Earth Day 2018

Next Sunday, April 22, is Earth Day 2018 and this year the day is dedicated to providing the information and inspiration needed to fundamentally change human attitude and behavior about plastics.

From poisoning and injuring marine life to disrupting human hormones, from littering our beaches and landscapes to clogging our waste streams and landfills, the exponential growth of plastics is now threatening the survival of our planet.

If you have ever walked a beach in almost any part of the world, including our beloved Jersey Shore, you have seen evidence of plastic pollution.

I have written here about pollution in the air and water and on the ground, and plastic pollution actually affects all three area although its presence in water gets the most attention.

To look at it locally, consider micro-beads which cannot be filtered from household waste water by sewage treatment plants. Eventually, these very small pieces of plastic end up in the ocean.

Take this globally and you can look at the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" and the North Atlantic Garbage Patch (trash vortex). These two areas (and there are other areas too) are made primarily up of trash fragments ranging from a millimeter to the size of a pencil’s eraser.

The highest concentrations of plastic were found roughly from the latitude of Virginia to the latitude of Cuba. Scientists have gathered data from 22 years of surface net tows to map the North Atlantic garbage patch, which lies to the east of Bermuda. It is estimated that the average concentration of plastic in this area is about 4,000 pieces per square mile, though it is as high as 250,000 pieces per square mile in some places.

The size of the Atlantic trash vortex compares in size to the area of France. This micro/fine trash, poisons fish and marine mammal and kills seabirds.

We know that balloons and plastic bags and larger pieces of plastic are also floating out there and are a danger, but the micro-beads are easily swallows along with other food and water and clog the guts of creatures with indigestible beads that make them unable to eat and so they starve to death.

The Great Pacific garbage patch (also described as the Pacific trash vortex) is a gyre of marine debris particles in the central North Pacific Ocean discovered between 1985 and 1988. The patch extends over an indeterminate area of widely varying range depending on the degree of plastic concentration used to define the affected area.

These patches include concentrations of plastic, chemical sludge, and other debris that have been trapped by the currents of the North Pacific Gyre. It has a low density and so it can't really be detected by satellite imagery, or even by casual boaters or divers in the area. The suspended, often microscopic, particles are in the upper water column.

But that probably sounds far away from you and your daily life.

The EarthDay.org website offers three paths to get involved in the pollution that exists in your neighborhood.

1. Individual: learn and act to End Plastic Pollution for yourself and your close communities.
2. Organization: organize for Earth Day and beyond.
3. Educator: resources to teach and help others organize to End Plastic Pollution in your school or university.