Hello Eco-Student

This is starting as my English 102 Public Turn Project, but I hope it helps students learn how to be ecofriendly

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Marcus Eriksen’s Fight on Ocean Plastic

Marcus Eriksen is a marine pollution expert with a PhD in science education from USC (the one in California, not the USC). He was collecting plastic found in the North Atlantic and found that most of it wasn’t large chucks for garbage floating in the oceans that can be cleaned out by putting on gloves and picking it out. Eriksen described it as a “plastic smog,” as the plastic deteriorates into small piece, aka micro-plastics.

“Plastic in the oceans breaks down so fast. It becomes a fine particulate distributed globally. Cities like New York and Miami are pumping out this plastic smog into the world’s oceans.” -Marcus Eriksen

In 2003, he went on a 2000 mile, 5 month journey down the Mississippi River on a homemade raft made from plastic bottles to bring attention to the plastic issue. Then, in 2008, he made a raft from 15,000 plastic bottles and a Cessina airplane fuselage as a cabin. This raft, appropriately named JUNK, took him on a 2,600 mile journey, that lasted 88 days. It also brought attention to the work of the 5 Gyres Institute, the organization he co-founded with his wife.

The 5 Gyre Institute is a nonprofit organization in special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council since 2017. Their mission is to empower action against the global health crisis of plastic pollution through science, education, and adventure. If you have time, I recommend their website, they have many articles about plastics and their effects. Their website is linked below.

Sources:

-https://www.marcuseriksen.com/biography

-https://thenewtropic.com/our-plastic-paradise/

-https://www.5gyres.org/

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How Plastic Became Popular

Plastic was first used in World War II. They were used for nylon parachutes and to make air plane parts to make the planes lighter and to decrease the amount of metal used. Since then, it has eased the travel into space, revolutionized medicine, and lightened every car and jumbo jet that is used today, which saves fuel and decreases pollution. They also extend the life of fresh foods with cling wraps, and are used in airbags, incubators, and helmets.They have also saved wildlife by decreasing the amount of elephant ivory used, as ivory was used to make piano keys, billiard balls, combs and other trinkets.

However, they are made from petroleum and waste products from the oil production. Chemists used these materials to create novel polymers, the main one is polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, instead of working with polymers that already existed in nature.

Now in present day, roughly 40% of the 448 million tons of plastic produced every year is disposable. Of this group of plastic, Americans only use these on average of 15 minutes before throwing them away. Even if you try to recycle this plastic, most of it ends up in landfills and not recycled. The best way to fix this problem is to decrease the amount of using use plastic you use, as well as trying to reduce the amount of plastic you use.

Source: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/06/plastic-planet-waste-pollution-trash-crisis/

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Plastic Waste

If plastic bags don’t make it to a recycling plant or landfill, they will most likely end up in the oceans. The biggest and most popular of the plastic gyres is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (shown above), but this picture doesn’t show how big this actually is. There is two big patches, the first between Hawaii and Japan, the other is between Hawaii and continental United States. When most people think about the GPGP, they imagine large plastics, like bottles and bags, just floating around, but since the ocean wears these down, the GPGP is comprised mostly of micro-plastics, which are harder to get rid of.

Sources:

https://money.cnn.com/2014/11/04/news/economy/reusable-bags/index.html

https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/great-pacific-garbage-patch/

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Five Ways That Plastics Harm The Environment

1. Plastic debris is found everywhere around the world

2. Plastics are one of the main products made form the oil that requires fracking to get to

3. Plastics kill marine wildlife

4. Not all plastic is recyclable and not all recyclable plastic is recycled

5. Most plastics last forever

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/grrlscientist/2018/04/23/five-ways-that-plastics-harm-the-environment-and-one-way-they-may-help/#69950ca867a0

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What You Can Do to Reduce Use of Plastic Shopping Bags

1. Educate yourself and others around you about how plastic bags affect the world

2. Use reusable shopping bags

3. If you have any plastic bags at home, reuse them as small trash can liners or plarning

4. Find stores that offer a credit for using reusable bags

5. Count the plastic bags brought into your home in a week, and set a goal to decrease this number

Source: https://www.reusethisbag.com/articles/plastic-shopping-bags-environmental-impact/