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Couple Sail the Synthetic Sea in a Quest for Change
It’s an endless trail of toothbrushes, bottle caps and plastic bags, according to scientists who have seen it firsthand. Two of those scientists were in Santa Barbara on Monday to talk about their research on the North Pacific Gyre, thousands of miles from land, where much of the world’s plastic ends up.
Dr. Marcus Eriksen and his wife, Anna Cummins, stopped in at the Cabrillo Arts Pavilion for their forum titled “Synthetic Sea.” They talked about their research as part of the last leg of a 2,000-mile bike ride down the West Coast from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Tijuana, Mexico. They’ve given nearly 40 presentations along the way.
Eriksen holds a doctorate in science education from USC, and Cummins studied international environmental policy. Both do educational outreach for the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, a nonprofit based in Long Beach.
The couple have been studying how plastic has built up in the oceans in 10 years. “What we saw on the last research trip a year ago January was so disturbing that we thought of this project to get people’s attention,” she said. On that sixth research trip, they found that the density of plastic in that area had doubled in just 10 years.
Cummins said she hears people asking if much of the trash comes from boating and people dumping things overboard. “The truth is that most of it comes from you and I, right here on land,” she said.
Even something as small as a trash can tipping over and spilling plastic onto the ground ultimately can lead to that refuse ending up in the ocean, via storm drain. Cummins talked about a study that tracked ocean currents and found that a single bottle cap can make the entire loop around the North Pacific Ocean in 10 years.
“We think of this as the world’s largest toilet bowl,” she said. “It just circulates our junk around and around.”
According to Cummins, many people have heard that the area is a Texas-sized garbage patch in the middle of the ocean. In reality, plastic is dispersed throughout the entire North Pacific Gyre, which is about twice the size of the United States. It’s not an island one could walk on, but more like a thin, plastic soup stretching all the way across the North Pacific Ocean.
There are five gyres on the planet, and the group has data from only the North Pacific. “We’ve literally just scratched the surface,” she said. The group is hoping to start gathering data from the South Pacific Gyre next year.
Along their trip, the couple have been giving away little jars of the plastic ocean soup to lawmakers, city officials and the media as a reminder.
“In a throwaway society, where is away?” Eriksen asked. Twenty-five percent of the world’s waste is unaccounted for, meaning it doesn’t show up in landfills or to be recycled. Because much of that is plastic, it just travels with the ocean tides, until it’s ingested by fish or broken into smaller pieces.
“It’s designed to last forever,” he said.
The couple took video of a turtle that had gotten stuck inside a milk ring and its body had continued to grow around the ring on both sides. Another image was shown of a turtle caught inside of a decomposing lawn chair.
Eriksen talked about a trip he took with students to Midway, a tiny island in the Pacific where thousands of birds make their home. He held up a string that tied together a cigarette lighter, a toothbrush, toy pieces and other small plastic items, items he had discovered on the island but not on the shore. “I pulled these out of the carcass of a single albatross,” he said.
Almost half of the world’s sea birds have ingested or are entangled in plastic, he said.
The couple also are researching how ingestion of plastics in fish could affect human beings if consumed.
In addition to the research trips, Eriksen also sailed with a friend, Kon-Tiki style, on a raft of 15,000 plastic bottles from California and Hawaii. It took them 12 weeks, and brought a lot of media attention to trash in the gyre.
Even when something can be recycled, it doesn’t mean that’s the best option, the couple say. They’ve had the opportunity to stop at several recycling plants in California, one in Burbank and one in Marin. They learned that when post-consumer plastics are wet and dirty, no one will accept them, so to truly recycle the plastics they need to be washed. No one wants to do that, Eriksen said, so dirty plastics usually end up in landfills. He said the Burbank and Marin recycling centers ship clean plastic to China, and neither of the supervisors at those plants could say what is done with it at that point.
Eriksen and Cummins ended their talk on what people can do help remedy the problem, and although Eriksen said there isn’t much hope for the trash that’s out there already, people can watch how much plastic they use in their daily lives.
Buying products that can be reused or turned into other products at the end of their life cycle also is important. Both acknowledge that most of the change needed would come from pushing for legislation. Laws that put bans or fees on plastic bags also are key, and the couple said they talked to legislators in Sacramento three weeks ago on the steps of the state Capitol.
Even though they’ve seen all that trash firsthand, they’re still hopeful things can change.
“Faced with environmental doom and gloom everyday, it’s hard to be optimistic,” Cummins said, “but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do all we can in our daily lives.”
— Noozhawk staff writer Lara Cooper can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
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» on 06.16.09 @ 03:27 AM
The Plastics industry is good for us and is responsible. It says so on the LCD. In other LCD commercials the auto industry and oil companies continue promoting their good products too. Yes, We Can actually drive the planet clean!
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» on 06.16.09 @ 03:46 AM
All of these “plastic awareness” events are great, but they usually just end up with some politicians looking for votes by attempting to outlaw plastic grocery bags or water bottles. All this does is inconvenience people who need the convenience (the elderly, disabled). This is just the tip of the iceberg of plastics used in consumer goods and packaging, but everyone feels like they have solved the problem by punishing the customer. Just ONCE I would like to see these well intentioned activists GO AFTER THE MANUFACTURERS! The amount of plastic used just to deter shoplifting is obscene!!
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» on 06.16.09 @ 05:11 AM
Perhaps all manufacturers of plastics could have a very small tax put on anything they make (passed on to the consumer, of course). The funds collected could pay for giant fishing nets to collect the floating garbage.
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» on 06.16.09 @ 05:35 AM
Realist– It’s not really fair to try and force the manufacturers act like the responsible adults while us consumers lead our routine, wasteful lives. Eriksen and Cummins aren’t advocating punishing the customer, but rather suggest it’s a collective decision (that the customer should be part of) to create a change in the way we live, for the improvement of the earth. We can’t keep excusing our behavior by saying change should be achieved by someone else.
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» on 06.16.09 @ 05:36 AM
Totally agree with Realist about the need to go after the manufacturers but there is no need for plastic bags or most plastic bags—- elderly and disabled can just as much as the rest of us use cloth or other reusable/recyclable bags.
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» on 06.16.09 @ 06:25 AM
I knew this would soon boil down to a debate about grocery bags and the sheep would chime in with “we must control our wasteful consuming habits” Bah-ah-ahh
OK Einsteins, tell me how I control my obscene consuming habits by being hungry and wanting to feed my family, but the package of ham I need is wrapped up in enough plastic to sink a fishing boat? Or say I need a drill bit to fix the refrigerator door (so I can feed my family) is packaged in an 8.5x11 steel re-enforced plastic package with a theft detector device? And no I don’t have a solar drill.
What is the answer? I just don’t feed my family to save the fish?? Wrong - the manufacturer has the responsibility of not using so dang much packaging material. You can nag me and make me drag hippie totes into the store all you want, but nothing will get solved until manufacturers feel pressure to cut back on plastic production by reducing packaging materials and disposables or finding alternate organic packaging materials! The stuff still has to be bought and sold!!
I wonder if Dr. Erikson might provide the percentage of plastics in the ocean composed merely of plastic shopping bags and water bottles? Because I don’t see any in the picture.
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» on 06.16.09 @ 06:45 AM
OK let me simplify this for the simple minded. Suppose we ban plastic water bottles and grocery bags and everybody happily carries a hippie tote into the store including your grandmother in a walker and your mentally challenged brother who keeps leaving his coat everywhere but somehow always has several hippie totes on hand. Problem solved? All the sheep march outside proudly proclaiming Baaahhh we have saved the ocean fwom da pwastics! The fish can bweathe! Bah hoo do ray!
Now think about lotion bottles and shampoo bottles. Think about all those cleansing products under your sink. Go to the meats section of your grocery store. Now think about disposable Tupperware containers for packaging meat. Now go to, hmm pick one of thousands of tech stores, say Radio Shack and look at all the small but expensive items wrapped up in huge packages of industrial strength plastic that you can’t even cut with a knife, let alone bio-degrade… go to OSH ... get the picture yet?
Ok now leave me alone, do something really significant, deal with the manufacturers and stop nagging me and inconveniencing me about my simple, relatively lower environmental impact beloved plastic grocery bags! I for one do not wish to walk INTO a store with multiple bags, I don’t want to have several grease and food covered cloth bags floating around in the trunks of both cars, I don’t want to go back out to the car whenever I decide to make an unplanned purchase - GET REAL! I love my plastic bags and my conscience is clear because I recycle them properly.
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» on 06.16.09 @ 06:56 AM
The only way we can “change the way we live” enough to have a significant impact on this plastic problem, without going after the manufacturers is to STOP BUYING STUFF! Well obviously that has been slowing down to a minimum already with the economy, so how much more shall we sacrifice to solve this problem? How much gain have we made?
I guess we should stop consuming altogether, worsening the economy even further. OK done. Now we have to somehow convince emerging economies such as India and China who are just getting their first TASTE of western style consumerism to also stop buying stuff. We have to make all the other countries stop envying us and copying our environmental mistakes, even when they care more about their own development and commercial success and survival far more then they give a rats posterior about the “environment”.
Good luck with your shallow thinking, problem solving abilities and unrealistic idealism, though. And go ahead stop using plastic grocery bags if it makes you feel better, but it wont put a dent in the problem. “Feeling good” while accomplishing little or nothing is what it’s all about right?
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» on 06.16.09 @ 07:11 AM
There are few people less in touch with reality than “Realist”. The elderly and disabled have no more need for plastic bags than anyone else—which is no need at all; reusable cloth bags are a better choice. And bottled water is a huge scam that the elderly and disabled can scarcely afford. And getting manufacturers to reduce the amount of plastic used in packaging is ALSO an important goal, but “Realist” uses the latter as a bogus excuse, doing exactly what LDR said, “excusing our behavior by saying change should be achieved by someone else”. The fact is that environmental activists are addressing all these fronts, but for “Realist”, if it’s not in a photo it doesn’t exist.
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» on 06.16.09 @ 08:48 AM
Realist, here’s a question for you: is your goal to have a clear conscience, or do you want to help prevent the plastic soup in our oceans from getting denser?
If you want to help solve the problem, then take a hard and honest look at the best ways to do that. I for one think that banning plastic bags is a step in the right direction, but clearly there are MANY more steps that need to be taken.
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» on 06.16.09 @ 09:40 AM
The problem with most environmentalists is they don’t understand the concept of “significance”. All problems are the same size and none should have any priority over the others. The problems must ALL be attacked! All solutions are equally important and effective and none should be abandoned over the others. The problems must be tackled on “all fronts” regardless of the inefficiency of doing so! They find a little problem and turn it into a big one. They find a big problem and ignore it in preference to the little ones.
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» on 06.16.09 @ 09:56 AM
Geez Marcel you missed about every point I tried to make. First, I was trying to get across the point that plastic bags and water bottles are a very small part of the problem, but the easiest political targets.
It was JUST an illustrative example, but here we go with the plastic bag debate: The bags DO have a convenience factor over cloth bags that the elderly and disabled depend on. - Your grandma and brother with cerebral palsy don’t have to run to the car to get one when they want to make a purchase, they don’t have to be sure they have some kicking around in their car in the first place. They don’t have to hand carry them around everywhere they go.
Have you ever stood at a checkout line and watched how many people actually use cloth bags? If cloth bags were soo practical and just as convenient, why are people with any sense still choosing plastic over cloth? Answer: CONVENIENCE! That is reality, not “imagine there’s no plastic” fantasy.
Third, I feel absolutely no need to excuse my behavior in order to make whackos like you feel good about having nagged or forced me into what YOU consider to be appropriate behavior! I recycle my bags what else do you want from me?
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» on 06.16.09 @ 10:00 AM
why plastic grocery bags exist in the first place. Yep! You guessed it. Environmentalists not thinking things through. It was to save the trees from paper products, remember? Didn’t plastic bottles save us from using too much sand to make glass bottles? Something like that…
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» on 06.16.09 @ 10:36 AM
Thanks for excellent coverage of an interesting presentation.
Plastics are becoming more “green,” in the sense that they require less water or energy to produce, and are easier to re-use or re-cycle, than in the past.
As the speakers pointed out, however, the weak link is irresponsible behavior by some of those who buy, use, then improperly discard, those plastic products.
Jean-Michel Cousteau has pointed out for years what a problem plastics are when they get into the marine environment.
A generation ago, a combination of improved voluntary behavior and littering code
enforcement dramatically reduced littering in most parts of North America. More
than higher fines for those caught doing it, sustained public education made it NOT
COOL to litter.
Perhaps a similar public-private-marketing partnership can begin to address the
growing problem of plastics refuse in the marine environment ... before its too late.
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» on 06.16.09 @ 01:30 PM
California could require that ALL packaging be bio-degradable. Is styrofoam been banned already?
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» on 06.16.09 @ 03:01 PM
But don’t forget that environmentalism’s best friend is a strong economy, so be careful about any requirements that cost businesses right now. Because when there is wealth and prosperity we can get a grip on our struggle simply to survive and direct our energy and finances to do more beneficial things like invest in the environment. When people are struggling just to survive, saving the planet takes a back seat. If you don’t believe that - compare our environmental regulation standards to say that of China, Russia, India?
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» on 06.16.09 @ 03:05 PM
Appreciate the work and awareness efforts. In light of Realist’s points, it would greatly help the debate and solution if the actual items could be identified and cataloged in an honest verifiable way - at least a statistical sample. That way the most prominent sources could be targeted, and speculation and inefficient efforts could be avoided and the effect of resources maximized. You have to have a target to know what you’re shooting at!
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» on 06.17.09 @ 04:49 AM
Can Noozhawk do a follow up article, please? How does MarBorg handle our recyclables, does it matter to them if they are clean, and do they wash them somehow so as to sell them to plants…educate us, please.
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» on 06.17.09 @ 05:05 AM
Thanks for that suggestion, Teresa. That’s a great idea. We’ll talk to Marborg and publish something on that in the future.
Lara
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» on 06.17.09 @ 05:38 AM
Good question Teresa. We need this info!
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» on 06.17.09 @ 06:56 AM
“If cloth bags were soo practical and just as convenient, why are people with any sense still choosing plastic over cloth? Answer: CONVENIENCE!”
Yes indeed, people are destroying the environment because they are lazy and thoughtless, and some then try to justify their own bad actions by talking about the elderly and disabled.
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» on 06.17.09 @ 07:02 AM
“Let us never forget…: You guessed it. Environmentalists not thinking things through. It was to save the trees from paper products, remember? Didn’t plastic bottles save us from using too much sand to make glass bottles? Something like that… “
Oh, yeah, sure, something like that.
The thing we should never forget, and that is illustrated with that comment, is that there are people who will lie through their teeth, regardless how ludicrous the lie, in their opposition to anything sensible. Of course plastic bottles were not invented to save us from using too much sand, and neither were plastic bags the result of environmentalists trying to save trees—that’s a complete fabrication.
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» on 06.17.09 @ 10:20 AM
As awareness increases, more and more alternatives to plastic usage and manufacturing will decrease. Plastic does not break down and lives on and on. We must all do a heads up on what we buy and “throw away” and keep our planet clean and balanced. Future generations count on us!
Thank you to those who work hard to keep the awareness forefront!
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» on 06.18.09 @ 11:48 AM
OK Marcy, if you say so. So you tell us the real story then, but first get a sense of humor. Plastic bags were in fact the response to whining about using paper bags, but I’m sure you aren’t old enough to have been there at the time. The using too much sand was a joke cutie pie ;) But don’t get your panties in a bunch over it.
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» on 06.18.09 @ 06:09 PM
There is no way tipping over a trash can or thousands of them created this huge trash pile in the ocean. That statement was the same kind of asinine crap the pseudo environmentalists use every time they want to prep people for more socialist engineering. That trash heap is coming from ocean going vessels dumping garbage at sea. Now here you have a legitimate use for environment law on an international level, the outlawing of ocean dumping. Once thought impossible to regulate it is now easy using GPS and RFID technology. But nooooooooooooooo, lets scrap the plastics industry, punish consumers and invite totalitarian government into our lives to tell us how to live. Forget the criminals dumping and causing the problem, lets shoot our own foot off instead, yep much easier, huh? Good grief!
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