A Masked but Imminent Scandal

Something scandalous is happening and it needs to stop immediately or else...

So many materials being made out of plastic are being produced daily but so few are going to dumps or recycling centres. So then where are the little styrofoam balls, plastic bags, general litter and also exfoliants in your shower scrubs. There could be many answers to that, but the most common and simplest answer would be: the oceans.

There are about 5 gyres on this planet: the North and South Pacific, the North and South Atlantic Gyres and the Indian Gyre. They are basically ocean currents formed by global wind patterns and Earth’s rotation. These are so immense and powerful that they drive the ‘ocean conveyor belt’ which is basically how the oceans move around the continents. These used to be massive areas of swirling water where the water would get sucked into the bottom. But now, they are swirling garbage patches.

In 1998, Capt. Charles Moore discovered that the North Pacific Gyres had acquired around 18 million tons of plastic. The weight of plastic on the oceans surface was about 6 times as much as the weight of plankton. He deducted that the only reasons landfills weren’t getting filled up to the brim was that most of the plastic waste managed to get sucked into these even vaster gyres. According to Plastic Oceans, we have produced and trashed more plastic into the seas in the last decade then we have produced over the whole of last century. From his travels in the North Pacific, he found out that a fish, only 2.5 inches long, had 84 pieces of plastic.

You might be misunderstanding plastic’s recyclability. Plastics are biodegradable but just not in a practical time frame. Plastics are compounds made of Carbon and Hydrogen. These compounds are extremely hard to break through. Naturally, only UV rays can break these apart. But since so much of the World’s plastic is in water, the plastic will be shielded by the water’s damp and cold conditions. Even after millions of years to come, some plastics may not have decomposed. Those who have, well; they’ll become small granules of plastic pellets that will be just the right size for some innocent sea creature.

According to Mr. Raisdana, he finds the fact that we have trashed more plastic in the last decade then we have produced in the decade before. “Even with all these environmentalist groups, we are still making a ton of plastic. The interesting thing is, even though we have come so far and are always told about how plastic is, we have not really done much about it.” When asked about how he has contributed to it, he says, “I have always taken bags to grocery stores instead of taking the plastic bags and while collecting vegetables. I also try and educate my kids about how the plastic toys that they buy eventually become into waste that goes into the ocean. But, I think everyone has a hand in this.” When asked about what would happen to the plastic if we stopped producing it, he stated “We’re going to need to find a way to collect all the plastic and do something with it. We can’t just pretend there’s no plastic if we can’t see it.” This reveals that even adults struggle to bring about change. Even though we understand about this problem, are we doing much?

Out of 22 students and 1 teacher, only 5 of them knew about gyres, let alone the plastic in them. This raises a serious problem that connects with that Mr. Raisdana talks about. Things that happen beyond our vision and hearing are ignored or often not even cared about. There is still hope, as Mr. Anthony Andrady, a senior research scientist, has pointed out that microbes might be able to evolve and mutate into species that could break down or even better, consume plastics. Till then, all we can do is hope.

A fellow writer, Roshan, also writing about plastics commented on this. “Gyres are natural water systems caused by tectonic plates moving. They can be very dangerous at times. They mostly end up sucking in plastics.” When asked about what the problem here is he stated, “The plastics are killing the ecosystems. The very fish that we eat are eating plastics before being caught in fisher nets. We’re slowly but surely going to run out of clean water at this rate.”

Do we really want this to become of our only planet? Can we contain the throwaway society, or has it become to widespread for anyone to stop? Can we afford this scandal to happen? Are we that willing to lay waste to our home planet? As people have said: “There is no Planet B.”

“All the King’s horses and all the King’s men, will never gather up all the plastic and put the ocean back together again.” by Charles Moore

By Kunal

Plastic: made to last forever, designed to throw away.

BANG! BANG! BANG!. My friends and I woke up still extremely fatigue from staying up late last night. We look at the clock and see thats its 4:30 am. Still 4 more hours till we were supposed to wake up. I head into the bathroom splash my face with water and change my clothes. We head outside and our teachers signaled us to be quiet and made us follow them down to the beach. There we saw many of the resort staff gathered in a circle looking at something.

When I saw what it was, my digestive system started to churn inside my body. A small baby turtle was stuck inside a plastic bag. The staff didn't waste any time. Even before we came they were already cutting through the plastic bag. Within minutes the turtle was free. They nursed him for a few weeks and let him back into the ocean.

Plastic: made to last forever, designed to throw away.

Plastic is used by all, but it’s thrown away within the same hour. Yet we have taken the convenience of this product too far. According to oceancrusaders.org, 6.4 million pounds of plastic is dumped into the ocean every year. The problem is that petroleum plastic, the type of plastic that is most commonly used in our everyday products, doesn’t biodegrade, and it takes forever to decompose.

Unfortunately thats not our biggest problem. Scientists are now starting to worry that toxics would enter the marine food chain through plastics. According to National Geographic, new studies show that plastic are biodegrading

You might wonder what actually happens to the plastic in the oceans. There are 5 gyres in the ocean. A gyre is a large system of rotating ocean currents and involve large wind movements. Gyres are caused by the Coriolis effect. Gyres act like whirlpools and pull in all the plastic from nearby places and cause them to stay there, creating massive garbage patches, such as the great pacific garbage patch

In 1998, Capt. Charles Moore discovered that the North Pacific Gyres had acquired around 18 million tons of plastic. The weight of plastic on the oceans surface was about 6 times as much as the weight of plankton. He deducted that the only reasons landfills weren’t getting filled up to the brim was that most of the plastic waste managed to get sucked into these even vaster gyres. According to 5gyres.org, 44% of all seabird species, 22% of…Cetaceans, all sea turtle species, and a growing list of fish species have been documented with plastic in or around their bodies. The plastic has caused many marine animals to suffer, due to internal blockages, dehydration, starvation and death.

Unfortunately thats not our biggest problem. Scientists are now starting to worry that toxics would enter the marine food chain through plastics. According to National Geographic, new studies show that plastic are biodegrading that plastics are now degrading faster in water. This sounds like a good thing doesn’t it? Unfortunately as they degrade in the ocean they leach potentially toxic chemicals such as bisphenol A possibly threatening the ocean animals and us. The scientist also figured out that plastic doesn’t degrade faster in hotter temperature but rather in colder temperature, meaning the deeper the plastic is in the sea the faster it will degrade. Since humans tend to consume more of the animals that live deeper in the sea, that means the toxins can now easily get into our bodies.

Yet still most people are not aware about how serious this problem is. Data shows that only 1 in every 5 people know about the gyres across the world and about the toxins in the water. When they mindlessly toss their plastic in the sea, they never realise how much damage they're actually doing to the environment.

Yet might be sitting there wondering what you can do to help end this tragedy. You should start with reducing, reusing, recycling, repurposing, refusing etc. Still if we do that many scientists fear that we there is so much plastic in the gyres already that the damage that is already done might just be too much.

According to Anthony Andrady, a senior researcher scientist there is still hope that microbes could evolve and mutate into species which can break down plastics. Unfortunately there has been no signs of that this maybe happening so until then we will have to keep hoping.

Kunal a fellow writer, also writing about plastics commented on this. “Gyres are natural water systems caused by tectonic plates moving. They can be very dangerous at times. They mostly end up sucking in plastics.” When asked about what the problem here is he stated, “The plastics are killing the ecosystems. The very fish that we eat are eating plastics before being caught in fisher nets. We’re slowly but surely going to run out of clean water at this rate.”

Can we maintain this throwaway culture. At the rate that the plastics are building up, scientists believe that in the next century we will run out of clean water. Unless we start acting, our precious planet will go into an uninhabitable state for most living beings. So act now, and start saving the planet by reusing your plastic bags, and only using plastic which biodegrades.

By Roshan

Plastics: The Crisis

Putting my cap on, I started picking up some trash. I was really close to the water at one point and saw something swimming in the water. It looked like something a brown and slimy. It had to be an otter! It just lingered around this one spot near the beach for the longest time and eventually started climbing onto my nerves. When no one was looking, I went closer to the murky water. I saw the otter quickly swimming away, freeing itself from a mangled brown plastic bag now suspended by the water. I waded into the cool water and picked it up, absolutely disgusted by what was just seen. This is a story from Beach Clean Up volunteer Khantey Lim.

This is a service called “The Beach Cleanup” that goes out to Changi beach to pick up tossed trash. They spend an hour there and find heaps of plastic on the beach. This service helps to fish out most trash and their chance to get washed into the ocean, clearly making a difference to the marine environment.

Gandhi once said “There is enough in the world for everyone's need, there is not enough in the world for everyone’s greed”. The crisis of overconsumption is that people are blindly using resources for pleasure without awareness of its impact on the Environment.

Plastics cover up most landfilling spaces in numerous places around the world. The problem with plastic is that it is made out of polymers. Polymers are a bunch of long noodle like strands that are woven together and held tightly by chemical bonds. The problem with polymers is that they don’t biodegrade naturally as they are too large for microorganisms to break down. Plastics are also quite expensive to recycle, and they release harmful gasses into the air when they are. This means that plastic is a material created by humans that has been designed to throw away. All plastics that have been created still exists in some shape or form cluttering up our planet and destroying lots of nature. The more we dispose it, the more it harms our home.

Researchers say that 50% of used plastic is landfilled, 30% of it is made into durable goods and the remainder is disregarded. These disregarded plastics eventually find themselves floating into oceans, which causes lots of inconvenience to marine life. Some animals choke to death trying to eat these plastics thinking that they are food while others have consumed so much plastic that they are not able to eat any real food- hence making them starve to death, and even some animals get entangled in it- and they cannot survive the long lasting durability.

Plastics live a very long life. Almost too long, while the plastic is floating in the ocean, the sun can break them down into tinier pieces through a process called photodegradation. These microscopic plastics are found in oceans, beaches, and stranded on land. Micro plastics attract toxic chemicals. These micro plastics are then eaten by marine animals, then these micro plastics are then transferred throughout the rest food chain. Scientists are still trying to find out the effect of this on humans.

UWCSEA is making an effort to reduce plastic consumption. This school has changed our takeaway cutlery and glasses to Cornware. Its a healthier material for the environment. Also, every 2 in 3 students in the Jra classroom say that they are willing to bring in their own lunch box to get food from the canteen. If bringing a lunchbox to school becomes a routine, there will be less plastic and food waste disposal at the school, creating a greener environment. The school shop has also started giving out paper and cloth bags instead of plastic ones.

If we consume less plastic, less plastic would have to be manufactured. Over time, there will be less plastic that would be washed into the ocean and cause inconvenience to marine life. Also, less trees and wildlife habitats would be destroyed to create plastic landfill sites. The best part is that the air we breathe would be a lot less polluted because less plastic would need to be created and incinerated. The wildlife population in the world has almost halved since our existence on earth so these measures should be taken as quickly as possible. Visit this site to find out more about how you could start living a plastic free life.

In conclusion, we should be aware of the plastic problem. We can see through our own eyes that this is a large issue, that will only get worse if the problem is not taken seriously. Whenever you see a piece of plastic loitering around on its own, find a trash can where it could be safely disposed off. Ask if you could get recycling cans and ensure that plastics are recycled or disposed away from wildlife habitats. And always remember that you can reduce, reuse, re-fuse, recycle, and re-design. Get creative with these R’s, up-cycle trash into treasures to raise awareness about the plastic problem. Find alternative solutions to your plastic consumption. Every action counts, make your change now!