So much has been said about plastics and their effects on our oceans. Allegedly, there is a floating island of plastic the size of Texas. Not only that, but, apparently, over 10 million tons of plastic enter oceans every year, “choking” them and causing harm to marine animals. It has even been claimed that there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050. People are demanding action, and I don’t blame them. However, as a scientist, I know it is wise to check the facts before jumping into action. Fortunately, there are many studies on this topic, so we have the information we need to know what is going on and what to do about it. Let us examine each claim one by one, comparing them to what scientists have to say.
Floating Island of Plastic
Here is a quote from a PhD thesis that investigated the floating island of plastic myth and how it came to be.
“Time Magazine describes a ‘swirling mass of plastic debris twice the size of Texas,’ human impact on the ocean so severe ‘You can literally see the result’ (Walsh 2008). The garbage patch is crowned ‘The World’s Largest Landfill’ by Discover amidst calls to recognize it as ‘the 8th continent’ (Kostigen 2008). Visible. Solid. Massive. The collective account does not shy from specifics. As reported by ABC News, the San Francisco Chronicle, and even Oprah, among countless others, the garbage patch spans hundreds of miles, is one hundred meters deep, and weighs 3.5 million tons (Berton 2007; Bonfils 2008). It is, following the most recited descriptor, twice the size of Texas. Or, in all its regional variations, ‘as large as Central Europe’ (Pravda 2004), with a ‘footprint as large as France and Spain combined’ (WHIM 2014), even ‘twice the size of America’ (Daily Mail 2008). This floating mass growing in the North Pacific Ocean, northeast of the Hawaiian Islands is surely impossible to miss…’”
And now for the punchline…
“But despite general agreement on its location and the proliferation of claims about its size, no one can find it; not on Google Earth, not after weeks at sea. The trash island is not there.”
K. De Wolff, Gyre Plastic: Science, Circulation and the Matter of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, PhD Thesis, University of California, San Diego, 2014
The researcher interviewed Captain Moore who discovered the “patch” to ask him how the myth of an island was created, and this is what she discovered.
“My next question, and what I so desperately want to know, is who was the first to call the garbage patch a trash island? To my surprise, Moore points to ‘foreign papers,’ specifically Pravda and proceeds to describe a captivating image of a ‘Matterhorn looking mountain,’ an artists conception of a floating trash heap. Soon after the interview, I search media archives and am pleased to find that Moore’s tip checks out — the earliest mention of a floating trash island does appear to be in Pravda Online, February 24th, 2004. The short article, ‘”Trash Island” discovered in the Pacific Ocean,’ takes its content in turn from an article in German National Geographic equivalent Geo that describes a ‘carpet’ of plastic in the ocean. How the carpet turned into an island remains a mystery of English-German-Russian-English translation.”
So, the German National Geographic reported a “carpet” of plastic, but the Russian newspaper Pravda translated “carpet” as “island” accompanied by an artist’s impression of a mountain of plastic. This is how easy it is to create a myth that rapidly spreads around the world with no one thinking to check whether it’s actually true. Ironically, “pravda” means “truth” in Russian.
In his book Plastic Ocean, Captain Moore described what the gyre is, in his own words:
“Let it be said straight up that what we came upon was not a mountain of trash, an island of trash, a raft of trash or a swirling vortex of trash — all media-concocted embellishments of the truth. It would become known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch a term that’s had great utility but, again, suggests something other than what’s out there. It was and is a thin plastic soup, a soup lightly seasoned with plastic flakes, bulked out here and there with ‘dumplings’: buoys, net clumps, floats, crates, and other ‘macro debris’.”
Plastic Ocean: How a Sea Captain’s Chance Discovery Launched a Determined Quest to Save the Oceans, C. Moore & C. Phillips, Avery/Penguin 2011
If there is no floating island, then what about the “soup”? How much plastic is there? The number we see everywhere and touted by NGOs is 10–12 million tons of plastic entering the oceans per year. They often express it as a truckload of plastic per minute. Here’s one headline from Greenpeace, and CNN picked up the story, along with many more.
Every minute of every day, the equivalent of one truckload of plastic enters the sea
That sounds like a lot, but where does this number come from and how accurate is it? The estimate comes from an old publication by Jambeck. It had an enormous impact and has been quoted widely ever since.
“Plastic debris in the marine environment is widely documented, but the quantity of plastic entering the ocean from waste generated on land is unknown. By linking worldwide data on solid waste, population density, and economic status, we estimated the mass of land-based plastic waste entering the ocean. We calculate that 275 million metric tons (MT) of plastic waste was generated in 192 coastal countries in 2010, with 4.8 to 12.7 million MT entering the ocean.”
J. Jambeck et al., Plastic waste inputs from land into the ocean, Science, 347 (6223), pp. 768–771, 2015
But there’s a major problem with the publication: It’s pure guesswork, totally unsupported by any kind of data! How was the estimate made then? The author estimated the amount of unmanaged waste and then assumed that a large proportion of it gets into the rivers and is washed into the ocean. The authors admit that accurately estimating the actual amount is impossible; therefore, they guessed that up to 45% of mismanaged waste somehow reaches the ocean.
“Some percentage of the total mismanaged plastic waste (inadequately managed plus litter) enters the ocean and becomes marine debris. To our knowledge no direct estimates of this conversion rate exist.”
J. Jambeck et al., Plastic waste inputs from land into the ocean, Supplemental Material, Science, 347 (6223), 2015
Jambeck made her guess in 2015, and in the years since, scientists have scoured the oceans looking for the millions of tons of plastic that she says should be there. But they failed to find it. “Where is the ‘missing plastic’?” they asked. The most comprehensive analysis comes from Weiss, who meticulously analysed all the data on ocean plastic collected over the years by various research groups. They pointed out that Jambeck claimed rivers are the major source of ocean plastic.
“Leakage from waste generation and inadequate disposal on land—i.e., mismanaged plastic waste (MPW)—was initially identified as the main driver for plastic discharge to the ocean, with a potential annual transfer of 4.8 to 12.7 million metric tons (Mt). Rivers are recognized as the principal conveyors in this transfer.”
And Weiss goes on to say that the actual amounts of plastic coming from the rivers are a thousand times less than Jambeck claimed: not 10 or 12 million tons, but actually about 6000 tons a year.
“On the basis of an in-depth statistical reanalysis of updated data on microplastics—a size fraction for which both ocean and river sampling rely on equal techniques—we demonstrate that current river flux assessments are overestimated by two to three orders of magnitude.”
L. Weiss et al., The missing ocean plastic sink: Gone with the rivers, Science, 373 (6550), pp. 107–111, 2021
It is vital to stress that this is not one study against another study. This is one study based on a guess against many other independent studies spanning many years and many thousands of actual measurements.
Even back in the same year that Jambeck came up with the millions-of-tons guess, other scientists pointed out that it didn’t agree with the evidence. Cózar showed that ocean plastic is hundreds or thousands of times less than Jambeck stated and that the 10-million-ton guess is wildly too high.
“In the present study, we confirm the gathering of floating plastic debris, mainly microplastics, in all subtropical gyres. The current plastic load in surface waters of the open ocean was estimated in the order of tens of thousands of tons”
“Nevertheless, even our high estimate of plastic load, based on the 90th percentile of the regional concentrations, is considerably lower than expected, by orders of magnitude.”
A. Cózar et al., Plastic debris in the open ocean, PNAS, 111 (28), pp. 10239–44, 2014
Scientists even went so far as to say that people with ulterior motives have intentionally misled us about ocean plastics.
“In this viewpoint, we argue that plastic pollution has been overemphasised by the media, governments and ultimately the public as the major threat to marine environments at the expense of climate change and biodiversity loss. We discuss why this can be a convenient truth, especially as some mechanisms to reduce plastic waste play into corporate greenwashing in a neoliberal economy rather than addressing the root cause of overconsumption of resources.”
R. Stafford & P. J. S. Jones, Viewpoint – Ocean plastic pollution: A convenient but distracting truth?, Marine Policy, 103, pp. 187–191, 2019
They state that the focus on plastics is an attempt to distract us from the real problems, such as the overconsumption of resources.
More Plastic than Fish by 2050?
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation made the claim that there would be more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050.
“The best research currently available estimates that there are over 150 million tonnes of plastics in the ocean today. In a business-as-usual scenario, the ocean is expected to contain 1 tonne of plastic for every 3 tonnes of fish by 2025, and by 2050, more plastics than fish (by weight).”
Other organisations, including the WWF, WEF, Greenpeace, Plastic Soup, Surfers Against Sewage and UNEP, have repeated the claim. It’s a scary thought that captures our imagination and sticks in our minds. But is it true?
Here are the assumptions they made.
- First, they claim that there are 150 million tons of plastic in the oceans already.
- Secondly, they claim that the amount of plastic grows by over 8 million tons per year.
- Thirdly, they claim the amount is growing exponentially.
- Fourthly, implicit in their calculation is that none of the plastic degrades and vanishes.
- Finally, they claim that the total amount of fish in the oceans is 800–900 million tons.
The problem is that every assumption they made is wrong. In fact, the BBC and the CBC both showed that the claims were shaky at best, and a closer scientific examination totally discredits the claim as pure fiction. There is no evidence that there are 150 million tons in the ocean now. They used the disproven Jambeck estimate for the amount added per year. Then, they assumed, without proof, that the amount increases exponentially despite 50 years of data across many studies in this comprehensive review showing no such increase in the amounts of plastic in the ocean, on beaches, or on the ocean floor.
“For microplastics, floating particles were found at similar levels between 2005 and 2014 in East Greenland, in the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre between 1986 and 2008 and in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre between 2001 and 2012. In addition, no changes in floating microplastics (>150µm) were detected between 1987 and 2015 in the Baltic Sea, between 1987 and 2012 in the North Atlantic subtropical gyre and between 2001 and 2012 in the North Pacific Subtropical gyre. For ingested large debris, constant levels were also demonstrated for stranded cetaceans recorded from Irish waters between 1990 and 2015, and in western Mediterranean sea turtles between 1995 and 2016.”
F. Galgani et al., Are litter, plastic and microplastic quantities increasing in the ocean?, Microplastics and Nanoplastics, 1 (2), 2021
They also found no increase in microplastic or ingested plastic since 2000.
“For large debris on beaches, an absence of temporal trend was demonstrated for macroplastics in the North Atlantic, between 2001 and 2011, in Chile, between 2006 and 2016 and for data from cleanups in Taiwan, between 2004 and 2016. An absence of temporal trends was also observed for large floating debris in the Balearic Islands between 2005 and 2015 and in China, between 2007 and 2014. In addition, collections of marine litter by Continuous Plankton Recorders showed relatively unchanged amounts trapped annually in the North East Atlantic since 2000, following a steady increase since the 1950s.”
“In seafloor litter studies, no change in plastic pollution was measured in Spain between 2007 and 2017 nor in the North Sea. A slight increase in seafloor plastics was observed in recent years in the Baltic (excluding fishing gear), while results from observations in France, between 1995 and 2017 (23 years), showed mixed trends, of decreasing amounts between 2000 and 2013 and of increases since 2013. No trend was identified in Chinese waters for sea floor litter between 2007 and 2014, with a large variability in plastics concentration and from data collected during regular State monitoring between 2011 and 2018. In contrast, a decrease in total seafloor litter was measured between 2007 and 2017, in both the Alboran Sea and the northern Adriatic, without significant temporal trends for plastic in the remaining Adriatic.”
The review is incredibly thorough, covering study after study across decades, yet the data consistently shows that the amount of ocean plastic is not increasing. This stands in stark contrast to the narrative being pushed by policymakers and NGOs. These groups often rely on modelling studies that predict an increase, even when overwhelming real-world data shows that the models are flawed.
Why is this discrepancy ignored? Corrupt NGOs seem unwilling to let inconvenient facts disrupt their agenda. A genuine environmental organisation would celebrate and share this positive news, yet we’ve seen no such behaviour — have we?
What about the notion that the plastic just accumulates and never degrades? Is that true?
“I was shocked by how small the pieces were. I was shocked that so many pieces were so tiny and that everything was degrading so quickly.”
K. De Wolff, Circulating Away: Plastic, Science and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, PhD Thesis, University of California, San Diego, 2014
Subsequent chapters cover degradation and microplastics, demonstrating that plastics do degrade and do so much more rapidly than anyone imagined. We will not go into more detail on those subjects here except to point out what scientists have said about the effects of microplastics on the ocean.
“We conducted an ecological risk assessment of MP [microplastics] in the global ocean by comparing the thresholds of biological effects with the probability of exposure to those concentrations…”
“Levels of MP from 100 to 5000 µm span from < 0.0001 to 1.89 mg/L, whereas the most conservative safe concentration is 13.8 mg/L, and probability of exposure is p = 0.00004. Therefore large MP pose negligible global risk.”
R. Beiras & M. Schönemann, Currently monitored microplastics pose negligible ecological risk to the global ocean, Nature Scientific Reports, 10, 22281, 2020
So, there is “negligible” risk because there are simply far too few microplastics in the ocean to have any effect, and as we saw previously, the amount is not increasing.
Here is another study that shows no accumulation of microplastics and 10,000 times too few microplastics to cause any effect.
“Microplastics are ingested and, mostly, excreted rapidly by numerous aquatic organisms. So far, there is no clear evidence of bioaccumulation or biomagnification.”
“Based on the evaluated data, the lowest concentrations eliciting adverse effects in aquatic organisms exposed via the water are by a factor of approximately 10 000 times than maximum microplastic concentrations found in marine waters.”
K. Duis & A. Coors, Microplastics in the aquatic and terrestrial environment: sources (with a specific focus on personal care products), fate and effects, Environmental Sciences Europe, 28 (2), 2016
The fact that the debunked claim that the oceans contain more plastic than fish (at least by 2050) has never been retracted is very telling. Organisations genuinely dedicated to helping the environment would publish accurate information and retract any claims that turned out to be false because we can only make wise decisions based on accurate data. When self-proclaimed environmental groups perpetuate falsehoods, it makes one question their credibility and what their real motives are.
Ocean Clean-up
Since most people imagine a floating island of plastic, they think you can just go there and scoop it up or tow it away. Having read this book, you realise that there is no floating island and that the small pieces of plastic, which are widely dispersed, mean that clean-up is not realistic.
“A lot of people hear the word patch and they immediately think of almost like a blanket of trash that can easily be scooped up, but actually these areas are always moving and changing with the currents, and it’s mostly these tiny plastics that you can’t immediately see with the naked eye.” — Diana Parker, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
oceanservice.noaa.gov/podcast/mar18/nop14-ocean-garbage-patches.html
In fact, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has made some calculations on the idea of cleaning up the gyres with ships and nets.
“We did some quick calculations that if you tried to clean up less than one percent of the North Pacific Ocean it would take 67 ships one year to clean up that portion. And the bottom line is that until we prevent debris from entering the ocean at the source, it’s just going to keep congregating in these areas. We could go out and clean it all up and then still have the same problem on our hands as long as there’s debris entering the ocean.”
How much would it cost to attempt a clean-up using ships? Here are some calculations I found online.
“Suppose we were to attempt to clean up less than 1% of the North Pacific Ocean (a 3-degree swath between 30° and 35°N and 150° to 180°W), which would be approximately 1,000,000 km2. Assume we hired a boat with an 18 ft (5.5 m) beam and surveyed the area within 100 m off of each side of the ship. If the ship traveled at 11 knots (20 km/hour), and surveyed during daylight hours (approximately 10 hours a day), it would take 67 ships one year to cover that area! At a cost of $5,000-20,000/day, it would cost between $122M and $489M for the year. That’s a lot of money—and that’s only for boat time. It doesn’t include equipment or labor costs (keep in mind that not all debris items can be scooped up with a net).”
Carey Morishige, Pacific Islands Regional Coordinator, NOAA Marine Debris Program
Not only would this approach fail, but it would also come at an enormous financial cost. And let us not forget the diesel fuel burned and the black smoke emitted by all those ships. The net effect (pun intended) would be to increase environmental harm. The “cure” is worse than the illness, but that has not stopped organisations from raising huge sums to do just that. One has to wonder if they are fraudsters who are fully aware of the facts and don’t care about profiting off good-hearted, but gullible, donors.
A. Cózar et al., Plastic Accumulation in the Mediterranean Sea, PLOS ONE, 10 (4), 2015
There is so much talk about the gyres that no one ever looks at the amount of plastic and other debris outside them in the rest of the ocean. Scientists have studied that too, though, and the answer is that the amount of debris is close to zero. Yet, good news does not make headlines or get donations into the greedy hands of NGOs, which is why this information has not been shared more widely. Even within those areas where ocean currents concentrate debris, the maximum amount of plastic is about 1 kg (about 2 lbs) per square kilometre. That means that the oceans are not “choking in plastic.”
Another term used for the gyres is a “plastic soup,” but again, that is not accurate. If it is a soup, then it is the wateriest, most useless soup you have ever seen. The amount of plastic would be one tiny flake per three bathtubs of clean ocean water.
Don’t misunderstand my point: There should not be any chemicals, metal, paper, glass, or plastic in the ocean, and we should stop dumping these things there where they do not belong. At the same time, it is counterproductive to lie to the public, our children, and policymakers about the amounts. We need to stop the lies and start making rational decisions based on real data.
What is in the Gyres?
There is so much talk about the gyre. We now know that there is no floating island of plastic and that the gyres are actually areas where the ocean currents concentrate floating materials. So, what exactly is there? Is there actual harm caused? And what should we do, if anything?
“Our new results indicate that a significant fraction of these hard plastics may also be coming from fishing vessels. Adding to the mass of floating nets and ropes, this suggests that between 75 and 86% of the floating plastic mass (> 5 cm) in the NPGP could be considered abandoned, lost or otherwise discarded fishing gear.”
L. Lebreton et al., Industrialised fishing nations largely contribute to floating plastic pollution in the North Pacific subtropical gyre, Nature Scientific Reports, 12, 12666, 2022
They recorded over 500 kg of material, totalling 6048 items. The vast majority were discarded fishing gear, including so-called “ghost nets” that harm marine life like whales, turtles, and fish. How many bags did they find? Zero. How many straws? One. How many plastic bottles? Nine. Those common consumer items made up only 0.03% of the material found!
The United Nations have been holding many meetings to address this problem. That sounds wonderful until you read their plans, which are to completely ignore the fishing nets that cause harm and instead focus on the 0.03% of consumer items that do not. That is a sure path to failure and makes one wonder about the competence and true motives of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
Also, it’s worth mentioning that the study noted the total amount had decreased by 33% since the last measurement 4 years prior. Of course, no one was told about that because good news doesn’t warrant a mention and it doesn’t create donations for NGOs.
Now we know what is there, it is time to look at what really harms marine life.
Turtles
What about the famous video claiming that a turtle had a straw up its nose? That has been watched about 200 million times on YouTube and helped to propel an anti-plastic straw movement resulting in bans in many countries. The problem with that is that there is no evidence that the item was made of plastic or that it was a straw. They pulled out an object and asked each other what it was.
Man: “Do you know what this is?”
Woman: “What is it?”
Man: “That’s a worm.”
Woman: “Is it a hookworm?”
Man: “I think it’s a tube worm.”
Eventually, they pull the object out and say, “He bit on it, and he said it’s plastic.”
That is all the “proof” ever given that it was plastic — some dude in swimming trunks bit on it. As a scientist, I can reveal that is not a valid test. To know what something is made of, we need to send it to a laboratory for tests like infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Raman spectroscopy, or nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). Biting does not count. When you look at the object, it is not at all clear what it is. So, a fellow scientist wrote and asked the sea turtle video “researchers” how they knew it was a straw. They replied:
“Thank you kindly for reaching out. I can confirm that we did not run any chemical tests to 100 % confirm the nature of the ‘straw’. I doubt that it is surgical PVC or anything similar, although I think there is a slim possibility that it could be electrical wire insulation.”
Nathan J. Robinson, Marine Biologist and Science Communicator, 19 July 2021
200 million people believe a sea turtle was harmed by a straw despite there being zero evidence that it was a straw and zero evidence that it was made of plastic. Welcome to a world where crazy nonsense travels all over the world, evoking emotions and actions that make things worse. As we will see later in the book, moving to paper straws increases impact and does nothing to help the oceans because it was never an issue in the first place.
What about bags? Are they a threat to turtles? After all, we see images of turtles with bags around their necks or eating plastic bags almost daily. It turns out that every such image we have ever seen was made in Photoshop or similar image editing software.
The BBC showed such an image, and I busted them on social media for it. To their credit, they apologised and updated the story as shown.
“Correction 16th January 2023: The article originally included a picture of a Hawksbill Turtle swimming underwater while entangled in a plastic bag. However as this was a concept picture, and the bag was not present in the original photo, we have replaced this image.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/stories-64250382, 14 January 2023
Surprisingly, there is an ongoing experiment that reveals the incidence of plastic bags in the ocean. They have been sailing ships all around to measure plankton and every time their small net gets clogged with a piece of plastic bag, they have to remove it and make a note in the ship’s logbook. The remarkable part is that this same method had been used for decades from 1957 to 2016, spanning 6.5 million nautical miles of ocean travelled. How far does the ship have to sail before it collects a piece of plastic bag in the net? Have a guess…
The answer is 100,000 miles. That is 4 times around the planet just to find one piece of bag, so anyone telling us that the ocean is drowning in plastic bags is not fond of honesty. Not only that, but they reported peak amounts a few decades ago followed by a decrease.
C. Ostle et al., The rise in ocean plastics evidenced from a 60-year time series, Nature Communications, 10 (1622), 2019
This is not the only such measurement either. A recent collection of items for analysis of the Pacific Ocean Gyre found 0.00% bags. Junk is in the oceans, and it should not be there, but let us take actions that matter rather than making up fiction about it.
“The composition of marine debris…was similar to that found in other studies for the western Mediterranean and their amounts seem not to be an important threat to turtle survival in the region.”
National Research Council – Decline of the Sea Turtles: Causes and Prevention. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 1990
Allen M. Foley et al., Characterizing Watercraft‐Related Mortality of Sea Turtles in Florida, The Journal of Wildlife Management, 83 (5), pp. 1057–1072, 2019
F. Domènech et al., Two decades of monitoring in marine debris ingestion in loggerhead sea turtle, Caretta caretta, from the western Mediterranean, Environmental Pollution, 244, pp. 367–378, 2019
Studies on what harms turtles exist, and they show, as expected, that it is abandoned nets. The same nets that UNEP plans to ignore.
Whales
What is a threat to whales? Again, we have multiple studies and not one mention of the words: “plastic,” “bag,” “bottle,” or “straw.” Anyone truly out to protect whales should push for regulations on abandoned fishing nets and better sonar for boats to prevent them from running over the whales. Logical, helpful solutions come into focus once we have the data.
J. M. Van der Hoop et al., Assessment of Management to Mitigate Anthropogenic Effects on Large Whales, Conservation Biology, 27 (1), pp. 121–133, 2012
R. Knowlton, S. M. Kraus, Mortality and serious injury of northern right whales (Eubalaena glacialis) in the western North Atlantic Ocean, Journal of Cetacean Research and Management, 2, pp. 193–208. 2001
C. Kemper et al., Southern right whale (Eubalaena australis) mortalities and human interactions in Australia, 1950-2006, Journal of Cetacean Research and Management, 10 (1), pp. 1–8, 2008
J. J. Meager, Marine wildlife stranding and mortality database annual report 2012. II. Cetacean and Pinniped, Conservation Technical and Data Report, 2, pp. 1–38, 2013
The NOAA tracks unusual mortality events for whales. Looking at data from 2012 to 2024, they said:
“Partial or full necropsy examinations were conducted on approximately half of the whales. Of the whales examined (approximately 90), about 40 percent had evidence of human interaction, either ship strike or entanglement.”
NOAA 2016–2024 Humpback Whale Unusual Mortality Event Along the Atlantic Coast
Now that we know what really harms whales, the solution becomes obvious. Scientists have tracked where the whales are and compared their locations to shipping routes in order to redirect ships around high danger zones. Combined with speed restrictions, this should be an effective way to prevent further harm to whale — nothing to do with plastics.
A. C. Nisi et al., Ship collision risk threatens whales across the world’s oceans, Science, 386, pp. 870–875, 2024
G. K. Silber et al., The role of the International Maritime Organization in reducing vessel threat to whales: Process, options, action and effectiveness, Marine Policy, 36 (6), pp. 1221–1233, 2012
There is a funny story about the harm to whales. When confronted with the science on what really harms whales, one lady was so desperate to cling to her belief that it must be plastic that she pushed back on the evidence saying, “But I live in Australia and your studies are on whales from other places.” This highlights how hard it is to reach people who are already brainwashed. I had to go find studies on whales in her region, which is, of course, nonsensical because whales do not live in one spot. These are, of course, the same whales that swim all over the world.
Sharks and Rays
The study used the unusual method of analysing mentions on social media to estimate the harm to sharks and rays. They found that discarded fishing gear was by far the major problem and also that the effects of marine pollution are dwarfed by the amount of harm from fishing. This is a vital point because accurately evaluating any issue and finding appropriate actions requires putting its impact into perspective.
“The numbers of entangled elasmobranchs reported here are minimal in comparison to the numbers of elasmobranchs caught directly in targeted fisheries or indirectly as bycatch.”
K. J. Patton et al., Global review of shark and ray entanglement in anthropogenic marine debris, Endangered Species Research, 39, pp. 173–190, 2019
The science shows that if we want to protect sharks and rays, then the best action is to better regulate the fishing industry.
Birds
If online gossip is to be believed, ingestion of plastic is a major threat to birds. For people not gullible enough to believe every headline they see, scientists can offer insights here as well.
“Often, it is difficult to produce evidence for causal links between ingested debris and mortality, and as a consequence, documented cases of death through plastic ingestion are rare. A direct lethal result from ingestion probably does not occur at a frequency relevant at the population level.”
M. Bergman, L. Gutow, M. Klages (Eds.), Marine Anthropogenic Litter, Chapter 4, p. 93, Springer 2015
The book says that if there is any effect, it is too small to be relevant. What do other studies say?
“Long-term studies on seabirds have shown that measures to reduce loss of plastics to the environment do have relatively rapid effects. After considerable attention to the massive loss of industrial pellets to the marine environment in the early 1980s, improvements in production and transport methods were reflected in a visible result in the marine environment within one to two decades: several studies from around the globe showed that by the early 2000s the number of industrial granules in seabird stomachs had approximately halved from levels observed in the 1980s”
M. Bergman, L. Gutow, M. Klages (Eds.), Marine Anthropogenic Litter, Chapter 4, p. 105, Springer 2015 Citing Van Franeker & Meijboom, 2002
While certain groups have brought up the topic of plastic pellets (sometimes called “nurdles”), it turns out that this was identified by the US EPA in 1993. Then, action was taken such that the amounts ingested are now far lower and are not increasing, unlike what we have been led to believe.
“Between 1958 and 1959 they found no plastic in prions but from then on there was an upward trend in plastic consumption until 1977. A peak of plastic ingestion was detected in 1985 and 1995 in a number of long-term studies…”
“In contrast to the continuing growth of global plastic use and increase in marine activities, the trend of plastic consumption decreased and stabilized from 2000 onwards approaching the 1980s level.”
M. Bergman, L. Gutow, M. Klages (Eds.), Marine Anthropogenic Litter, Chapter 4, p. 85, Springer 2015 Citing Moser & Lee 1992, Robards et al. 1995, Spear et al. 1995, Mrosovsky et al. 2009, Van Franeker et al. 2011, Bond et al. 2013
Is plastic truly the prime culprit when it comes to harm to seabirds? Scientists have investigated that too.
“Obstruction of the gastro-intestinal tract is the leading cause of death. Overall, balloons are the highest-risk debris item; 32 times more likely to result in death than ingesting hard plastic. These findings have significant implications for quantifying seabird mortality due to debris ingestion, and provide identifiable policy targets aimed to reduce mortality for threatened species worldwide.”
L. Roman et al., A quantitative analysis linking seabird mortality and marine debris ingestion, Nature – Scientific Reports, 9, 3202, 2019
Again, we find that a focus on plastic is misplaced and that if we want to protect birds, then we should concentrate on rubber balloons.
What is a real threat to birds if it isn’t plastic? The top threat is cats. It has been estimated that up to 2 billion birds are killed each year by cats in the USA alone. So, anyone genuinely interested in bird well-being would be better off putting a bell on their cat than fretting about plastic. By the way, bird mortality due to wind turbines is real, but the number of cases is negligible compared to other causes.
S. R. Loss, T. Will & P. P. Marra, Direct Mortality of Birds from Anthropogenic Causes, Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics, 46, pp. 99–120, 2015
W. P. Erikson et al., A Summary and Comparison of Bird Mortality from Anthropogenic Causes with an Emphasis on Collisions, USDA Forest Service Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-GTR-191 pp. 1029–1024, 2005
Ocean-bound Plastic
This is a scheme that claims to prevent plastic from entering the ocean. There is even an Ocean Bound Plastic certification. The idea is that they intercept plastic that would have been washed into the ocean. That sounds like an admirable enough goal, but did you notice how they define “ocean-bound”?
“OBP is an ‘Abandoned Plastic Waste’ (microplastics, mezzo-plastics and macro-plastics), located within 50km from shores where waste management is inexistent or inefficient. When already located in a landfill or managed dump site, the plastic waste is not considered as OBP. However, when abandoned in an uncontrolled or informal dump site, this waste is considered as OBP.”
https://www.obpcert.org/what-is-ocean-bound-plastic-obp/
They used the Jambeck definition, i.e. the definition from a study that has been proven to be invalid because it grossly overestimates plastic getting into the ocean. The reality is that plastic within 50 km (around 35 miles) of the ocean has a much less than 1% chance of ever reaching the ocean. This means that “ocean-bound plastic” was never actually ocean-bound. In short, this is another example of how actions initiated without proper due diligence end up backfiring.
Summary
We have been told that oceans are choking in plastic, that these amounts are huge and increasing exponentially. Harm to turtles, whales, and other marine life is said to be extreme, and we must empty our pockets now to address this urgent emergency.
In stark contrast, comprehensive scientific studies spanning decades and millions of miles of measurements show low amounts of plastic that are not increasing. Consumer items like bags, straws, and bottles are 0.03% of ocean gyre plastic, with no evidence that they are a significant threat.
Studies find that the vast majority of ocean junk is actually discarded fishing nets and other gear.
What is the solution? NGOs are having multiple meetings at the United Nations Environmental Program with the clearly stated goal of reducing plastic consumption and consumer plastics that do not cause harm. They also stated their intention to ignore completely the real, proven danger of discarded nets. This is another example of what happens when NGOs are allowed to mislead the public and policymakers. Not only that, but the NGOs work hard to make sure that no independent scientist shows the real data because then their game would be up, their power gone, and the vast income they receive from fiction-mongering would disappear.
The tens of thousands of flights to attend the UNEP INC meetings generate vast impact while the meetings achieve nothing of value. Their net effect is negative (pun intended).
The solution to help the oceans is clear — education, deposits, and fines for the fishing industry.
Ocean clean-up has been proposed and funded, but it is a futile exercise that increases harm because the fossil fuel used and GHG emissions from operating the ships far exceed any potential benefit from cleaning up the tiny amounts of plastic they collect.