Plastic in the ocean

Up to 11 million tonnes of plastic pollution is sitting on the ocean floor. Every minute, a garbage truck’s worth of plastic enters the ocean. CSIRO Plastic production rates are intensifying and the volume of refuse humans release into marine systems is growing at an exponential rate.

CSIRO

The scale of plastic pollution is staggering. Every year 130,000 tonnes of plastic leaks into the marine environment of Australia. Australians use around 70 billion pieces of soft “scrunchable” plastics including food wrappers each year. Our use of plastic is increasing across the world. Three quarters of the rubbish along the Australian coast is plastic and plastic waste is set to double by 2040 if nothing is done. (Dept of Agriculture, Water and the Environment)

Containers lost overboard from ships are now a significant cause of pollution in the marine environment from cargo that is harmful to marine species. There is no accurate data on this and no international regulation for recovery. AMSA

No doubt plastic has improved our lives over time but plastic and plastic waste are now a serious problem for the environment, a potential threat to human health and contributed 1.6 billion tonnes of greenhouse emissions globally in 2019.

The plastics industry benefits from almost no regulation of its products, hazardous or otherwise. It has no responsibility for collecting or recycling plastic waste – waste that can take years to break down – and no obligation to produce only plastic that is readily recycled.

Australians recycle just 13 per cent of the 2.6 million tonnes of plastic waste produced each year. Only 15% of all plastic waste generated over the last 20 years has been recovered through recycling, composting or energy recovery.

Reuse and recycling are widely touted as the ‘circular’ solution to plastics waste. But this ignores the reality that recycling plastic is inefficient, expensive and hazardous, and that there is little demand for recycled plastics. The Australia Institute

Our plan

Introduce a tax on virgin plastic packaging to encourage recycling
Introduce a tax on the fossil fuel feedstock required to manufacture plastic
Set measurable targets to phase out non-essential, hazardous and unsustainable single use plastics
Fund research into the effects of microplastic pollution on human health
Clearly label products that are made with microplastics, eg. polythelene and polypropylene – for consumer choice
Ban the production and importation of plastics that are deemed difficult to recycle and or toxic to life on earth
Ban polystyrene and use alternatives such as cellulose-based foams or corrugated cardboard for packaging
Tax landfills more heavily and use the revenue to collect useful data and support the clean-up efforts made by citizens
Increase penalties for litter and illegal dumping
Promote international treaties to minimise the impact of plastic on the environment and human health

The evidence

The ocean has been a dumping ground for all sorts of waste but plastic is particularly hazardous and now omnipresent. In the remote north Pacific Ocean. The largest accumulation of plastic waste in the world spans 1.6 square kilometers. Plastic can be found even in the deepest parts of the ocean where it is up to 80% of marine litter.

Each square kilometre of Australian sea surface water is contaminated by around 4,000 pieces of microplastics. Microplastic pollution was recorded in Antarctic sea ice in 2020 and is in drinking water and the air we breathe.

Plastic pollution kills an estimated one million seabirds and 100,000 sea mammals each year. The source is mostly land-based, transported by waterways to the sea. Litter impacts wildlife directly through entanglement and ingestion and indirectly through chemical effects. Even toothpaste and personal care products can have plastic microbeads in them. Plastics are mistakenly eaten by a range of marine species. CSIRO

Plastic bags, discarded fishing line, and balloon strings are highly lethal to fish, turtles, seabirds, dolphins etc. but promised moves by state and territory governments to ban single-use plastic are patchy to say the least.

Plastics can travel vast distances and, once in the ocean, are known to absorb a range of hazardous chemicals. Over time, toxins accumulate onto floating and drifting fragmented plastic debris and are eventually ingested by marine life.

Coral reef ecosystems around the world are threatened by plastic debris. It deprives corals of light and oxygen exchange, which gives pathogens a foothold for invasion and makes the reef 20 to 89 times more vulnerable to disease.

Marine Pollution Bulletin, Apr 2023

…….. coastal waterways are facing increasing threats from new classes of pollutants. These include microplastics and nanoparticles used in consumer products such as clothing and cosmetics. Such emerging contaminants remain largely unregulated, and their effects are poorly understood.

The majority (82 percent) of impacts from debris are attributed to plastics 2015, and approximately three-quarters of the debris found along the Australian coast by a recent CSIRO survey was plastic. The Australian plastic industry produces about 1.2 million tonnes of plastic each year, some of which ends up in waterways and does not biodegrade. State of the Environment Report 2016 pages. 3 & 31

All states and territories have committed to various bans on single use plastics (at September 2024).

In October 2022 the House of Reps conducted an inquiry into plastic pollution in Australia’s oceans and waterways – The Report made 20 recommendations including a call to update the National Plastics Plan.

The Australian Packaging Covenant is an industry-led stewardship scheme, currently undergoing reform of packaging regulation. APCO set targets by end 2025 of:

It is unlikely that those targets will be met.

The Australia Institute produced a comprehensive report on plastic waste and recycling. Below are some excerpts:

When plastic degrades, it dissolves into imperceptible smaller fragments called microplastics, which filter into the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat. 18 Microplastics have been found in 94% of oysters globally, 19 and in the gastrointestinal tracts of 62% of fish in Australia. 20 A study of microplastics in the Great Australian Bight concluded that about 14 million tonnes of microplastics reside on the ocean floor.

In recent years the Australian Government has released several plans aimed at reducing the amount of plastic waste. These plans include the 2018 National Waste Policy, the 2019 National Waste Policy Action Plan, the Australian Packaging Covenant, and a goal to recycle or reuse 100% of plastic waste and end plastic pollution by 2040. What is common to all of these policies is that they focus on recovery, particularly recycling, and not on reducing the production and consumption of plastics in the first place.

A 2016 technical report by the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) indicated that marine debris is a globally significant stressor on the marine and coastal environment. 800 marine species are affected by plastic pollution, including microplastics that are ubiquitous in the ocean.

Around the world, one million plastic bottles are purchased every minute, while up to five trillion plastic bags are used worldwide every year. In total, half of all plastic produced is designed for single-use purposes – used just once and then thrown away. Plastics including microplastics are now ubiquitous in our natural environment. They are becoming part of the Earth’s fossil record and a marker of the Anthropocene, our current geological era. They have even given their name to a new marine microbial habitat called the “plastisphere”. UN Environment Programme

Most plastic items never fully disappear; they just break down into smaller and smaller pieces. Those microplastics can enter the human body through inhalation and absorption and accumulate in organs. Microplastics have been found in our lungs, livers, spleens and kidneys. A study recently detected microplastics in the placentas of newborn babies. The full extent of the impact of this on human health is still unknown. There is, however, substantial evidence that plastics-associated chemicals, such as methyl mercury, plasticisers, and flame retardants, can enter the body and are linked to health concerns.

References

https://www.dcceew.gov.au/environment/protection/waste/plastics-and-packaging/national-plastics-plan/plastics-oceans-waterways#shipping-waste

https://www.dcceew.gov.au/environment/protection/waste/publications/national-plastics-plan-summary