What Floats... and What Sinks?

We hear and see so much about floating garbage patches and Pacific wash-ins. By now most everyone has seen, at least in passing, this iconic image from Kamilo Beach in Hawaii:

It's easy to forget that this is only a small part of the plastic story.

At Curtis Cove here in Biddeford, Maine, 95% of the material that I find washed in has actually come from the sea floor, not the surface. Of all the varieties of consumer plastic out there, only polyethylenes and polypropylenes float. All the rest sink. #1 PET bottles, vinyls, nylons, toys -- which are mostly made of styrenes, related to #6 plastics.

I've just written a new article for Scientific American online, "Plastics in the Ocean: How Dense Are We?" that lays out a bit more of what I've found.

Globally, the mass of hidden, sunken plastic now raining down onto the floor of the deep ocean is a huge chunk missing from the bigger picture. For all we've learned about what plastic is doing to our environment, there's the devil we know -- and the devil we don't.

Image from the Rozalia Project of a plastic bag found on
the New England sea bed recently

Buy less plastic. Waste less plastic. Make less plastic. Change the game!

The Recycling Myth

Today was going to be my collection report for December 29. Then something happened. Last night, I discovered this in the bag of junk I collected from Zone S:

(Added 1/6/11: The stamp on top reads "Made of 100%
recycled PETE")

And suddenly, everything I've been learning all these months came into focus. The #1 plastic (PET, or polyethylene terephthalate) I held in my hand managed to go successfully:

• from synthesis
• to plasticizing
• to pelletizing
• to shipping
• to factory
• to product
• to more shipping
• to retail warehouse
• to more shipping
• to retail shelf
• to 1st consumer.

Then a fairly rare thing happened. This lucky bit of plastic was among the 28% of #1 plastic that was recycled last year. (The number comes from the Natl Assoc for PET Container Resources 2009 report found here.) Remember, the plastic industry has pushed recycling as a panacea for 20 years. And even now only 28% is recycled.

From the hand of the conscientious consumer that recycled it, it successfully went:

• to recycling bin
• to recycling truck
• to recycling center
• to sorting/cleaning process
• to bundling/sale process

This now luckier bit of plastic was then among the 44% actually sold to U.S. reclaimers. Most "recycled" #1 plastic is dumped on developing nations, who use their own laws & methods of oversight. (From the same report, p. 3.) That makes 12% overall of #1 plastic that was both recycled and remained in the U.S.

Passing this next big hurdle, my bit of plastic went successfully from purchase:

• to shipping
• to factory

At the factory, only 76% of recycled #1 could be used, the rest was waste. Now we're down to 9% overall of #1 plastic recycyled, remaining in the U.S., and returned to usable flakes. These quite lucky usable flakes then went:

• to product

What product? Fibers, sheet, strapping, resins, etc. Oh yeah, and a little bit -- 29% -- went to making new #1 containers. (Same report, p. 8.) Now we're down to 2.6% of all #1 containers sold in the U.S. actually being made into new #1 containers. Now, my extremely lucky plastic traveled successfully:

• to more shipping
• to retail warehouse
• to more shipping
• to retail itself
• to second consumer.

At some point after this second consumer bought it, it escaped. It was lost at the beach, or blew out of a garbage can, or was tossed out a window, or got scavenged by an animal, or blew out of the recycling truck, or got swept out at the recycling center, or flew off the trash truck on the way to the incinerator. And it ended up in the ocean.

Even if this consumer had successfully recycled it, it would still have had to negotiate the path all the way back to product. What are the chances that a #1 plastic will get recycled twice into more #1 plastic? 2.6% of 2.6% = .068%.


Only 7 out of 10,000 #1 containers will get recycled -- really recycled -- more than once.

#1 plastic is held up by the plastics industry as a model. Its numbers are often cited to show the success rates of recycling.

Here is the truth: It's a downward spiral. There is no end to it, other than in the fires of an incinerator. We pat our backs when we take that old Coke bottle and put it in the recycling bin. But its fate is solely to move on, and down, until it winds up in the ocean, lays dormant for millennia under a capped landfill, or dies in a raging fire.

As it spirals downward, much of it will end up fouling the rivers, lakes, streams, ponds, shores, and oceans we hold dear. No matter our best intentions.

Just like the recycled piece I picked up on December 29. Do you think the person who recycled it the first time envisioned where it would end up?

The triangle is a lie.

Collection Report Dec 16, 2010

Good morning from Bay View beach, Saco, Maine. A crisp 23 degrees at 11:30AM.

So many footprints

I think I might be getting the hang of this. Recent storms leave little flotsam visible, while gentle waves seem to bring it in abundance. This was a gentler week (minus one big storm), so my hunch was I'd find a good haul. And I was right.

Waves gathered together a
pile of wood chips...

...and more

At Bay View, "stuff" tends to stick together. Somehow, all these various bits & bobs manage to find each other, and make something larger than themselves. It happened the week before too...

Dec. 8, more of nature's handiwork

...only to be blown apart by a fierce storm on Dec. 12:

Dec. 13, same spot

I'm watching a Teaching Company series now on the physics of history; there's great tidbits on how stars & planets coalesced from dust. And, in a way, I'm watching the same things happen right in front of my eyes - on a smaller scale.

I also love that different flotsam tends to come to shore in different weeks. Curt Ebbesmeyer wrote about this in Flotsametrics. He tells how the slightest shifts in wind or warmth or density can utterly rewrite the map of surface currents, gyres, eddies, etc. At Bay View, December 16 was the day of the aluminum can.

Delicious irony

All told, I pulled up 20 scraps of soda/beer can - which blows the roof off the 6-month curve. And proves that you just never know. Also, this day greeted me with 3 shoe soles, when usually I find zero. Plus two new lobster traps, probably brought near the shore by the storms and then carried to the sand by the calmer waves.

Tag # 9488 A1 0206 ME 06 Z:G
Ruined

Tag # 6814 A1 0225 ME 08 EEZ Z:G
Intact, still w/40 feet of buoy rope

So a very interesting day. On to the counts. Zone N:

74 finds:

• Building materials: 4 (asphalt, plaster from bucket, wooden floorboard scrap, slat)
• Foam/Styrofoam: 0
• Fishing misc.: 15 (trap bumper, trap scrap, 5 scraps of trap coating, claw band, rope, trap name tag (B. Emmerson 461), shotgun shell, sinker, 3 shell waddings)
• Food-related plastics: 5 (ketchup pack, bottle cap, cap seal, bit of straw, torn-off packet corner)
• Food-related metal/glass: 18 (10 can tops/bottoms, 5 can scraps, 3 bottle caps)
• Non-food/unknown plastics: 24 (2 bags, scrap of siding, lg o-ring, small o-ring, bandaid, 7 scraps, 1 hard escutcheon scrap, bottle cap pull, rubbery buoy (?) top, 2 vinyl scraps, lacework, clear circle, black molded sphere top, clothes pin, electronics battery cover, piece of tube)
• Cigarette filters/plastics: 1
• Paper/wood: 2 (bar code, swiffer)
• Misc./unique: 5 (shovel handle, glove, circuit board, leather shoe sole, bit of steel)

On to Zone S:

62 finds:

• Building materials: 16 (5 slats, 2 metal plates, very worn composite lumber stair step, wiring sheath, 2 chunks asphalt, 5 asphalt roof tile bits)
• Foam/Styrofoam: 0
• Fishing misc.: 10 (2 whole traps, rope, trap bumper, claw band scrap, 5 bits of trap coating)
• Food-related plastics: 3 (collander, straw, gum wrapper)
• Food-related metal/glass: 7 (2 sea glass, can, 4 can scraps)
• Non-food/unknown plastics: 21 (bag, bag scrap, 7 various colored scraps, bit of blue upholstery vinyl, 2 bits of tube, tie strap, 2 rubberbands, o-ring, hairband, conditioner bottle, cap/plug, SKU tag, weatherstrip)
• Cigarette filters/plastics: 1
• Paper/wood: 1 (small wood block)
• Misc./unique: 3 (2 shoe soles, 1 rubber floormat scrap)

So. 136 more pieces of garbage to add to the tally. Almost all of it from the sea. In one week. And there's no sign of it slowing down.

On a final note: Dear San Francisco Soap Company, #3 plastic is PVC, which releases serious toxins both in production and incineration. With all the other materials available, how about package your personal care products in something else?

We can do better