dick durham
A storm of plastic
We’ve all heard about the whirlpool of plastic in the Southern Ocean; we’ve all seen the pictures of seals with six-pack rings worn as slow-garrot necklaces and we’ve all read about the albatross feeding its chicks bottle tops. As a rule, most yachtsmen I know are very considerate of their marine environment and do not dump plastics over the side. But despite our collective good behaviour it seems there’s no escape. A new report now reveals it’s raining plastic and that nowhere is exempt from the polymer precipitation.
It is no longer just animals that are consuming plastic, we are too. Microplastic particles exist in food and water sources, so we are eating it, drinking it and now even breathing it: plastic fibres have been found in human lung tissue.
According to the Ecolab research institute near Toulouse, France, about 335m tonnes of plastic is produced each year, breaking down slowly into tiny particles which have been found in rivers and oceans. Nothing new there. But this latest research shows that because much plastic is disposed of on land, as it breaks down, tiny particles are picked up by the wind and spread everywhere: researchers found 365 plastic particles are deposited daily per square metre. The plastic rain drops have been found even in places as remote as the Galapagos Islands and the Pyrenees mountain tops.
And the stronger the Beaufort Scale reading the further offshore the micro-plastic polluted air will travel. Analysis showed the particles were carried more than 60 miles from where they were dumped. But boffins say the particle-infused air will travel much further: dust from
the Sahara Desert is well known to be carried thousands of miles on the wind. And atomic fallout from Chernobyl, the Soviet nuclear reactor which malfunctioned in the Ukraine in 1986, tainted sheep in the Welsh mountains.
One scientist, Deonie Allen, reportedly said: ‘When you get down to respiratory-size particles, we don’t know what those do. That is a really big unknown, and we don’t want to end up with something like asbestos.’
So, apart from recycling our non-biodegradable waste can we do anything else to fight this plague? Sailors are generally closer to the environment than metrodwellers, and known for their ecological intelligence.
Perhaps we could start by refusing to purchase anything from a chandlery that comes in plastic. I bought a new life-jacket recently and at the time thought nothing of the fact that this aid to survival came ‘protected’ in a thick plastic bag. Such bags are made from polyethylene, along with polystyrene, the most common source of microplastic, used as they are for packaging and plastic bags. Paint brushes: you used to be able to buy them hanging from hooks, bristles bristling. Now they are wrapped in film. Take the film off and leave it with the chandler. Small fittings: screws, bolts, cabin hooks and other miscellany, it all comes in tough, little plastic bags we really do not need.
At my sailing club, on Canvey Island, Essex, there is a work party every week. One of our number’s sole jobs is to collect plastic from the saltings surrounding the club stagings. And each week six sacks of plastic trash, such as bottles, burger boxes and rogue trainers end up in the recycling. I would suggest all clubs do this – getting the marshes back to a pristine state is a satisfying exercise. It’s either that or we do nothing and hope that along with the fauna of the Galapagos we evolve to thrive on microplastic.
Sailors generally are much closer to the environment than metro-dwellers