Plastic Pollution

1. Litter in the Marine
Environment
Sierra Club Marine Action Team
Judith S. Weis

2. Trash and abandoned fishing gear (primarily large trawl and drift
nets) float into protected, low-energy, shallow-water
environments
MARINE LITTER - TRASH

3. Common Types of Trash on Beaches
Styrofoam food containers
Cans, plastic bottles Plastic straws
Cigarette butts
balloons
Toys, shoes….

4. Plastic Bags
Gradually break up into smaller and smaller
pieces. Toxic chemicals can leach out from the
plastic.

5. Plastic Bottles
Different kinds of plastic degrade at different rates, but the average
time for a plastic bottle to completely degrade is at least 450 years. It
can even take some bottles 1000 years to biodegrade! 90% of bottles
aren’t recycled .Bottles made with Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET or
PETE) will probably never biodegrade.
Styrofoam
Not biodegradable. It flies around in the wind, floats in
water, and breaks into tiny pieces littering beaches.

6. Balloons
They take years to biodegrade. Can kill marine life
since some sea creatures think they are food and
eat them. They block the digestive tract so animals
may starve to death.
Cigarette Butts
The most common form of litter on the
beaches of the U.S. and world-wide. Toxic
chemicals can leach out of the cigarette filters
into the water and harm marine life.

7. Entangling
Swallowing
Worldwide, 100,000 marine mammals and turtles
killed annually by plastic litter. 267 species found
entangled in or having ingested marine debris.

8. Marine Debris Statistics
• The Ocean Conservancy runs International Coastal Cleanup in 127
countries; volunteers clean up, take data every year 3rd Saturday in
September:
• 60% of debris is fishing lines and nets, beach toys, and food wrappers.
• 29% is cigarette butts and filters.
• Styrofoam, bags/film, plastic bottles common
• Plastic doesn’t break down – bottles, bags large part of debris
• Marine debris is increasing by ~5 %/yr despite increasing beach
cleanups
• New Article Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. Oct. 2015: 90% of sea birds are
eating plastic

9. Microplastics
• Definition: Plastic particles smaller than 1 mm
(see photo compared to a penny)
• Sources:
• breakdown of larger particles,
• fibers from synthetic fabrics in washing machines,
• microbeads (black spheres in photo) in personal care
products (scrubs, toothpaste)
• Accumulate in Great Garbage Patches in gyres in
the middle of the oceans
• Toxic chemicals attach to them. Are a route for
toxic chemicals to get into the food chain.
• Eaten by plankton and other small animals.
Found in fish skin, crab gills

10. Microplastics in the food chain
• 55% of fish species sampled in Indonesia contained human-derived
debris. In total, 28% of fish sampled contained debris, with one
having 21 pieces of plastic inside it.
• In the US, 67% of the species, including Pacific oyster, contained
debris. These included Pacific anchovy, striped bass and Chinook
salmon. 25% of the individuals sampled were affected.

11. Video Resources
• http://storyofstuff.org/movies/lets-ban-the-bead/ - microbeads
• http://storyofstuff.org/movies/story-of-bottled-water/
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLgh9h2ePYw - plastic bags

12. • Switch to reusable products (non-plastic preferred):
• Supermarket shopping and produce bags.
• reusable water bottle
• Switch to natural fabrics rather than plastic synthetics
• Refuse the plastic straw you are offered with a drink – or better tell
server ahead of time you don’t want one
• Ask restaurants for compostable packaging – plates, food to go
• Ban problematic consumer products
• Plastic bags (already banned in CA, HI and municipalities in 18 states)
• Polystyrene/styrofoam - foodware and packing peanuts (widely banned locally)
• microbeads (banned in US 2015)
• Clean up
• Recover lost fishing gear
• Organize local beach and river cleanups
What you can do to Reduce Plastic Pollution