What would we do without plastic? There wouldn't be any single-use water bottles, plastic wrap, plastic grocery bags, 6-pack holders, lawn chairs, packing "peanut" material phoenix arizona car rental or sandwich bags. Just one generation ago, we used recyclable materials such as paper, glass and metal to store food. Now we use petroleum plastic. This is a convenient and useful product that is very popular with our "throw-away" nation, but it's what happens after we are done with it that's the problem. These items are supposed to go to the local landfills where they breakdown phoenix arizona car rental and decompose. However, they are making their way to the Earth's largest landfill, which isn't actually on land; it's out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean in an area called the Great Pacific garbage patch located between Japan and the United States. Although plastic products have made life easier in the world, they are contaminating the oceans because litter is finding phoenix arizona car rental it's way out into the ocean, the materials are then breaking down and allowing toxic chemicals to leech into the water and plastic pieces are being ingested by maritime birdlife.
There are several phoenix arizona car rental types of plastic that we use in our daily life. We use hard plastics, plastic bags and a product called Styrofoam. Styrofoam, or polystyrene, is a petroleum-based plastic that has been combined with styrene monomer (Senegalese, 2012). Large amounts of these plastics are finding their way to the ocean. The largest amounts of ocean trash come from cruise and cargo ships. In 1975, the National Academy phoenix arizona car rental of Sciences estimated that ocean-based sources, such as cargo ships and cruise liners, dumped phoenix arizona car rental 14 billion pounds of garbage into the ocean(California Coastal Commission, 2011). The Mediterranean's surrounding countries have adopted bans on dumping in the ocean. They have relized that when something is dumped in the ocean, it winds up on shore and it soils the beaches. The cruise ships are now only allowed phoenix arizona car rental to dump food overboard. The remaining garbage is taken off the ship when it's in port and sent to a local landfill. The Caribbean, however, has not adhered phoenix arizona car rental to these same standards, mainly because the surrounding islands do not have the capacity to take the garbage from the cruise ships. When Grenada tried to tax $1.50 per head to Carnival Cruise Line so they could pay for a new landfill, Carnival withdrew and will not go back to the island(Melia, 2009). Under the Caribbean guidelines as of 2009, "ships can begin dumping garbage, phoenix arizona car rental including metal, glass and paper, three miles from shore as long as it is ground to less than an inch. Almost anything but plastic can be dumped beyond 25 miles"(Melia, 2009). An inch is small enough that a fish or turtle will think it's food, and large enough to choke on.
The cruise lines and cargo vessels are the biggest contributor to the garbage patch, but not the only way. Another way that trash is getting to the Great Garbage Patch is from rain and wind carrying litter to local rivers that eventually dump into the ocean. Trash on the street will accumulate in gutters and will likely get washed into a nearby storm drain. Most storm drain systems empty directly into local rivers, which flow into the ocean(California Coastal Commission, 2011). Once the trash makes its way to the ocean, it gets caught up in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. A gyre is a huge area where water of different temperatures mixes together causing a spiral effect in the current. There are five gyres in the world. The North Pacific phoenix arizona car rental Subtropical Gyre is the most researched, so we are more aware of the extent of the great Pacific garbage patch. While this gyre is roughly double the size of the United States, the other gyres are just as polluted and, while not as big, they are equally as dangerous to the environment(5 Gyres Institute, 2012). The process of trash getting from one side of the gyre to the other is a slow process. It can take as long as seven to eight years for a piece of trash to make it from the beaches of California phoenix arizona car rental to the Eastern Pacific garbage patch. This current changes during different times of the year due to El Nino. During the summer, the gyre is located more north, and in the winter phoenix arizona car rental it is located just above Hawaii. It has also been shown that marine animals tend to congregate in these areas as well (Pichel, phoenix arizona car rental et al., 2007). This is where animals build their nests, lay their eggs and raise their babies.
One of the ways that plastic is harmful is that it breaks down and releases toxins into the water. There is some debate as to where the plastic is breaking down though. In the right conditions the plastic could break down in the water due to the sun and rain. A recent study showed that it would take as little as one year for the decomposing of Styrofoam to start. This would release phoenix arizona car rental bisphenol A and styrene trimer into the water(Saido, et al., 2009). Charles Moore doesn't think that the breaking phoenix arizona car rental down of hard plastic is as likely due to the plastic being heavier than water, so it would sink. There is less sun at the bottom of the ocean, so no photosynthesis would occur. Also, the temperature at the bottom of the ocean is colder than the water in the test. Moore does point out however, that if the marine animals eat the plastic, it would digest inside of them and these chemicals would be released into their bodies (Leggett, 2009).
Another phoenix arizona car rental reason phoenix arizona car rental plastic and Styrofoam is harmful to the environment is that BPA, styrene and PS oligomer have now been found in small quantities phoenix arizona car rental in the ocean, which has been shown to cause hormonal imbalances in animals and humans. The immediate effects of low doses of these chemicals are largely unknown at this time, but these chemicals and other man-made chemicals have been found in the blubber of whales and bottlenose dolphins. A study of 300 blubber samples, from 14 geographic locations, from the years 2000-2007, was completed with surprising results. The closer the dolphins lived to large cities, the higher the contaminant in their blubber. The dolphins that lived in rural areas still had some pollutants, but not nearly phoenix arizona car rental as high as the dolphins closer to the cities(Sohn, 2011). There is again, some debate as to where this is coming from. It could be because the food they are eating is contaminated, or they are eating the plastic thinking that it is food, or it could be cause the water is contaminated and they are living in it. No one has been able to conclusively determine what is the cause.
We also have the problem of the plastic debris washing up on shore. While it seems like this would be easier to clean up than out in the middle of the ocean, the huge quantities phoenix arizona car rental are not easy to deal with. In one year, Japan has found as much as 150,000 tons of plastic and Styrofoam debris phoenix arizona car rental washed up on its shores(American Chemical Society, phoenix arizona car rental 2009). Plastic grocery bags are found all over the oceans. Whales and other animals eat them thinking phoenix arizona car rental they are jellyfish. Scientists have noted 177 different kinds of marine life that have been injured by plastic debris (Müller, C., Townsend, K., Matschullat, J., 2012). When you recycle plastic, you must know that there are rules to follow or the plastic will be sent on to the dump. Once you finish with a water bottle, you must remove the cap and the circle phoenix arizona car rental of plastic that was attached to the cap. These are a different plastic than the bottle, so even if you place your bottle in the recycle can, if this cap is still on, the bottle will be sent to the landfill. Also, like plastic grocery bags and polystyrene, not all plastics are recycled at the same plant. If these are placed in a recycle can, they will be taken to a local landfill. In order to get them where they need to go, you must take them to a drop-off site. To find a local drop-off site, you can go to earth911.com.
When items do not make it to the proper facilities for disposal, phoenix arizona car rental they may end up on our beaches. A major problem with shoreline plastic debris is that every year thousands of albatross chicks are dying from starvation and choking because their parents are feeding them plastic that looks like food. On the shores of Kure Atoll, northwest of Hawaii, the Albatross forage for food in the Western Pacific garbage patch. They are looking for flying fish eggs that are attached to floating object. New studies have shown that up to 50% of the undigested material phoenix arizona car rental in an albatross intestinal tract is plastic (Mayer, 2003). Even though the chicks are being fed, they are full of plastic, phoenix arizona car rental which can cause blockages and starvation. The plastic that does digest releases phoenix arizona car rental harmful phoenix arizona car rental toxins that can poison the albatross. phoenix arizona car rental Some of the most obvious plastic on beaches are cigarette lighters. In two-and-a-half months, volunteers collected phoenix arizona car rental 1000 lighters while they worked on the atoll (Mayer, 2003). These lighters were found inland, away from the water, closer to the nesting areas.
The best way to clean up this problem is to stop using plastic. phoenix arizona car rental Plastic bags are an immediate concern due to their inability to be recycled easily. Several countries phoenix arizona car rental have banned the use of plastic bags or made them less desirable by placing taxes on them. While the United States has made no attempt to stop the use of plastic bags, environmentally phoenix arizona car rental conscious stores, such as Trader Joe's and Albertson's, as well as the cities New York and San Francisco, have taken steps to help the reduction of plastic bag use. San Francisco has completely phoenix arizona car rental banned the thin plastic bags. Later it was reported phoenix arizona car rental that local plastics manufacturers are making phoenix arizona car rental more money off of the heavy-duty, recyclable bags (Tracy, T., Vara, V., Boles, C., 2012). Several European countries, phoenix arizona car rental as well as Ireland and Taiwan have imposed a tax on plastic bags. While Bangladesh, Australia, France, Italy and China have gone so far as to ban them altogether.
We are a very lazy society. There used to be a time when we had to get up from the couch to change the channel on the TV, we had to cook dinner from scratch in a cast iron pan, and we had to walk or ride a bicycle to work. This
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