9. Chris Jordan 100 billion plastic bags get used each year in the US. 100,000,000,000 ACUTAL SIZE This is an artist’s visualization of what gets used in just five seconds
10. “ But I Recycle…” . What percentage of plastic gets recycled in the U.S.?
Introduce yourself, tell the audience your name and what school or group you are from. Remind them you are a volunteer for the Plastics Are Forever RAP Presentation. If there are any questions you cannot answer, let them know you will find out and report back. And remind your audience that this is an interactive presentation, questions and comments are welcomed throughout your presentation. You are going to teach your audience to “Rise Above Plastics” in the presentation to stop the challenge of plastic pollution in our oceans and waterways.
How did plastics become so popular? Became popular after World War 2 (1940’s and 50’s) WW II shortages accelerated production of synthetic replacements for rope, rubber, metal and paper – Before this, we saved everything Wives/Moms could be more productive by not having to waste time washing and putting dishes away
The problem: every fork, knife, spoon and cup you see in this picture is still in existence today Plastic doesn’t EVER go away – Where is away?
We use plastics every day. From Cell phones to computers to artificial hearts to tooth brushes - we’re surrounded by it. Plastic is strong and durable and should be made for things that need to last a long time (tires, computers) But plastics Should NOT be for “disposable” things that are used for a minute or two and then thrown away (water bottles, star bucks cups, styrofoam to go containers)
What is plastic is made of ? IT’S MADE FROM PETROLEUM! Plastic = petroleum + chemicals + dyes Petroleum plastic doesn’t easily break down, but we make products from it that are designed to throw away. However it will photodegrade, which means sunlight breaks it into smaller pieces. We call this cradle to grave.
Who can guess how many plastic beverage bottles get used in the US every year?
We consume 50 billion water bottles every year in the US alone That’s almost 8,000 bottles every five seconds SOURCE: ^ "A Fountain On Every Corner", New York Times . Find A Fountain , May 23, 2008.
WHO CAN GUESS WHAT THIS IS
Plastic bags Approximately 100 billion plastic bags are used in the United States each year. That’s just the US. Imagine what it is worldwide. SOURCE: EPA http://www.epa.gov/waste/nonhaz/municipal/pubs/mswchar05.pdf
Many of you are probably thinking, “but I recycle” Recycling is great, but can any of you guess what percentage of plastic actually gets recycled here in the US?
Less than 10% of our plastic actually gets recycled (based on where you live) Look at the big gap between what is made (red line) and what is recycled (blue line) This graph is from 1995, imagine how much more we produce today, with ipods, plastic water bottles, etc. In 10 th grade we take a field trip to Puente Hills, Los Angeles’ largest landfill and we learned that they ship all of their plastics to China to be recycled, which means it requires more energy, AND we are sending our problems to another country to deal with (pollution, trash) Where does your recycling go? Visit your local recycling center.
Puente Hills Recycling Center is located in Los Angeles and is one of the largest recycling centers in the country. As you can see, most of the trash is plastic.
We produce approx. 120 billion pounds of plastic in the US every year. Where does it go? 1/2 of this goes straight to the landfill. It gets buried. Roughly 20% gets remade into durable goods - things like car bumpers or circuit boards Between 5-10% gets recycled. Which means we recover it and ship it abroad! That still leaves 25% unaccounted for.....
That 25% of plastics that are “unaccounted for” wind up in our streets, rivers, and storm drains More than 80% of the trash in the ocean comes from the streets (urban runoff) -- only 20% comes from ships These are stormdrains, trash that goes into these flow straight to the ocean (there is no filter or treatment) The picture on the right is the LA river
These pictures show what our oceans look like after it rains in LA All the trash from our streets have flooded to the ocean The top photo is Ballona (pronounced “Buy-own-a”) Creek, you can see a net catching some of the plastics. They remove this net when it rains, so that our streets don’t flood due to back up caused by all the trash
After the plastic ends up in the ocean, what happens to it? Our oceans are made up of complex networks of currents that circulate water around the world. These currents create “gyres”, massive, slow rotating whirlpools in which plastic trash can accumulate. Like a giant toilet bowl that never flushes The North Pacific is the most studied. Its also known as the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch?” The gyre is apprx twice the size of the US and plastic is accumalating in it rapidly It mainly consists of plastic - up to 80% of the debris is plastic Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/the-worlds-rubbish-dump-a-garbage-tip-that-stretches-from-hawaii-to-japan-778016.html
In 1997, Captain Charles Moore sailed from Hawaii to Los Angeles, and discovered an alarming amount of floating plastic trash. Since then, Captain Moore and the Algalita Marine Research Foundation have been studying plastic pollution in the North Pacific Gyre, bringing the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” to the world’s attention. Algalita has been across the North Pacific gyre 9 times with a research vessel, collecting samples of the oceans surface. (Hold up an actual gyre sample, collected thousands of miles from land). Here you can see a sample of the North Pacific Ocean, filled with broken down pieces of plastic trash. Our oceans are becoming a “plastic soup”.
Many people don’t realize that there are actually 5 oceanic gyres where plastic is believed to accumulate. Here you can see all 5. This year the 5 Gyres project sailed to the North Atlantic and Indian Ocean Gyres, and found plastic in both. Next year they’re going to the South Atlantic and South Pacific. We know that plastic pollution is a global issue.
This is “Mae West”, a snapping turtle that got trapped in a plastic ring when she was a baby. As she grew, the plastic ring didn’t grow with her. This is an example of how even small pieces of plastic trash can have serious consequences when they wind up in the wrong place. (PAUSE) Follow up video by repeating that phrase: “plastics are designed to last forever, but we make products from it that are designed to throw away.” This just doesn’t make sense.
Here’s a turtle caught in a plastic 6 pack ring.
Some plastic trash at sea comes from the fishing industry. When fishing lines are lost in the ocean, they don’t stop fishing, and can trap marine animals as they circulate around the gyres. Here you see a shark and a large sea turtle trapped in discarded fishing lines.
Here is a turtle pooping a plastic bag. You heard me, I said pooping...
Here’s a Laysan Albatross feeding its chick. The adults will fly for thousands of miles, looking on the ocean’s surface for food to bring back to their chicks. The baby (on the left) is prompting its parent to feed it, by nuzzling its beak. This is a signal to the parent to regurgitate.
Came from the stomach of a Laysan Albatross. They mistake our trash for food, eat it, and feed it to their chicks through regurgitation.
Birds eat the fish and they eat the floating plastic (bottle caps look like shrimp) Albatross live out in the ocean and skim the water for food They actually die of starvation and malnutrition because their bodies can’t process the plastic they eat and they feel “full”
1 trillion bags worldwide are used each year, how many must be floating around in the ocean?. Sea birds can get caught in plastic bags. The bird has no way of taking it off.
Many different marine animals are hurt by our plastic trash. 43% of marine mammals, 86% of sea turtle species, 44% of seabirds, and a growing list of fish.
Plastic pieces are like sponges for chemicals in the ocean like pesticides and oil drops from your car. These chemicals don’t mix with water, but they stick to plastic. Here you can see a plastic pellet turning brown with pollutants after its been in the ocean for a while A single plastic pellet can have up to a million times higher concentration of chemicals than the water around it.
In 2008, the Algalita Marine Research Foundation found plastic particles in 35% of the 671 Lantern fish they caught in the North Pacific Gyre. These are very common fish, eaten by bigger fish that we eat - Tuna, Mahi Mahi, Squid. If these fish eat plastic particles contaminated with chemicals, do these chemicals get into the tissues of fish, work their way up the food chain, and get into our bodies?
We mentioned earlier that plastic is made of oil, chemicals and dyes Well, some plastics actually leach the chemicals they are made of (meaning they get into or onto whatever they touch) Bisphenol A (biss-fin-ol) is a plastic hardener found in things like DVDs, the lining of canned food, baby bottles and some water bottles Phthlates (pronounced: tha’lates) is a plastic softener found in things like kids toys, baby teething rings and cosmetics These chemicals have been shown to cause breast cancer, early puberty, obesity and resistance to chemotherapy, ________ Pregnant women with high levels of phthalates delivered babies with a shorter anogential distance (the distance between the anus and the genitals, the shrinkage of which some scholars reflects “feminization” of male anatomy). Baby boys with shorter anogenital distance were also more likely to have undescended testicles and less penile volume Phthalates have been linked in humans to problems with sperm count and sperm quality.
Plastic containers don’t just leech the chemicals they are made of. Some of the things we put In our plastic containers already have these chemicals in them For example, all of the products on this page have phthalates in them– face wash, nail polish, hair dye, shave gel, perfume. The plastic chemicals do not just occur because of the plastic packaging, they are actually added to the product Phthalates have been linked to breast cancer, early puberty in girls, reduced testosterone levels, and lowered sperm Recent study of 20 teens found 16 chemicals in their blood and urine samples, including phthalates (plastics) Boys, if you think you are safe, think again – men's cologne, shaving gel, aftershave and shampoo have phthalates too. Dr. Shanna Swan authored a study in 2005 in science journal Environmental Health Perspectives that sent shock waves through the medical community. Took urine samples of 134 pregnant women in 3 cities, LA; Minneapolis; Columbia, Missouri and tested them for phthalate levels. Results showed a correlation b/w those who had higher phthalate levels and their male children which showed w/in 13 months of their birth a ‘reduced ano-genital distance” – i.e. incomplete masculinazation; a key indicator in testosterone levels “Wherever we’ve looked, human studies are consistent with rodent studies” she told CA Senate Panel on BPA – linked to development of prostate and breast cancer Netherlands, grown men asked to chew on pieces of plastic children’s toys then tested their saliva and blood, concluding how easily phthalates pass into the human body. Denmark – high level of phthalates = low testosterone levels in male infants World Wildlife Fund took blood samples from EU members of Parliament in 2004- detected phthalates in all 39 Ministers, one year later, voted to ban. Harvard School of Public Health, 2003, correlation b/w phthalate levels and sperm motility and concentration. CDC’s ongoing assessment found phthalates in every single test subject, highest in women and children. By mimicking the body’s own hormones or lodging in fatty tissues, bio-accumulative chemicals are generally not expelled through normal excretion mechanisms of the human body, instead they accumulate inside the body, releasing their toxins slowly, over time. We are marinating in a chemical soup, chemicals are being tested on us, in a real-time experiment.
SO, we’ve flooded your brain with some frightening facts. But here’s the good news. ITS REALLY EASY TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE. ATTEND local city council meetings- Its really important take the time even once this year when needed to help with bag and bottle bans. This is where the power of students come in! Vote with your dollar - stop purchasing items made out of single-use plastics
Start by BRINGING YOUR OWN WATER BOTTLES (safer, cheaper, look cool) ecousable sells cheap ones, we sell them too! BAG (for shopping, not just groceries, but clothes too); keep them in your car or bike basked: chico bags fold up and fit anywhere like your purse MUG or CUP for coffee shop (they’ll usually give you a discount) restaurants for soda too TUPPERWARE or TIFFIN for leftovers or lunches instead to go boxes SILVERWARE (we make and sell our own fork and spoon pouches and you can use what you’ve got at home) this is a bamboo set KEEP a jar in your car with silverwear –use it for a cup and you’ve got what you need for a party)
Polylactic acid (PLA) = plastic substitute made from fermented plant starch (usually corn) PLA can “BIODEGRADE” into carbon dioxide and water within 3 months in an INDUSTRIAL COMPOSTING facility (heated to 140 degrees Fahrenheit and fed a steady diet of digestive microbes); currently just over 100 facilities in the US; PLA makes it wetter and acidic Estimated that it could take anywhere from 100 to 1,000 years to decompose in a landfill (According a Smithsonian study) + “renewable” resource; doesn’t emit GHG’s when incinerated #7 plastic, but will contaminate plastics if recycled Usually made from genetically modified corn SOURCE: Earth Talk. The Environmental Magazine, Smithsonian http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/10022381.html http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/pla-corn-plastics-460608
SO, what can we do? Refuse, Reduce, Reuse and Recycle in that order (recycling isn’t good enough, we need to stop using plastic in the first place) Refuse plastic and rethink design without plastic (why do we need ALL that packaging?)
Sources: An Implementation Strategy for the California Ocean Protection Council Resolution to Reduce and Prevent Ocean Litter July 24, 2008
Now that you’ve heard about the problem, you can be a part of the solution. Take this message back to your school and your family. Make your community zero waste. Lets stop the flow of throwaway plastics that end up in our oceans. So we’ve taught you this presentation on line. Now its your turn. Find a group of friends, download the script, add some photos of plastic in your community, and help us spread the word. Go on line, fill out the application, and send us your ideas! You may be one of the 100 students selected for plastics are forever youth summit. Lets all help Captain Moore realize his dream to find the solution to plastic pollution. Good luck!
