Image: State of California
In Brief
- Plastic debris in the sea does not get digested by microbes, but it does "photodegrade": ultraviolet light and heat make it brittle and prone to cracking.
- Scientists fear tiny bits called microplastics could harm small creatures at the base of the food chain, such as by blocking their digestive tracts. The plastics may also concentrate toxic substances.
- In these ways the microplastics might be bad news for the rest of the food chain--including us.
By now even schoolchildren know that the plastics we discard every year in the millions of tons persist in the environment for hundreds of years. And we have all heard of the horrors caused by such debris in the sea: fur seals entangled by nylon nets, sea otters choking on polyethylene six-pack rings, and plastic bags or toys stuck in the guts of sea turtles. This photograph, showing plastic fragments collected in just an hour at a cove near Gloucester, Mass., hints at a lesser-known but equally disturbing story: much smaller bits of plastic that are accumulating in oceans all over the world can potentially harm marine life and possibly even human health.
Although plastic does not get digested by microbes, as food and paper are, it does slowly “photodegrade”: ultraviolet light and heat from the sun increase its brittleness, causing it to weaken, crack and break up into smaller and smaller fragments. Indeed, a handful of sand or cup of seawater from nearly anywhere in the world will probably be peppered with microplastics—pieces that are tinier than a small pea and often invisible. Scientists fear the possible effects of this plastic confetti on zooplankton and other creatures at the base of the marine food web, which get consumed by larger organisms—turtles, fish, birds—and, ultimately, by us.
This article was originally published with the title Plastic Surf.
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14 Comments
Add CommentI agree with the author, Jennifer Ackerman, that a solution is designing plastic products that can be recycled throughout much of their material life. However, the more difficult and unstated part is getting industry and even ordinary consumers to actually recycle plastic products.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe essential and basic requirement of scientific reporting is to state what is known and not propagate current fashionable opinions which have no scientific basis. Even in a review article reference should be made to the chain of reasoning or scientific investigation on which statements are based wherever possible; in original research this is essential.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe opening statement that "By now even schoolchildren know that the plastics we discard every year in the millions of tons persist in the oceans for hundreds of years" cannot be true since plastics have been around for less than a hundred years and therefore schoolchildren or anyone else cannot possess such knowledge. This statement is contradicted at the beginning of the second paragraph "Although plastic does not get digested by microbes, as food and paper does, it does slowly "photodegrade" . Correct! Most plastic produced commercially contain antioxidants added by the manufacturer to allow it to have a normal useful life before it succombs to photodegradation. I know because I worked in the industry for many years. However, I am interested in the statement that plastics do not get digested by microbes, because I have heard the contrary stated. It would be helpful if such statements were backed up by some reference to factual data so that the reader can form an opinion.
Later it is stated that plastic particles in seawater evoke worry for several reasons, they may block the feeding appendages or digestive tracts of small invertibrates, the chemicals incorporated during manufacture can threaten health when ingested, they act as a sponge for toxic substances such as DDT, dioxins and PCBs , absorbing concentrations of 100 to a million times that of the surrounding seawater , exposing life forms eating them to concentrated poisons. All of this is stated without a shred of supporting evidence. Now when I worked in the plastics industry a colleague ananytical chemist was working on an industry-wide collaborative programme to find whether chemicals present in plastic bottles at a parts per million level could contaminate the water contained in the bottle, and the answer was that the contaminants remained locked in the plastic and did not contaminate the water. I would therefore be very interested in any scientific evidence that contaminants can migrate out of or into plastic particles floating in the sea or in the intestines of invertibrates. I would also like to know why plastic particles should block the intestines of invertebrates any more than particles of sand.
@gordonlee: I think claims should be backed up by evidence as well. Sometimes however, common sense can go a long way and indicate what research needs to be done. Although the author says that even children know that plastics persist for 100s of years, I think this is more of a figure of speech meaning that plastics do not quickly biodegrade. Anecdotal evidence for this would be PVC pipes that are used for less than 50 year often appear like they won't vanish in a 150 more. Likewise old plastic toys, when not left in the sun, and buried plastic bags seem to have some longevity. So we can make general inferences about the durability of plastics. But as you say, none of us has witnessed this first hand in the ocean.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThese inferences do recommend further study since we have been dumping an enormous amount of plastic into our oceans. Because it takes years to photodegrade, we will not feel the potential effects of the increasing contamination. So to be conservative, now is the time to investigate places such as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
I do agree that there needs to be some evidence for the claim that eating plastics may not be healthy. I'm pretty sure humans can benignly pass plastic without the proper enzymes to digest it. However, plastics do contain chemicals, such as phtalate esters. These organic compounds have more affinity with hydrocarbons than with sand. I haven't worked in any industry, but I would also like to point out that plastics are more likely to float than sand, so if you are suggesting that organisms are pre-adapted to mircroplastics, I can't agree. There may be countless organisms that haven't evolved to feed on floating sand. And if the studies confirm that plastic is indeed a bane, than we should look at San Fransisco as a model for a new paradigm: no more plastic bags, a good start.
I am opposed to litter in any form, whether as chewing gum dropped on the sidewalk, an ond matress or refrigerator dumped beside the road, a rope lost overboard from a fishing boat or uneaten food in a paper wrapper dropped on a beach. The question to be asked about such waste is not whether it is made of plastic, but how it got to be there.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis commdnt would have concluded my earlier note if I had not run out of space.
Squish, I agree with you. More research needs to be done, and in the meantime it would help in discussion of a highly emotional subject, if we all observed the normal scientific discipline which allows the reader to see what is known and where it came from and what is not known, and come to an informed opinion based on the facts of the case.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thismm..
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn 1989 I formed a chapter of Kids Against Pollution in Provincetown, MA. We performed marine debris surveys at The Cape Cod Nat'l Seashore. The rangers had invited my chapter to participate in their bi-annual survey on a Truro Beach. That was 21 years ago. We counted and documented every piece of human generated waste on a small strip of beach. The kids weighed the total before discarding into the trash. The numbers were sent to the office of Coastal Zone Mgmt in DC. In 1989 the styrofoam was there, but in large visible pieces. We found the same during the 1990s on the annual marine debris surveys conducted on the beaches of Rockport and Gloucester, Massachusetts with Cape Ann Kids Against Pollution.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis past winter I spent a lot of time on the beaches of Sag Harbor and Bridgehampton, NY. I found a lot of plastic and countless pieces of styrofoam. It was different this time. I picked up large and small pieces of styrofoam as well as thousands of foam pellets. Every step taken on the beach and every tire track in the sand turned up white, blue and yellow polystyrene pellets. The locals saw me and asked what I had found. I think they were expecting sea shells or beach glass. When I answered 320 pieces of styrofoam, they looked at me like I was odd. When I explained my role in the past with Kids Against Pollution I got extremely positive reactions and even some help. The task was endless and I came to the sad conclusion that these pellets were now a permanent part of the beach.
Thanks for your article.
Yes, the article is general, but it is factual and not phrased toward misconceptions. As the ED of a marine reserach foundation I know first-hand how important clarity and accuracy of comments are when it comes to talking about the effects of plastic pollution. Yes, more research needs to be done, as well as more exploration in all of the world's oceans. There is much to learn.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI was a bit surprised the way this article starts: "By now even schoolchildren know that the plastics...". Not ALL the schoolchildren know... not EVEN GROWNUP people know about the damage the plastic causes to nature and as consequence to human beings all around the world. This is connected with many different things, depending on the country.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI just came back from Morocco Atlantic coast and I was just killed seeing how people treat the ocean, the ocean that feeds them. The beach is full of people and what the do with bottle, plastic bags, packages and all the rest: they throw it down just close to them and the waves are taking all this garbage in. People are swimming in the ocean surrounded by garbage and feel fine... I'm not talking here about Indian coast. I think that people do not know, do not realize what they do. I'm speaking not only about Moroccans or Indians, I'm speaking about the biggest part of the humans living on this planet. In the developing countries people are trying to survive and they don't care about plastic garbage influence on nature. They throw plastic garbage everywhere. There is no managed garbage policy in most of the countries. In some countries there is no even garbage bins or even if there are people don't use them, they prefer to throw things on the ground.
In the developed countries people try to educate people and inform how to treat the plastic garbage and it just starts working somehow.
Humans should design little robot janitor spiders. They could swarm through places and clean up all the trash. Each city could have an army of little robotic critters keeping it all pretty.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCigarette smoking has reduced in general I believe, which I estimate based on my presently seeing fewer butts littering the ground then I used to see 10 years ago. I mean if someone wants to smoke themselves to death, whatever, but it's the damn littering that goes along with smoking that is the worst part. Those filters become saturated from the toxic fumes.
Try going a day without plastic. Go ahead. Youd be hard pressed to get out of bed without encountering the substance in one form or another. Plastic is everywhere and infiltrates our lives in unimaginable and alarming ways according to Suzan Berazas documentary, which is getting its first finished screening here in Telluride. What starts as a film about plastic bags, evolves into a wholesale investigation into plastic and its effect on our lives, bodies and waterways. Starring Telluride local Jeb Berrier, playing the role of the everyman (those of us who know him realize that this role is a stretch), the film travels around the world, from Telluride to Midway Island. As we learn more about how little we know about plastic, one thing becomes certain: The advice given to Dustin Hoffmans character, Ben, in The Graduate One word: Plastics was right on.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDH
http://www.bagitmovie.com
Since 1999, we have collected over two tons of plastic debris from Kehoe Beach in the Point Reyes National Seashore.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOur website documents our project
www.beachplastic.com
We make regular posts to our blog about our fun and unusual finds
www.plasticforever.blogspot.com
Since 1999, we have collected over two tons of plastic from Kehoe Beach in the Point Reyes National Seashore in California.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo learn more about our project
www.beachplastic.com
We make regular posts to our blog about our fun and unusual finds
www.plasticforever.blogspot.com
I was quite put out when I read this article in the magazine. to say "Although plastic does not get digested by microbes, as food and paper are, it does slowly “photodegrade”" is a gross over simplification. Antimicrobial ingredients have been added to PVC pipes to keep it from breaking down - something that would not have to be done if it is impermeable to decay. There have been many studies measuring the breakdown of plastic in soil environments, where bacteria use the same free radicals they evolved to break down polyphenols to break down the plastic. Even high school kids understand that bacterial break down plastic:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://earthfirst.com/high-school-student-finds-a-way-to-biodegrade-plastic-in-3-months/
Now we are even seeing that bacteria are breaking down plastic in the oceans:
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110328/full/news.2011.191.html
I believe a retraction of that statement is in order.