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Running head: HAWAII’S SEA OF TRASH Flores 1 Samantha Flores Hawaii’s Sea of Trash All over the world, we see a plastic problem in the ocean, and efforts are being made to solve the issue. Some places in the world can be more affected by the problem than others. This is true in Hawaii, as it is surrounded by the Pacific Ocean. The people of Hawaii use these waters for food, transportation, trade, and the waters are simply a part of their traditions. Plastics, Fish- ing Nets, and chemicals are all types of manmade products that are entering the oceans causing disruption. Given the newly recognized markers of the Anthropocene in the ocean, such marine plastic debris, how are the people of Hawaii impacted by these changes to their highly oceanic environment? Looking at the Anthropocene epoch as a starting point in analyzing the plastic issue, we must think about how everyday human activity and human technology affects human life and the lives of every other living organism on our earth today. The Anthropocene is an era is a newly declared era that has been defined as the era of human impact. Natural activity like the ocean currents and winds do not stop to wait for geological changes to become fixed and pass over. As a new era begins, and negative human impact marks the age of the Anthropocene, Hawaii’s beaches like Kamilo are affected by the epoch. A beach that once provided life and discovery to the Hawaiian people is now a collector of all things non-biodegradable. As innovations like plas- tic have caused issues for Hawaii and its people, new innovations for getting rid of plastic might also help the Hawaiian people. The actions that are currently being taken to help fix Hawaii’s plastic problem is still not enough for the bigger issues that will soon come for the people of Ha- waii. Running head: HAWAII’S SEA OF TRASH Flores 2 Plastics are now entering the food web causing harm to both people and the entire ocean food chain. The chemicals that plastics pick up along the way as they drift through the ocean get consumed by many animals throughout the Hawaiian oceans. As the Hawaiian people are so de- pendent on their marine environment, studies are being conducted to figure out what affect these animals have on people who consume them, since they contain plastics inside of them. Animals that have been apart of the Hawaiian culture for centuries are becoming extinct due to marine de- bris. The Anthropocene The Anthropocene Epoch was declared by an expert group of scientists who prepared and presented their recommendation to the International Geological Congress in Cape Town (Car- rington, 2016). The Anthropocene started in 1950, when the use of radioactive material and ele- ments were used and spread across the globe. At this time nuclear bombs were being tested and used on earth which started most of the radio-active solution on our earth today. Carrington (2016) suggests that, “An array of other signals, including plastic pollution, soot from power sta- tions, concrete, and even the bones left by the global proliferation of the domestic chicken were now under consideration” (Carrington, 2016). These man-made problems have caused pollution on the earth, that has never been experienced in this mass scale until the age of the An- thropcene. Before the Anthropocene Epoch, the Holocene was considered the age of 12,000 years of stable climate. This era has lasted since the last ice age 2.6 million years ago. This age came to an end when all things human-caused began to happen. Deforestation, along with carbon dioxide emissions, sea level rise, mass extinction of species, and of course, plastic pollution, are some of the things that can be considered human-caused. When the earth began to change profoundly Running head: HAWAII’S SEA OF TRASH Flores 3 scientists declared it was time that the Anthropocene would end the Holocene era as it was such a significant change in history. Each era, can be seen when the new era starts by looking at the geology of the earth. The geological change for an era is usually seen over millions to tens of millions of years. Carrington (2016), mentions that “One criticism of the Anthropocene as geology is that it is very short…Our response is that many of the changes are irreversible.” (Carrington, 2016). When there is a change in the rock structure that is so significant, it is humanly impossible to find every rock, or every change, and man make a solution to change the rock structure back to the way it was be- fore. Rocks are formed through many different processes, naturally as environments are different everywhere. Lava rocks are formed in areas where there is active lava flow. That lava rock has already been formed therefore there is no way to reverse the process. That is exactly why, when the geology of the Earth changes, there is no reverse to what already occurred. To declare or define a new epoch, geologically there must be something that will in the future be in the deposits of the earth at a global scale. With the Anthropocene era, the largest amount of material that will be found in the sediments are radioactive materials from nuclear bomb experiments. There are many others to include, but the main one that is significant is plas- tic pollution. These materials can get into the earth causing a change in the rock structure. Carrington (2016) mentions a scientist, “Rapley also said there was a strong case: ‘It is highly appropriate that geologists should pay formal attention to a change in the signal within sedimentary rock layers that will be clearly apparent to future generations of geologists for as long as they exist. The ‘great acceleration’ constitutes a strong, detectable and incontrovertible signal” (Carrington, 2016). Running head: HAWAII’S SEA OF TRASH Flores 4 Looking at the rock structure and the geological formation of the earth as the Anthropocene Era begins to take its way, it can be found that the human polluted sources can be found in our rock layers. The problem with these discoveries is that what has been done and embedded in the layers of the earth, cannot be reversed, which would conclude that negative human impact is the biggest problem the earth faces today. The plastic rock As mentioned before, the biggest determining factor of defining a new era is finding a change in the rock structure that will be seen on a global scale. This is already happening on the island of Hawaii. On the Kamilo beach on an Island in Hawaii, there was an appearance of a new stone that had been formed by the intermingling process between melted plastics, beach sedi- ments, basaltic Lava Fragments, and organic debris from the island .The rock that was discov- ered was then named the Plastiglomerate. The meaning of the name stems from rocks that are categorized as conglomerates. These conglomerate rocks are formed by a multitude of small peb- bles, cobbles, clasts, and sometimes boulders. They are usually held together by types of clay depending on were they are found and created. The name plasti comes from the word plastic. In the article, “An anthropogenic marker horizon in the future rock record”, the authors state, “We observed the results of this density increase on Kamilo Beach, where great quantities of melted plastic have mixed with the substrate to create new fragments of much greater density, herein re- ferred to as “plastiglomerate.” These rocks were found all over different areas on the Kamilo beach. The authors also state, “Our results indicate that this anthropogenically influenced mate- rial has great potential to form a marker horizon of human pollution, signaling the occurrence of the informal Anthropocene epoch” (Corcoran, 2014). These rocks are formed because of the amounts of plastic found all over the Beaches of Hawaii. If the plastics weren't existent to be Running head: HAWAII’S SEA OF TRASH Flores 5 melted down into molten plastic, the rock would have never existed. Humans have caused a change in the rock structure, which is why scientists have declared that a new era has begun. There is a significant change in the rock structure, that can be defined as human caused, and as long as plastics remain in the marine environments of Hawaii, these rocks will continually be created. There is no way in monitoring every rock and finding each one of them. Years from now, people will find these rocks in the earth showing human impact. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a massive collection of marine debris that lies in the Northern Pacific Ocean. Marine debris can be defined as litter or substances created by humans that have been dragged into, blown into, or directly put into the ocean, or other bodies of water that leads to the ocean. In the National Geographic article, “Great Garbage Patch: Pacific Trash Vortex”, the National Geographic Society suggests that, “The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also known as the Pacific trash vortex, spans waters from the West Coast of North America to Japan” (Society, N.G., 2014). There are two main patches located in the west near Japan, and in the East located near Hawaii and California. It is a garbage patch that is estimated to be seven to nine million square miles. The accumulation On a large scale, trash in the ocean gets accumulated by gyres in the ocean. A gyre is a huge cycle of ocean currents that rotate around a central point.

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