism is needed to explain how cell differentiation occurs during development so that a heart cell, for example, ends up so different from, say, a brain or skin cell.

The prefix “epi” means “on top of,” hence the name epigenome referring to this supplementary code affixed to DNA that orchestrates development by regulating gene expression.  For some time now, scientists have known that a person’s epigenome is also involved in establishing susceptibility to diseases because whether or when certain genes are expressed can determine if a person will fall victim to some diseases.

It is also understood that the epigenome is not fixed during a person’s lifetime, but rather can be altered by environment (chemical exposure or even diet, e.g.).  However, it is only recently that scientists have clued into the fact that changes to the epigenome acquired during a lifetime can be passed from one generation to the next right along with the genetic DNA code within sperm or egg cells.  This means that environmentally-mediated modifications in susceptibility to disease have the potential to get passed along too.

Previous studies documented that the agricultural fungicide vinclozolin, when administered to pregnant female rodents, induced permanent epigenetic changes to the sperm of developing fetuses that were replicated and passed on to subsequent generations.  The epigenetic changes were deleterious in that they promoted certain adult-onset diseases.

The present study, conducted at Washington State University, focused instead on two known types of endocrine-disrupting chemicals used in mass-produced plastics, BPA (bisphenol-A) and phthalates.  BPA is a component of both polycarbonate plastics and the epoxy resin lining of most canned foods/beverages.  Exposure during fetal life is known, through animal studies, to impact a wide spectrum of adult-onset diseases, including polycystic ovaries, prostate disease, abnormal mammary gland development, behavioral hyperactivity and aggressiveness, and altered glucose metabolism.  Phthalates are softening agents common in PVC (polyvinyl chloride) plastics and also a common ingredient of beauty products and adhesives.  Phthalates have been linked to many derailments in the normal development of both male and female reproductive systems, resulting in decreased fertility in both sexes.

What did they do?
Pregnant female rats (and consequently their fetuses) were exposed to mixtures of BPA and two phthalates (DEHP and DBP) over a one-week period spanning the critical window in fetal development when gonadal sex is determined.  The incidence of adult-onset diseases of the testis, prostate, ovary and kidney were determined in those fetuses and the grandchildren of those fetuses (i.e. the great grandchildren of the exposed pregnant females) once they reached adulthood.

In understanding this study, it is important to appreciate that the fetuses’ future grandchildren are the first generation where abnormalities cannot be attributed to a direct effect of chemical exposure to any of the fetuses’ tissues, but rather must have been handed down through undesirable epigenetic changes to the exposed fetuses’ sperm or eggs which remained fixed and passed on.  Prior research has shown that gene mutations are not involved.

The best understood epigenetic mechanism is “DNA methylation” where chemical fragments called methyl groups (–CH3) attach or detach to DNA and, in doing so, regulate gene expression. Furthermore, various environmental chemicals are known to alter the pattern of methylation.  In the present study, the researchers looked for enduring and heritable epigenetic changes resulting from exposure to BPA and phthalates by examining the methylation pattern of sperm DNA from both the exposed fetuses and those fetuses’ grandchildren.

What did they find?
As adults, both the originally exposed fetuses and their grandchildren showed increases in testis disease, obesity, ovarian disease, and shifted onset of puberty.  The original fetuses also showed increases in kidney and prostate disease, but those conditions were not inherited by their grandchildren.  The type of disease abnormalities detected were not tumors per se, but rather other tissue abnormalities, like polycystic ovaries or decreased sperm production.

The researchers were also able to identify several epigenetic methylation changes to the sperm DNA of the chemically exposed fetuses that were similarly passed to their grandchildren and thought to be involved in promoting the diseases.

Implications
The central finding of this study is that, in rats, short-term fetal exposure to a mixture of chemicals found in plastics has the potential of promoting adult-onset diseases that, in turn, are handed down to subsequent generations.  The inheritance is not through gene mutations, but rather through epigenetic changes (epimutations) to the developing fetus’ sperm DNA which are not reset with the next generation but rather replicated and passed on.

Rats are mammals and, as such, are useful models for gaining insight into how environmental toxins can affect humans.  This study suggests that plastics we are interacting with today might have the legacy of making our great grandchildren, and perhaps generations beyond, more susceptible to a whole host of diseases when they grow up.

The chemical doses used in this study were low for animal studies but admittedly higher than the levels to which humans are routinely exposed.  Nevertheless, widespread human contamination with both BPA and phthalates is well-documented.  Furthermore, human exposure to these chemicals likely occurs continuously throughout our lifetimes, given the near universal role of plastics in human activities, from dining and driving cars to computer work and housecleaning.  So though the results of this study do not provide any real measure of the risk to humans associated with our current levels of exposure to endocrine-disruptors in plastics, they certainly do raise the possibility that humanity’s love affair with plastics might have lasting effects on the health and fertility of future generations.

This speculation is in line with a growing body of evidence that endocrine disrupting chemicals now widespread in our environment are contributing to the lower sperm counts, more ovarian disease and increasing rates of obesity and infertility frequently seen in human populations (see Discussion).

There are already literally hundreds of studies documenting direct health effects in lab animals and even humans of fetal exposure to BPA and phthalates. We have been playing Russian roulette with these and literally tens of thousands of other synthetic chemicals allowed into commerce since World War II without prior health safety testing.  Chemicals in the United States are still regulated by antiquated legislation (Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976) which allows industry to market chemicals without proving their safety first.

For the sake of our own health and that of our progeny, not only do we need to continue mapping out how endocrine-disrupting chemicals like BPA and phthalates interact with the very apparatus of inheritance, but we also need to insist that the federal government adopts a precautionary approach to chemicals regulation that requires thorough vetting of chemicals for safety to humans and other life forms before being allowed into commerce.
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¹M Manikkam et al.  Plastics derived endocrine disruptors (BPA, DEHP and DBP) induce epigenetic transgenerational inheritance of obesity, reproductive disease and sperm epimutations.  PLOS ONE, Jan. 2013.