Turning the Tide on Plastic

In the last blog post of this trilogy I want to address how we are dealing with the plastic that is in the ocean now that we know it’s having large scale consequences.

Whilst strategies such as the recently announced EU single-use plastic ban will reduce the amounts of waste ending up in the oceans it does not tackle what is already in there.

Initiatives such as the Ocean Cleanup aim to reduce the plastic that is already polluting the ocean. The operation uses the natural ocean forces to collect the plastic with the aim of a plastic free ocean by 2050. Removing the plastic now before it has the opportunity break down into microplastics allows for a much easier procedure.

Figure 1. The concentration of microplastics within the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The red line represents without cleanup and the blue line represents with cleanup. Source: The Ocean Cleanup.

This project however has seen some doubts from others believing that the device may not be fit for the Pacific and may become plastic pollution itself. There are worries wildlife will also be entangled.

Figure 2. The Drifting System in the ocean. Source: The Ocean Cleanup.

Another campaign titled 4ocean creates funding from the selling of recycled bracelets and in the last two years they have removed 2,239,201 pounds of waste from the oceans around 27 countries. In Haiti for example this is simply done by people in boats with fishing nets.

Surfers Against Sewage originally campaigned over the raw sewage that was often found in the water by the surfers but have recently turned to focus on litter. The charity organise beach cleans around the UK aiming to get the community involved in looking after their local environment.

Looking at this issue the past few weeks has brought to my attention that it has only taken a few entrepreneurial people to come up with ideas to resolve the problem that we have created. Whilst it appears governments are aware of the issue of plastic pollution it is apparent that there still is not adequate attention being paid towards it as the clean-up operations are being carried out by charities and private organisations. The question that I am left with is what can we do to implore governments to act on this?