Knowledge is Sour: The Marine Plastic Pollution Problem
I live by the ocean. I used to belong to a gym, a spa, a fitness center, etc., but now I get my exercise with a daily walk on the beach.
Unlike my strolls on a treadmill, no two beach walks are alike. The sea constantly changes. Tides ebb and flow. Wind and waves continuously texture and sculpt the water’s surface. The ocean’s mood and color change as the sun moves across the sky, or clouds and fog bring mystery and gloom.
Where I live—on California’s Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary—seabirds, sea lions, seals and sea otters are a constant presence. Sometimes pods of dolphins and even humpback whales venture close to shore.
Last year I watched a 30-ton humpback swim sideways up and down the beach just off shore for over an hour, scooping anchovies that had taken—or tried to take—refuge in the shallow water. I once carried an abandoned baby murre away from the beach. The frightened bird pecked at my hands and crapped in my lap as I drove it to Native Animal Rescue, just one of many amazing local nonprofits where I live. A wonderful volunteer received my little bird with open arms and immediately began giving it the care it needed. Lately, juvenile white sharks have been congregating off the beach in my neck of the bay.
A diverse mix of stuff washes up on the shore, too.
When I started walking on the beach, I hunted for sea glass – broken bits of glass etched and smoothed by churning water and sand. For me, the discovery of an emerald green, or even rarer cobalt blue piece of sea glass was nearly as joyful an event as finding a forgotten twenty-dollar bill in a jacket pocket.
Sea glass-hunting is a local pastime. There’s a guy who shows up in board shorts and water shoes each spring after winter storms abate, and sloshes through the water just off the beach to snag the best pieces before they reach the shore. He carries away plastic bagfuls of sea glass. I imagine he has a pile of sea glass in his living room that rivals the mound of mud built by the obsessive Richard Dreyfuss character in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Finding a piece of sea glass requires patient sifting and searching among the shells, feathers, bones, pebbles, kelp and other detritus that the surf organizes in neat rows and piles along the shore. One’s focus must be entirely downward. You must look, and look, and look again to spot the stuff. It’s usually hiding in plain sight, staring straight at you.
If you spend any time by the ocean, you can’t help but be moved by the sea’s beautiful and diverse bounty. You can’t help but notice the trash, too.
I used to get lost in a kind of sea glass meditation during my morning walks. Then I bumped into another amazing and awesome local nonprofit organization—Clean Oceans International (COI)—which seeks to address the growing problem of plastic pollution in the oceans. “Practical Solutions to Plastic Pollution” is COI's poetic creed.
I did some volunteer work for COI and learned about giant islands of plastic that swirl in the middle of every ocean and reach miles down to the seafloor. I learned that the plastic doesn’t biodegrade for hundreds of years—it just breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces. I also learned that some of the chemicals in plastic that are absorbed by fish are toxic to humans. I saw photos of beaches and lagoons, and atolls in the South Pacific that are thick with plastic debris, deposited by wind, ocean currents, and human neglect. And I saw pictures of whales, turtles, seabirds, and other marine creatures that ate or became ensnared in plastic debris and met slow, torturous deaths.
All of which made an impression. As I became conscious, I became committed.
When I walk on the beach now, I no longer search for sea glass, unless it finds me first. Now I see the litter—plastic bottles, wrappers, toys, sunglasses, sandals and so on. Aluminum cans also seem to be a favorite single-use consumer item that some people would apparently prefer to discard in the ocean rather than toss in a recycling or trash receptacle. I assume they get some kind of high.
My average beach walk yields about a handful of trash that I sort in appropriate receptacles. I’m still learning how to survive using less plastic in my life.
Relative to the size and scope of the marine plastic pollution problem, my trash mitigation activity is a mere drop in the ocean. We have to start somewhere, right?
Unlike my strolls on a treadmill, no two beach walks are alike. The sea constantly changes. Tides ebb and flow. Wind and waves continuously texture and sculpt the water’s surface. The ocean’s mood and color change as the sun moves across the sky, or clouds and fog bring mystery and gloom.
Where I live—on California’s Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary—seabirds, sea lions, seals and sea otters are a constant presence. Sometimes pods of dolphins and even humpback whales venture close to shore.
Last year I watched a 30-ton humpback swim sideways up and down the beach just off shore for over an hour, scooping anchovies that had taken—or tried to take—refuge in the shallow water. I once carried an abandoned baby murre away from the beach. The frightened bird pecked at my hands and crapped in my lap as I drove it to Native Animal Rescue, just one of many amazing local nonprofits where I live. A wonderful volunteer received my little bird with open arms and immediately began giving it the care it needed. Lately, juvenile white sharks have been congregating off the beach in my neck of the bay.
A diverse mix of stuff washes up on the shore, too.
When I started walking on the beach, I hunted for sea glass – broken bits of glass etched and smoothed by churning water and sand. For me, the discovery of an emerald green, or even rarer cobalt blue piece of sea glass was nearly as joyful an event as finding a forgotten twenty-dollar bill in a jacket pocket.
Sea glass-hunting is a local pastime. There’s a guy who shows up in board shorts and water shoes each spring after winter storms abate, and sloshes through the water just off the beach to snag the best pieces before they reach the shore. He carries away plastic bagfuls of sea glass. I imagine he has a pile of sea glass in his living room that rivals the mound of mud built by the obsessive Richard Dreyfuss character in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Finding a piece of sea glass requires patient sifting and searching among the shells, feathers, bones, pebbles, kelp and other detritus that the surf organizes in neat rows and piles along the shore. One’s focus must be entirely downward. You must look, and look, and look again to spot the stuff. It’s usually hiding in plain sight, staring straight at you.
If you spend any time by the ocean, you can’t help but be moved by the sea’s beautiful and diverse bounty. You can’t help but notice the trash, too.
I used to get lost in a kind of sea glass meditation during my morning walks. Then I bumped into another amazing and awesome local nonprofit organization—Clean Oceans International (COI)—which seeks to address the growing problem of plastic pollution in the oceans. “Practical Solutions to Plastic Pollution” is COI's poetic creed.
I did some volunteer work for COI and learned about giant islands of plastic that swirl in the middle of every ocean and reach miles down to the seafloor. I learned that the plastic doesn’t biodegrade for hundreds of years—it just breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces. I also learned that some of the chemicals in plastic that are absorbed by fish are toxic to humans. I saw photos of beaches and lagoons, and atolls in the South Pacific that are thick with plastic debris, deposited by wind, ocean currents, and human neglect. And I saw pictures of whales, turtles, seabirds, and other marine creatures that ate or became ensnared in plastic debris and met slow, torturous deaths.
All of which made an impression. As I became conscious, I became committed.
When I walk on the beach now, I no longer search for sea glass, unless it finds me first. Now I see the litter—plastic bottles, wrappers, toys, sunglasses, sandals and so on. Aluminum cans also seem to be a favorite single-use consumer item that some people would apparently prefer to discard in the ocean rather than toss in a recycling or trash receptacle. I assume they get some kind of high.
My average beach walk yields about a handful of trash that I sort in appropriate receptacles. I’m still learning how to survive using less plastic in my life.
Relative to the size and scope of the marine plastic pollution problem, my trash mitigation activity is a mere drop in the ocean. We have to start somewhere, right?
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