Civil Defense Perspectives 34(3): May 2019 (published October 2019)
Last summer, Seattle became the first major American city to ban plastic straws. Alaska Airlines also announced a plan to ditch them, followed by the food service company Bon Appétit, American Airlines, and Starbucks (Fast Company [FC] 3/1/19, https://tinyurl.com/y2up6bqy). California became the first state to ban them from restaurant tables.
This gesture is aimed at addressing ocean plastic pollution, one of the newest Greenpeace scare campaigns:
“There is a sea of plastic garbage twice the size of Texas in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.”
“A new continent ‘Plastic Nation’ has emerged and threatens to kill the oceans in less than 10 years.”
Eight million tons of plastic flow into the ocean every year. Straws comprise just 0.025%, but it’s a start toward bigger behavioral changes to help the world recover from its “plastic pollution hangover.” David Rhodes, the global business director for paper straw manufacturer Aardvark Straws, states that plastic straws will one day be an anomaly. Although a paper straw costs about a penny more than a plastic straw, and for large corporations that equals hundreds of millions of dollars, he says, “But the cost to the marine environment, you can’t put a price on that.” It’s “planet or plastic” writes National Geographic (tinyurl.com/y2d6gj6r).
Plastic production uses around 6% of global oil (as much as aviation) and is also a source of emissions; by 2050, it may account for 15% of the total global carbon budget (FC, op. cit.). A war on plastics fits into the “climate crisis” campaign.
It also fits well into the Greenpeace business model. The first step is to “invent an ‘environmental problem’ which sounds somewhat plausible. Provide anecdotal evidence to support your claims, with emotionally powerful imagery” (tinyurl.com/y232db9t). Remember that poster sea turtle that somehow got a plastic straw stuck in its nose (tinyurl.com/y5kj5h2l).
Greenpeace cofounder Patrick Moore suggests that most of the predicted catastrophes and threats of doom “are based on subjects that are either invisible or remote or both, so that the average person has no way of independently verifying the truth by observation but must rely on activists, politicians, and media to tell them what’s true.” The future, he adds, is both invisible and remote. As is that patch in the Pacific Ocean.
“The ‘Great Pacific Garbage Patch’ [aka the North Pacific gyre or trash vortex] is invisible because it does not exist, states Dr. Moore. One photo claimed to show it is actually the aftermath of the Japanese tsunami that killed 16,000 people. There are vortices where plastic is concentrated, but the plastic collected in a high-density-area trawl over about half a mile wouldn’t even fill a thimble (Connolly et al., Independent Report 12/14/18, https://tinyurl.com/ycjve597).
Plastic and Marine Life
Seabirds do eat plastic and feed it to their chicks along with other indigestible material such as squid beaks, which they need to grind their food because they lack teeth. The indigestible material in 100 carcasses contained on average 10.63 grams of pumice, 1.83 g plastic, 0.63 g nuts, and about 1 g of other materials. The plastic seems to do no harm, and like the other materials seems to last only a few months before being worn down and in need of replacement (ibid.).
Large pieces of plastic serve as habitat for marine life. “Over 1,200 marine species, ranging from algae to fish, are known to grow on marine debris” (Smithsonian Ocean, https://tinyurl.com/y4zr86g2). The type of organisms encrusted on wreckage can help elucidate the route that it traveled, as described by Jeff Wise in his book The Taking of MH 370 (the missing Malaysian airliner).
Where Does the Plastic Waste Come from?
Some comes from abandoned fishing gear. Most of the rest seems to come from mismanaged land waste, about 85% from developing nations in Asia (China, Indonesia, etc.). The combined contribution of all the countries in Europe and North America is estimated to be less than 1-2% (ibid.).
Microfibers may come from washing clothes made with polyester, nylon, spandex and acrylic. One fleece jacket alone can produce up to 2 grams of microfibers, or the equivalent of 100,000 fibers, in one wash alone. Microbeads from personal care products may also end up in the ocean (Smithsonian, op. cit.).
Recycling
Plastic, like paper, can be recycled to make a lower quality product that virtuously contains post-consumer waste, or crushed into aggregate to mix with concrete—or it can be converted back into CO2 and water, which can be incorporated into living things, by incineration.
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation promotes a “circular economy” with improved rates of reuse and recycling (https://tinyurl.com/y43yt6fv). The Alliance to End Plastic Waste, launched in January 2019, now includes 39 companies around the world that make, use, sell, process, collect, and recycle plastics. Member companies have committed more than $1.0 billion with the goal of investing $1.5 billion over the next five years to help end plastic waste in the environment (tinyurl.com/y2wa5t3k).
Greenpeace has been remarkably dismissive of the “circular economy” concept. Its officials argue that the concept of “economic growth” should be abandoned, and the world should only settle for “zero waste” or a “plastic-free world.” This is typical of Greenpeace’s modus operandi, to dismiss any alternative solutions as “completely inadequate.”
Since plastics are made from petroleum, it is not surprising that they have a high energy content. Nonrecycled plastic has an energy value 19% higher than petroleum coke, 37% higher than U.S. coal, and 87% higher than wood (https://tinyurl.com/y67pemut). If all municipal solid waste headed to U.S. landfills were diverted to waste-to-energy facilities, enough electricity could be produced to power nearly 14 million households, more than 12% of American households. Less than 12% of U.S. garbage is used this way. There are more than four times as many waste-to-energy facilities in Europe as in the U.S. Plastics can also be converted into oil (https://tinyurl.com/y3r4ez9q).
Should we instead ban or restrict an extremely useful product, based on a Greenpeace hoax?
Plastic Is Everywhere
Plastic exposed to the elements breaks into smaller and smaller pieces. Rainwater collected in the Rocky Mountains contains multicolored plastic fibers, beads, and shards. Animals and humans ingest and inhale microscopic particles (tinyurl.com/y2uyautj). Microplastics are found in snow from the Alps to the Arctic. Microplastics comprised between 0% and 78% of the particles that were collected, which included chitin, charcoal, coal, animal fur, plant fibers, and sand (tinyurl.com/y3lbyxsp).
Plastics are found in the surface waters surrounding the Antarctic Peninsula at a total average concentration of 1,794 items/ sq km and average total weight of 27.8 g/sq km, much lower than in the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” (>700,000 pieces/sq km) or the Mediterranean (>800,000 pieces/sq km). Paint fragments were also found, with an abundance about 30 times greater than that of plastics. The impact of paint may be similar to that of plastics in terms of ingestion, contaminant transfer/biomagnification, and attachment and transfer of organisms. (https://tinyurl.com/y6orf9os).
Epiplastic organisms growing in the biofilm that forms around plastics are said to constitute a new marine ecosystem called the “Plastisphere,” which can harbor different groups including bacteria, viruses, fungi, micro and macroalgae, mollusks, cnidarians, crustaceans and fish (ibid.).
Lacerda et al., writing in Nature, “call for urgent action to avoid and mitigate plastic and paint fragment inputs to the Southern Ocean,” saying the effects are “alarming” and potentially irreversible. Even the impact of a few tourist or research vessels might harm the supposedly pristine Antarctic. Production and consumption of plastics must be curtailed, they say (ibid.).
Estimates of the floating plastic released into the open ocean from the 1970s (106 tons) is 100-fold larger than one estimate of the current load of plastic stored in the ocean. What happens to it? Four possible sinks include shore deposition, nanofragmentation (perhaps through bacterial action), biofouling (causing submersion), and ingestion. What happens to ingested, indigestible material? It may sink with the bodies of dead fish or be defecated, ending up in ocean sediment (https://tinyurl.com/y3r43owc).
Of course, humans ingest microparticles of plastic. One estimate is 81,000 to 123,000 MP per year, more if they drink bottled water. The average concentration in bottled water is 94 MPs/liter vs. 4.24 in tap water and up to 82.67 in beer (Cox et al. Environ Sci Technol 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y563z4bm). MPs are found in seafood, salt, honey, food, air, and everything else. What happens to them? They are found in stool (https://tinyurl.com/y4bmheq7), along with other indigestible things like corn kernels (surprise!). Particles as large as 130 µm can enter tissue (Cox).
What are the human health effects of this “troubling” consumption of “anthropogenic debris” (as opposed to natural)? Plastics are inert but might adsorb toxicants. “Nobody knows,” says Lancet, but it’s an “urgent problem” (tinyurl.com/y6epl3t3).
Meanwhile, an estimated 4 billion people worldwide fall ill, and 1.8 million die each year from waterborne viral illnesses (https://tinyurl.com/yxou4eo5). Viruses range in size from 0.005 – 3 µm; bacteria, 0.3 – 60 µm; cement dust, 3 – 100 µm; tobacco smoke, 0.01 – 4 µm; clay, 0.1 – 50 µm; microplastics, 0.01 – 5,000 µm (https://tinyurl.com/q4dmqfc).
Where are studies on the number of these particles consumed, with and without using plastic wrappings to protect food from contamination?
The Greenpeace Business Model
Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning business with a gross income in 2015 of $386 million ($0.386 billion). Since the 1990s its income has nearly trebled with an average annual growth of 5%. Its assets have also nearly trebled, reaching about $300 million (Connolly, op. cit.)
Features of its campaigns include: (1) an issue labeled “catastrophic” and “urgent”; (2) a villain (enemy agent) who can’t put up much of a defense; (3) a seemingly plausible, “simple” solution that is unlikely to be implemented; (4) a call to action with ways for people to become engaged (protest marches, face painting, financial contributions, etc.), so that they can become committed to the campaign; (5) media outlets where Greenpeace controls the narrative; (6) precise-sounding figures such as 96% or 98%, which are psychologically compelling even if only a guess, and which can’t be disproved by a counterexample.
Education, debate, and workable solutions are not desired, lest they decrease support for the campaign.
“Ocean pollution” by “single-use plastic” has been remarkably successful. The BBC documentary series, “Blue Planet II,” which dedicated its final episode to “the plastics crisis,” was the most-watched TV program in the UK in 2017, reaching at least 20% of households.
The distortions and exaggerations actually inhibit actions to address a genuine problem. Greenpeace also disregards the life-cycle costs of alternatives (e.g. paper vs. Styrofoam), and the reasons for using disposable products in the first place, such as the deadly 1918 influenza pandemic (ibid.).
Energy from Waste
A waste-to-energy plant burns trash at very high temperatures to assure complete combustion. The chemical energy in the trash is converted into heat, which can either be used directly for industrial processes or heating homes, or used to drive steam turbines to generate electricity. Both ferrous and nonferrous metals are removed from the ash. Bottom ash is used to make aggregate for construction. Flue gas is treated and filtered to remove toxins and particulate matter. Covanta, which offers a virtual tour, states that its facilities annually convert 21 million tons of waste into power for more than one million homes and recycle 600,000 tons of metal, enough to build nearly six Golden Gate Bridges and manufacture 3 billion aluminum beverage cans (https://tinyurl.com/y4fonnpj).
The “Zero Waste” movement is opposed to incineration because of the emissions of CO2, creation of dust, and labor-saving features. Recycling creates 10-20 times more jobs (Zero Waste Europe, https://tinyurl.com/y535uzrp). The “dirty business” about recycling (https://tinyurl.com/yd4mwmyp) is that tons of trash are shipped to China (with zero-emissions transport?), where it piles up and gets dumped. Effective recycling requires householders to carefully sort trash, and wash plastic food containers. (Now that China is refusing to buy trash, many jurisdictions, like Tucson, are finding recycling very costly.)
Zero waste would require fundamental transformation: less materials extraction and use, less production, and less consumption: a “smarter lifestyle.” This is all based on the assumption that humanity must reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases, “which are the driving force behind our planet’s climate breakdown.”