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Microplastic Pollution in the Ocean Affecting Marine Life and Its Potential Risk to Human

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Microplastic Pollution in the Ocean Affecting Marine Life and Its Potential Risk to Human California State University, Sacramento Microplastic Pollution in the Ocean Affecting Marine Life and its Potential Risk to Human Health Lucia Arreola Dr. Julian Fulton ENVS 190 December 13, 2018 1 Table of Contents Abstract 3 Introduction 4 Background 6 The Switch to Plastic 7 The Rise of Plastic Straws 7 The Mindset 8 Plastic Pollution 8 Types of Plastic 8 Degradation 9 Decomposition 10 Toxicity 11 Plastics Entering the Marine Environment 11 Movement and Garbage Patches 13 Impacts to Marine Life 13 Gill Exposure 14 Ingestion Exposure 14 Transport 15 Coral Reefs 15 Ecotoxicology 16 Food Chain and Food Web 17 Risk to Human Health 17 Other Global Impacts 19 Tourism 19 Shipping 20 Fisheries 20 Response 20 Education 21 Reduce, reuse, and recycle 21 Bans and Policies 22 Clean ups 23 Industry change 25 Conclusion 25 References 30 2 Abstract Plastic pollution in the marine environment has been gaining global attention in recent years. The mismanagement of plastic waste has led to our ocean to be filled with small fragmented particles of plastic. These small particles of plastic are accumulating in large garbage patches all around the world and creating adverse effects on marine life. This war on plastic has pushed countries to make drastic changes and ban the use of single-use plastics. This paper analyzes how plastics behave in a marine environment and how their ability to persist in an environment for a long period of time makes them a hazard to marine life and how our connection with the marine environment creates potential human health risk. 3 Introduction Plastic pollution is a world-wide issue that is causing harm to marine organism in the ocean, they are ingesting or entangling themselves in the synthetic material (Li, Tse, and Fok, 2016). Coral reefs are covered in plastic bags, turtles are choking on straws, and whales and seabirds are starving themselves because their stomachs are being filled with plastic instead of food (Howard et al., 2018). Images of sea turtles, seagulls, and whales ingesting plastic have become the poster child of environmental harm brought by humanity (Thompson, 2018b). The photo of a seahorse clings on to the plastic wrapper of a Q-tip has drawn the attention of many (Figure 1) (Krall, 2017). These images have attracted the attention from researchers and the general public to question how plastics will affect humans (Li, Tse, and Fok, 2016). Plastics can become brittle and break down into smaller micro sized pieces due to degradation in the marine environment. Ingestion of these small micro pieces of plastic can physically damage organs and leach hazardous chemicals that compromise immune function and stymie growth and reproduction (Thompson, 2018). Plastics are found all over our lakes, rivers and ocean (Andrady, 2003). Humans have discarded their waste across the ocean for thousands of years with the idea that our ocean is vast, limitless, and self-cleaning. Before plastic, waste quantities found in the ocean were small, dispersed, and biodegradable. The impacts of this debris to the marine environment were small and insignificant (Andrady, 2003). By the 1960s reports of plastic trash were found in the ocean and studies showing traces of plastic found in human flesh go as far back as the 1950s. By the 1988 places like Suffolk County, New York, were creating the first bans on plastic packaging (Freinkel, 2011). These plastic waste materials have many negative social, economic, and ecological impacts that create an unsustainable marine environment (Anderson et al., 2015). 4 Our ocean holds an ecological, social, and economic importance to humans and its unregulated open access has allowed for the exploitation of its many goods and services. Ecologically the ocean provides services that play a critical role on natural resources, energy cycles, climate regulation, and other important ecological services. The oceans ecological systems provide economic value to the entire globe. In 1997, the estimated economic value of the entire biosphere averaged about 33 trillion USD per year, this included coastal environments, estuaries, coastal wetlands, beds of sea grass and algae, coral reefs, and continental shelves (Costanza, 1999). The ocean’s social importance stems from human culture, which involves growth and development along coastal ranges, creating a socio-economic relationship between humans and the ocean. The vastness of the ocean has made it difficult to regulate and govern, allowing for its exploitation (Costanza, 1999). Plastic pollution enters our ocean in numerous ways that, its presence in the ocean environment threatens marine life and their ecosystems. Plastic is estimated to kill millions of marine organisms every year, due to ingestion, entanglement, and habitat loss (Moore, 2008; Treat, Williams, and Parker, 2018). There are two main types of plastics when discussing plastic pollution in the ocean, micro and macro. Macro plastics are plastics that are large and visible to the naked eye. While micro plastics are smaller and closer in size to a grain of sand (GESAMP, 2015; Andrady and Gregory, 2003). They are sometimes the debris of larger macro plastics that have been degraded and weathered down from the elements in the ocean’s environment (Cauwenberghe, Vanreusel, Mees, and Janssen, 2013). Micro plastics are reportedly being found floating in the ocean, on sandy beaches, in coastal sediment, and inside of marine life (Thompson, 2018b). The goal of this project is to analyze the effects of micro plastics pollution in the ocean on marine life and how the effects may potentially have human health risks. 5 This paper will use journal articles, newspapers, podcasts, and government documents to understand the connection between micro plastic and human health. By first understanding the how and why humans made the switch to plastic I hope to create an understanding as to why there is plastic pollution in the ocean and what type of mindset people have of the ocean. With the use of peer-review studies and other case studies I hope to understand how plastic in a marine environment is affecting marine life through the food web and how it is destroying the overall marine environment. Viewing how humans relate to the ocean will help understand how human health is at risk and why plastic pollution is a growing concern. I will also discuss current and future clean ups, potential responses, and the kind of future that lies ahead with micro plastics. Background We live in a world of plastic, where almost everything we encounter on a day-to-day bases is made up of or contains some plastic. Common household objects such as toilet seats, toothbrush, eyeglasses, wallpaper, computers, and clothing contain some form of plastic (Freinkel, 2011). This world of plastic first began with the creation of the first plastic material, cellulose nitrate synthesized in 1862 by Alexander Parkes. (Meikle, 1997). Parkes was looking to create a building material that could be molded easily with heat. His creation would spark the minds of many future inventors to perfect the synthetic material and have it been one of the most commonly used building materials (Alexander Parkes Biography, 2018). This man-made material would develop to be a cheap and durable alternative to other natural resources. During World War II the use of the material boomed, and the military began to use plastic to build aircraft cockpit covers, mortar fuses, bayonet scabbards, helmet liners and even the atomic bomb. Annual production during this time was estimated to be over 360 thousand metric tons of 6 plastic for just military use (Meikle, 2007). Today the material is used in everyday household objects and about 300 million metric tons of it is produced every year (Earle, 2018). The Switch to Plastic Before plastic, things were made from more natural materials. In the late 1870s, the firm Phelan & Collender offered an incentive to anyone that could create a material that could replace the use of ivory in billiards balls. A John Wesley Hyatt created celluloid which was able to substitute ivory and other materials such as tortoiseshell and horns. Things like denture plates, combs, knives, brush handles, and piano keys were able to be created from this synthetic material. It was advertised as “a hard, durable substance” … that had “a uniform and perfect consistency”, which could be “molded into any desired form” (Meikle, 2007). By the early 1900s, companies like Bakelite found a home in consumer manufacturing, creating commercial products with the use of plastic. They advertised plastics as the “material with a thousand uses”, their products were known to have a luminous finish with bright colors and did not scratch over time (Yankee, 2005). Bakelite created a new era of attractive, affordable, convenient consumer goods (Bakelite, 2012). The Rise of Plastic Straws Since the early summer of 2018 there has been a large movement to ban straws, they are one of the many plastic products found in the ocean (Mars, Hall, and Madrigal, 2018). The use of straws has been around for hundreds of years, in 19th century America, rye grass was used as a straw to consume beverages (99% Invisible, 2018). By the late 1800s the invention of the “artificial straw” was created by a Marvin Stone. This straw was made of paper and a waxy substance that made it disposable (Mars, Hall, and Madrigal, 2018). This artificial straw would become a key part in maintaining hygiene and public health in cities. Artificial straws were 7 advertised to help with sanitation in hospital and sick rooms or as a time and money saver that eliminated the need for sterilization (Figure 2) (99% Invisible, 2018). By the end of the 1890s, cities were requiring the use of straws in public eating places. Campaigns of this time were made to ban the common cup (Figure 3), a cup used in public spaces to drink from was now seen as the killer of children (Madrigal, 2018).
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