Water, Sewage & Effluent September October 2018 | Page 24

Planet’s
plastic
plight
Of all the pollution that could
beset this planet, plastic is the
one that has resonated with public
consciousness — in a big way. 
By Kim Kemp
What starts off as a convenience in the shop, more often ends up as an inconvenience and a pollutant in the sea.
T
he world is increasingly focusing
on sustainability of the planet,
with countries getting on board
to make a noticeable difference in
cleaning up our act. Governments,
businesses, and global citizens are
already tackling the obscene amount of
one-use, or useless, plastic waste we
throw out every day, which eventually
makes it way to bulging landfills, to sit
there for infinitum, or to the sea, borne
by wind and waterways.
Everywhere you look, you can see
plastic, whether it be that plastic
cutlery set that arrived with your take
away, the plastic pen you are making
you shopping list with, or even the
plastic handles you hold as you push
your trolley through the endless aisles
of plastic packaged groceries or the
plastic bottle of water in your bag. We
are inundated with the stuff.
In this light, there is a worldwide
movement to get rid of plastic shopping
bags and replace them with paper or
reusable cotton tote bags.
South Africa climbed onto the anti-
plastic bag bandwagon, making us all
pay for the privilege of having one, or
two, or more. When first implemented,
there was a significant drop in plastic
bag use; however, in a paper, Johane
22
Dikgang, Anthony Leiman, and Martine
Visser from UTC found that over time,
the inconvenience of a plastic bag
charge is gaining acceptance and
the public no longer bothers about
the 50-cents-odd they have to pay
per bag. It appears that the collective
conscience no longer worries about
where that bag may end up.
The problem is, it’s all but
indestructible once you no longer have
use for it.
Trash Travel’s Ocean Conservancy is
a non-profit environmental advocacy
group based in Washington, DC,
United States. The organisation
helps formulate  ocean  policy at the
federal and state government levels
based on peer-reviewed science. It
estimates that plastic bags can take 
20 years to decompose, plastic bottles
up to 450 years, and fishing lines some
600 years; but in fact, no one really
knows how long plastics will remain in
the ocean. With exposure to UV rays
and the ocean environment, plastic
breaks down into smaller and smaller
fragments, becoming mistaken for
food/plankton and being ingested by
sea fowl and other marine dwellers.
“Humanity’s plastic footprint is
probably more dangerous than its
Water Sewage & Effluent September/October 2018
carbon footprint,” said Captain Charles
Moore, who, in 1997, discovered the
Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch,
the most notorious stretch of plastic
debris, is located north-east of Hawaii,
about 1  000 miles from Hawaii and
California. A huge island of marine
debris, it is trapped by one of the five
major subtropical gyres (systems
of ocean currents) that gathers and
carries marine garbage into its vortex. 
An organisation that partners with
Moore’s Algalita Marine Research
Foundation to study plastic pollution
in the ocean, 5 Gyres, has sent
expeditions across the North Pacific
Gyre; the North and South Atlantic
Gyres; and the Indian Ocean Gyre, and
found plastic — though concentrations
vary — in all of them. The Great Pacific
Garbage Patch is estimated to be twice
the size of the continental United
States, but no one can accurately
measure the trash gyres because
they are vast, remote, and continually
shifting with ocean conditions.
While some plastic and marine debris
comes from fishing gear, offshore oil
and gas platforms, and ships, 80%
of it  comes from the land through
a variety of methods. It constitutes