Please invest in Our Daily Planet today, by making a one time or monthly contribution.
We do not charge our readers a subscription fee for our content. We want to continue to grow our readership, particularly among millennials and public servants. Voluntary contributions from readers will help us employ interns and freelance journalists, expand our content, and reach a larger audience.
If you make a contribution of $150 or more, you will become an official “Friend of the Planet” and receive a Friend of the Planet T-shirt or water bottle.
Our Daily Planet is a daily morning email (M-F) to keep you informed of the stories shaping our environment. If these issues matter to you, we’d like to be the best ten minutes of your morning.
Ocean Pollution – Floating Bags and human plastic waste in the open ocean. 3D illustration.
by Natasha Lasky, ODP Contributing Writer
A new study published in the journal Conservation Letters has found that plastic bags and flexible packaging are the most deadly bits of plastic waste in the world’s oceans. From a review of hundreds of scientific articles, the agency found that plastic ingestion was responsible for the deaths of animals across 80 different species. Whales, dolphins, and turtles tended to die from eating plastic film, whereas sea birds were more likely to die from ingesting hard plastic pieces and balloons.
We were choking the world’s oceans with plastic pollution before the COVID-19 pandemic but a surge in single-use plastics and PPE along with cuts to municipal recycling programs has caused this waste to skyrocket. According to a recent Oceana report, plastic is becoming the No. 1 killer of the world’s marine life, and it’s within our reach to do something about this (especially if the United States can be a willing participant with other UN nations).
A Global Effort: Richard Leck, the head of the WWF Australia, told the Guardian that more than 70 countries had so far supported a call for the United Nations to introduce a global treaty to combat plastic pollution, and for countries to reduce, regulate and replace plastic products that are particularly dangerous to ocean wildlife like plastic bags, plastic packaging, plastic sheets, fishing rope, and balloons. In addition, the world needs to take a more aggressive stance on the illegal trade of plastic waste, which contributes to large amounts of plastic being dumped into oceans.
There’s even more urgency to act as the recycling systems that did exist before the pandemic are now at risk of faltering. As Rob Kaplan and Martin Stuchtey wrote for Greenbiz:
“Lockdowns halted more than 80 percent of the recycling value chain in Vietnam, the Philippines and India. By April, more than 45 percent of recycling facilities in the United Kingdom reported disruptions to operations, due to the pandemic response.”
However, not all plastic was equally deadly. The most lethal type of plastic was rubber, though the studies could not find exactly how rubber was making its way into the world’s oceans. The studies also found that flexible plastic — used for plastic bags and packaging — was particularly dangerous, for three reasons: it can get easily stuck in the digestive tracts of various animals, it floats to places where animals naturally feed, and it is very common.
Dr. Lauren Roman, who led the study, emphasized how deadly plastics are to ocean megafauna to the Guardian: “Death from eating any of these items is not a quick one and it is not likely to be painless,” she said. “It’s a pretty awful way to die.”
Richard Leck reinforced this, telling the Guardian: “It’s important to remember what happens to these animals when they ingest these plastics. It’s a horrible death. When turtles ingest plastic bags they can’t submerge. Marine mammals waste away over weeks and weeks.”
Spooky season is almost over, how does your everyday werewolf or vampire keep it green this Halloween? While the holiday can easily be filled with candy wrappers, disposable decorations, and costumes your kid will likely never wear again, the internet has some “tricks” to keep your celebrations environmentally friendly. EcoWatch’s list of best methods […]
This past July, all eyes were on Tokyo when over 10,000 Olympians from 206 nations descended on the city to make history. Despite a decrease in carbon emissions due to COVID-19 and fewer traveling spectators, the games still produced 2.3 million tons of CO2. In 2021, The International Olympic Committee (IOC) pledged to reduce […]
Startups across the country are on a mission to provide sustainable food packaging options and close the plastic loop, especially prompted by the pandemic take-out boom. Over 70% of Americans order delivery one to three times a week, creating hundreds of billions of single-use bowls, bags, utensils, and more. But some innovative companies have […]
Subscribe to the email that top lawmakers, renowned scientists, and thousands of concerned citizens turn to each morning for the latest environmental news and analysis.
Want the lastest climate news summarized for you each morning?
Our Daily Planet is your daily dose of the stories shaping our world and the ways that you can take action. From the climate crisis to the protection of biodiversity, if these issues matter to you then please subscribe & stay informed!
Your privacy is Important! We promise never to use your email address to send you spam or advertisements.