by Tyler Broad

Like everybody else, I am still haunted by the mental images that I took from the Blue Planet II series: turtles trapped inside plastic nets, an albatross dying from a plastic toothpick piercing through its insides, and a pilot whale refusing to let go of her dead child. As Attenborough tells us, these are the impacts of our mindless waste of everyday products[1].

Our plastics are posing a significant threat to not just the oceans, but the entire globe. As the figure depicts, we are almost drowning in our own waste. Images such as these enable us to feel uplifted, which provokes change. It reminds us that the planet’s suffering is in our hands and we can amend our actions. Image: Boyce Duprey, CC BY 2.0 (2019).

Although nobody knows the exact value, it has been estimated that in 2015, there was approximately 150 million metric tons of plastic within our oceans[2]. Plastics can reach our coastlines from towns and cities by the wind, or even just by being flushed down the toilet[3]. In the ocean, plastics can float, sink, or be returned back onto the shore where they will gradually degrade[4]. Floating plastics move quickly with the ocean currents and can join gyres, which are long conveyor belts of ocean currents that cause our plastics to circulate around the globe, causing widespread impacts[5].

‘There is an annual economic cost to the world from the continued clogging of the oceans with never-ending currents of plastic between $6 billion and $19 billion’[6:32]. Despite what you might expect, the effect of plastics in our oceans doesn’t solely impact individual animals. Plastics impacting our marine animals will inevitably go on to affect humans too. “Plastic Pollution in the Marine Environment” aimed to revise our knowledge of plastics and highlighted how the fishing industry suffers from the deaths of fish ingesting plastics. Also, if by some chance, the fish manage to survive long enough to be captured by fishermen, the toxic chemicals that plastics comprise of will soon enter our bodies. Furthermore, the introduction of new animals via plastic rafts can threaten undeveloped countries because they may act as invasive species, whereby newly exposed animals eat the crops they grow or give diseases to their livestock[7].

Widespread interest in plastic pollution hasn’t always been so prevalent in today’s society and there is controversy over how it reached the forefront of the public’s attention. A study by Males and Van Aelst questioned whether it was the popular documentary series, Blue Planet II that sparked this awareness. They did this by comparing the number of times prior to and after 2008 that the phrase “plastic pollution” was mentioned in the media, in politics and newspapers. It found that within 10 months prior to its release, and 4 months after, the media’s average monthly coverage on plastic pollution increased by 5.7%, and for politics by 7%[8]. Despite this not being the intention of the Blue Planet series, it is likely that the public were shocked by the ‘emotional content of animals suffering the lethal consequences of “our” plastic’[8:13], e.g. the ‘scenes of whales choking on plastic and turtles strangled by plastic waste’[8:11]. This encouraged journalists and politicians to take action.

But regardless of where this interest came from, I believe that it is essential that we now use this knowledge to promote change, and in turn, save our planet [Figure 1]. We must assess our everyday actions and reduce our plastic waste, reuse and recycle our items (the three R’s)[9].

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References

[1] BBC (2017) Blue Planet II. [Documentary series]. Presented by David Attenborough.  London: BBC One.

[2] Parker. L., (2020) Plastic rubbish flowing into the seas will nearly triple by 2040 without drastic action. https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/environment-and-conservation/2020/07/plastic-trash-flowing-into-the-seas-will-nearly-triple-by-2040 [26/11/20].

[3] Surfers Against Sewage (2020) Plastic pollution facts and figures. https://www.sas.org.uk/our-work/plastic-pollution/plastic-pollution-facts-figures/ [26/11/2020].

[4] Lebreton. L., Slat, B., Ferrari, F., Sainte-Rose. B., Aitken. J., Marthouse. R., Hajbane. S., Cunsolo. S., Schwarz. A., Levivier. A., Noble. K., Debeljak. P., Maral. H., Schoeneich-Argent. R., Brambini. R & Reisser. J. (2018) Evidence that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is rapidly accumulating plastic. [PDF] London: Nature Publishing Group. Available at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-22939-w [Accessed 26 November 2020].

[5] National Geographic Society (2019) The global conveyor belt. Available at: https://www.nationalgeographic.org/media/global-conveyor-belt/#:~:text=The%20global%20conveyor%20belt%20is,transport%20water%20around%20the%20world.&text=Density%20depends%20on%20both%20the,a%20leisurely%201000%2Dyear%20cycle[Accessed 26 November].

[6] Fitch. C., (2020) Interception. Geographical Magazine, August. p.32.

[7] Thushari. G., & Senevirathna. J. (2020) Plastic pollution in the marine environment. Sri Lanka: Elsevier Ltd.

[8] Males. J., & Van Aelst. P. (2020) Did the Blue Planet set the agenda for plastic pollution? An explorative study on the influence of a documentary on the public, media and political agendas. Antwerp: Routledge.

[9] The Guides Network (ND) Reduce, reuse, recycle. Available at http://www.recycling-guide.org.uk/rrr.html[Accessed 28 November 2020].

[Figure 1]  Boyce Duprey from HANFORD, United States, CC BY 2.0 (2019). Be positive. It’s not too late. Available at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Be_Positive._It%27s_not_too_late._-_Flickr_-_Boyce_Duprey.jpg [25/01/2021].