Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012

A waste of convenience

Mr. McGuire: I just want to say one word to you. Just one word.

Benjamin: Yes, sir.

Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?

Benjamin: Yes, I am.

Mr. McGuire: Plastics.

- From the 1967 film “The Graduate.”

One of the perks of living along the Grand Strand is having the ocean as our backyard. Even in the dead of winter, nothing beats a beach walk to calm the mind and stir the senses. Ocean breezes, crashing waves, seagulls roaming the shoreline and pelicans diving into the surf - the poet William Wordsworth described the feeling he got looking at the sea as “breathless adoration.” You can’t help but admire the ocean’s pristine beauty, with soaring skies above and seashells and sanderlings at your feet - until you stumble upon that first piece of plastic. A discarded bag, bottle caps, six-pack rings - all common finds on any given stretch of beach, all made of plastic.

Plastics are an integral part of today’s disposable culture - besides plastic bags, cups and eating utensils, the majority of items we buy come packaged in plastic. Like diamonds, plastics last forever, yet most have an average working life of 15 minutes. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, we use and promptly discard more than 30 million tons of plastic each year in this country. Behind the convenience of plastic lies an inconvenient truth - produced by fossil fuels, full of potentially harmful chemicals and problematic to dispose of, plastic poses one of the most serious environmental threats to ever face humankind, especially when it concerns the Grand Strand’s most-famous natural resource. Coast to coast, plastic pollution makes its way from land to sea, and according to marine scientists and researchers, our oceans are becoming a massive plastic soup. We’re all familiar with the three Rs of being eco-friendly: reduce, reuse and recycle. When it comes to dealing with plastics, activists locally and around the globe claim there’s only one “R” that will ultimately make a difference, and that is to refuse. Experts claim refusing to use plastic - at the grocery store, dry cleaners, fast food drive-in - is the only sure way to reduce our so-called “plastic footprint” and prevent the Atlantic Ocean from becoming a plastic wasteland, uninhabitable by wildlife, and unfit for human use.

Goffinet McLaren is a native of Ireland, a charming, educated woman with a love for the sea. McLaren retired to Litchfield Beach five years ago, and pictured spending her days beachcombing and relaxing. From the very first day, McLaren says she was shocked by what she encountered on her daily beach walks. “I was appalled by all the plastic- plastic bags, pens, cigarette lighters. I thought I discovered a new ‘inconvenient truth’, equal to global warming (referencing Al Gore’s global warming documentary),” says McLaren. “All sorts of marine life get entangled in plastic, they mistake tiny particles of plastic for plankton and plastic bags for jellyfish. They ingest but they can’t digest, therefore they die, decompose and through that process the plastic comes out into the ocean yet again,” explains McLaren. “It’s a never ending cycle of pollution caused by humans.”

According to the latest figures available, more than 4,300 pounds of garbage - the majority of which was plastic - was collected from Horry and Georgetown County beaches in the 2010 Beach/River Sweep.

It’s out there, swirling in the ocean, but it seams our slice of Coastal Carolina shoreline is spared somewhat from a deluge of plastic garbage piling up on our beaches because of East Coast currents - except during hurricanes and tropical storms when all types of stuff - including plastic - washes ashore.

Despite the amounts of plastic trash you’re likely to encounter on any given stroll of the Grand Strand’s 60-mile stretch of beaches, it’s relatively clean compared to the West Coast, says the man who discovered the Great Pacific Garbage patch, a massive whirlpool of garbage that’s been likened to plastic soup.

“I visited the East Coast in November, and walked the beaches in Litchfield, Pawleys Island, and Myrtle Beach. I was impressed with the lack of plastic compared to where I am from,” says Captain Charles Moore, a native of California who discovered and reported the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. “This area has it, but along the East Coast, the currents end up blowing it offshore.”

Could it be local municipalities are diligent in cleaning up plastic litter on local beaches, as well as policing polluters? Have local clean-up efforts and awareness campaigns struck a chord with a local population that’s becoming more eco-sensitive and are we attracting environmentally-conscious tourists?

Could it be the major problem is swept under the rug - or out to sea in this case?

Is our disposable society feeding a Great Atlantic Garbage Patch?

A tale of two oceans

McLaren’s beach strolls awakened her civic pride.

“I knew if Litchfield had a problem, beaches all around the world must be having the same problem,” she said. She began a letter writing campaign, writing to environmentalists such as former Vice President Gore and Philippe Cousteau, to anyone who she thought would listen. Getting no response, McLaren took to the Internet and Googled “trash in the ocean.” At the top of the results was Capt. Moore and his Algalita Marine Research Foundation in California.

Capt. Moore founded the Algalita Marine Research Foundation in 1994 to focus on the restoration and preservation of coastal wetlands in Southern California. Thirteen years ago, while on a routine sailing trip from Hawaii to California, Moore ventured near the outskirts of the North Pacific Subtropical ocean gyre. Gyres are massive whirlpools found in ocean basins throughout the Atlantic and Pacific, created by a combination of gravity, wind and ocean currents. The North Pacific gyre, one of five throughout the world, is roughly twice the size of the United States. As Moore approached the perimeter of the gyre, he was disgusted by what he saw - hundreds of miles of garbage swirling throughout the ocean water. His discovery became known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and while it has been described as an entire floating island of garbage, Moore coined the more accurate description of it as a “plastic soup.” It is comprised almost entirely of plastic - plastic bags, bottle and caps, toys, toothbrushes and cigarette lighters. Millions of minuscule fragments of partially-decomposed plastic float through the water like snowflakes.

McLaren did what any self-respecting, concerned retiree might do - she called Capt. Moore with her concerns. “I called over there and Capt. Moore listened and was very empathetic,” says McLaren, in her lilting Irish brogue. “I went on to discover this problem was not just local, but world-wide, and greater in magnitude than anyone could have imagined.” McLaren says what she learned from the captain changed her life. “I went from coming here to retire to spending every minute involved, almost obsessed with the effects these plastics have on marine life,” says McLaren.

McLaren continued her beach walks, picking up trash and talking to people she passed about the problems created by plastics. “Plastic is the only material invented that doesn’t biodegrade - the more we make, the more pollution there is,” she says. She spoke to parents and children about the effects pollution had on marine life - whales and dolphins entangled or beaching themselves as a result of swallowing plastic bags, sea birds and turtles choking on plastic caps. She noticed that while the adults didn’t always seem to care about what she was saying, the children she talked to paid attention, their little faces going solemn and serious when she spoke of the threats plastics posed to beloved sea creatures. McLaren decided to write a children’s book on the effects of pollution, from a seagull’s perspective. Her book, “Sully Saves the Sea,” features a “savvy seagull’s schemes to save the oceans and his ocean pals,” and is available at Litchfield Books, 14427 Ocean Highway in Litchfield, and at Harborwalk Books, 723 Front St. in Georgetown, in addition to being sold on Amazon.com. McLaren hopes it will hit other area stores this year. “It’s a funny, comical book that parents and grandparents will enjoy as much as the kids,” says McLaren. She hopes people will read it and wake up to what’s going on out in the ocean. “The majority of us are asleep to the problems going on in the sea.”

Along with McLaren’s book, Litchfield Books also carries the book “Plastic Oceans,” Capt. Moore’s account of his discovery, as well as the causes and effects of the plastic pollution in the North Pacific Gyre. “So much of what ends up in the oceans is used for packaging, what we call fast track trash,” says Moore. “There is no single entity to make this problem go away. We’re being flooded with this stuff to the point where we can’t keep up with it all.” While the North Pacific gyre is the most heavily researched, the Atlantic Ocean is not immune.

In our own backyard, the North Atlantic Gyre sits roughly 600 miles off the South Carolina coast, in the middle of an area known as the Sargasso Sea. Like the North Pacific Gyre, it is formed by a combination of wind and current; northwest winds called westerlies and gentle Southeastern trade winds, known by ancient sailors as the Horse Latitudes, combine with four different ocean currents. The largest of these currents is the Gulf Stream, running from the Gulf of Mexico, around Florida and parallel up the East Coast, passing roughly 60 miles out from our sandy beaches. “The Sargasso Sea used to be a haven for sea turtles - it’s where our baby sea turtles would go to hide and rest,” says McLaren. “Now it’s fully entangled in plastics, some of which sometimes washes up here.”

The Grand Strand is somewhat fortunate in that plastic bottle caps, bits of balloons, and pieces of discarded plastic toys floating out in the Sargasso Sea generally only wash up here after hurricanes or storms. Bermuda, our neighbor to the east, is not so fortunate - at the center of inflowing currents, the British territory’s sands are strewn with debris. According to Moore, pollution in the North Atlantic Gyre is also more spread out than in the Pacific gyre. “The waste is more disbursed, and covers an area that spreads all the way towards Africa and southern Europe.”

Moore says cleaning up the gyres is out of the question - the problem is so out of hand, cleanup efforts would be beyond the budget of any country, including the U.S. Additionally, due to the breakdown of plastic into minuscule fragments, any attempt to scoop the plastic out would have a negative effect on water quality, zooplankton and other organisms. With more plastic flowing into the ocean every minute, Moore describes the problem as trying to bail out the bathtub while the faucet is running. The only solution, Moore says, is to stop the flow at its source - on land. “Our throwaway society is the culprit. Refuse this whole concept that everything comes wrapped in plastic,” he says. “As a society, we are inundated with innovation and novelty, which just creates more pollution. Refuse to be part of a system that glorifies consumption and waste.”

A plastic coastal culture

The South Carolina Sea Grant Consortium is a state agency dedicated to enhancing our coastal resources, as well as organizing the annual Beach/River Sweep held each fall. The event is part of the International Coastal Clean-up, sponsored by the environmental group Ocean Conservancy, in which volunteers around the world collect and document litter from beaches, rivers, lakes and other waterways. A quick look around your local grocery store will confirm how widespread the use of disposable, single-use plastic has become -baked goods come in plastic containers, fruits and vegetables are in plastic bags, meat and poultry is placed on Styrofoam, a form of plastic, then wrapped in more plastic. Frozen pizza, frozen veggies, milk, juice, bread, yogurt, eggs - all come packaged in plastic. According to Ocean Conservancy, 50 percent of plastic produced today is for single-use disposables - fast track trash we use once then throw away.

“Plastics represent a waste of convenience - just about anything you purchase now contains plastic packaging,” says Jennifer Sellers, Sustainability Coordinator for Coastal Carolina University, where she manages and promotes sustainable practices on campus. “Over a lifetime, each of us will throw away 29,700 pounds of plastic packaging - plastic food wrap, plastic bags, toy containers and more.” Prior to her job at CCU, Sellers was the Recycling Coordinator for the Horry County Solid Waste Authority from 2004-2011, where she worked extensively in public education. She shares her knowledge of all things environmentally-friendly on her blog, mygreenglasses.com. “Having given hundreds of landfill tours for local schools and groups, I recall seeing lots of plastics buried in the landfill,” she says. “Unfortunately, once anything becomes trash at the landfill, it stays as trash - nobody goes back and digs up the recyclables.” While plastic is cheap and versatile, it’s also durable - so durable that virtually every piece of plastic ever created is still in existence in one form or the other. “Plastics never really biodegrade and have one of the largest varieties of waste forms - from bottles and jugs to fishing line and plastic bags,” says Sellers.

There are seven types of plastic which can be identified by a code located on the product, and Horry County Solid Waste Authority accepts all seven for recycling. “The plastics coded as No. 1 (also known as PET) are the most popular and are typically soda and water bottles. These are single-use plastic bottles and will get recycled into soft fiber used for carpet, clothing and pillows,” says Sellers. “The plastics coded as No. 2 (known as HDPE) are typically laundry and cleaning bottles, which are recycled into more laundry and cleaning bottles. The rest, Nos. 3-7, known as scrap or mixed plastics, may get shipped overseas to China to be recycled into items such as plastic hangers, crates and plastic toys.” One widely used form of plastic not being recycled is Polystyrene, more commonly known as Styrofoam. “Recycling polystyrene would be a huge addition to the recycling stream for our county, considering all the polystyrene items that are used for quick and easy convenience, but then thrown away,” says Sellers.

Waste and disposal isn’t the only problem. Plastics are created using fossil fuels, and, according to National Geographic (nationalgeographic.com) it can take up to a quart of oil to make just one plastic water bottle. “The increase in the use of plastics adds to our demand for oil and petroleum, as well as natural gas,” says Sellers. According to the most recent report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (www.eia.gov), in 2006 alone 331 million barrels of liquid petroleum gas and natural gas were used to make plastic products in the U.S. No, that’s not a typo - 331 million barrels of oil to keep us in plastic sporks, bags and bottles, along with various and sundry items like cheap sunglasses and kids meal toys.

Plastic dependency

While marine scientists research the threats plastics pose to marine life, researchers have also been looking into the threat that plastics pose to human health. Plastics contain harmful chemicals such as Bisphenol (BPA) and phthalates, which the National Institute Of Health (nih.gov) claim to be “gender-bending” hormone disrupters, linked to everything from a decrease in males’ penis sizes, infertility and birth defects to heart disease, diabetes and cancer. While the NIH is concerned that Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) in the ocean, such as BPA and phthalates, may be transferred to humans through wildlife, there is also ample concern about the direct impact of plastic use. The Harvard School of Public Health conducted research in which a sample group of students drank all cold beverages from plastic bottles for a week. By week’s end, the students’ levels of BPA had increased by almost 70 percent. Researchers are even more concerned about leaching of chemicals from plastics to food and beverages when heated. Leaving a plastic water bottle in the car where it gets hot, wrapping still warm leftovers in plastic wrap and heating foods in plastic containers could all potentially cause harmful chemicals to be released. Clemson University Cooperative Extension recently issued a warning advising parents to be wary of plastic baby bottles, advising parents - and anyone using plastic to eat or drink from - to be sure their products are BPA free. They also advise being careful with cooking or heating foods - if the container has a scratch, don’t use it, as harmful chemicals could be released.

“The debate on BPA and phthalates in our everyday products continues,” says Sellers. “I think above all, consumers need to be aware of the products they purchase.” According to the Clemson warning, it is best to watch out for products marked with the plastic code three or seven, as they may be made with BPA. “The further we educate ourselves about potential health risks, the more conscious we are about our green purchases,” says Sellers. “Every time you purchase a product, it sends a message back to the manufacturer that says ‘I want that’.”

Rise above plastics

Our dependence on plastic has become so ingrained in our daily lives and its use is so widespread, it may be difficult if not impossible to avoid plastics completely. Still, there are some very easy, every day ways to reduce our plastic footprint. It’s called source reduction - by reducing the source of the problem, we reduce the problem - and educating the public is the first step. “Most of our projects are about public education,” says Jared Hendrix, co-chair of the non-profit Surfrider Foundation’s Grand Strand chapter (surfridergrandstrand.org), an international organization dedicated to preserving the world’s oceans and beaches through grassroots activism. The local chapter meets the last Monday of each month at Myrtle Beach State Park, where they discuss projects such as beach sweeps, surf clinics and well-known annual events such as the Earth Day Music Festival in April and the Lip Rippin’ Chilympics in October. Through its national program, Rise Above Plastics, members of the Surfrider Foundation raise public awareness of the environmental nightmare society’s over-reliance on plastics is causing. “With Rise Above Plastics, we’re trying to get people to reduce or eliminate single use plastic - plastic bags, eating utensils, cups and bottles - things which don’t serve a purpose beyond their immediate use,” says Hendrix. “Being a tourist town you see it all - lots of plastic straws, plastic spoons for ice cream, plastic toys, sand pails and shovels, fireworks - the list goes on and on. Multiply this by the millions of tourists that visit each summer -in effect, you’re killing your ocean.”

Hendrix leads by example. “When I shop I look at containers. When I’m looking for eggs I look for ones in some material other than Styrofoam; in produce, I get my own fruits and vegetables rather than the packaged kind.”

Choosing reusable bags, cups and water bottles, and reducing consumption of plastic by refusing excess packaging are small steps in the right direction.

“People are doing these things all over the country,” says Hendrix. “It’s an uphill battle, no doubt, and it’s a little more difficult in a tourist town, but we’ve got to start somewhere.”