Plastic Soup

Fresh Snow

Tonight we fly back to the Netherlands. The extreme weather conditions that we experienced in the United States were symbolic of my mood swings; the result of the interviews I recorded and the information I read.

On the West Coast it was sunny. I spoke to people who unveiled the problem and to people who worked at solutions—from recycling to the banning of plastic bags. I liked the sound of it.

But then we flew to New York. Upon arrival there it was freezing: 18°F. On the streets of the city, needle-sharp sleet was falling, and the snow alongside the roads was stained black from exhaust fumes. I had been reading about how toxic substances leaks out of plastic, undermining health; and I just didn’t know how I could give that a positive spin.

But we’re in Pennsylvania now, where ten centimeters (four inches) of thick, bright, white snow has turned everything into a fairy tale.

My last interview was at the United Nations. Juanita Castaño, director of UNEP, New York, is worried about the plastic problem, but sees all kinds of possibilities for a solution. For example, just as Kofi Annan already did in 2000, she calls on companies to come together at the United Nations to research for alternative, non-toxic kinds of plastic.

There are “green” alternatives to the toxic chemical materials which have up until now been used in the production of plastic. Plastic can be made safe.

We can easily do without all the disposable articles made from plastic: from plastic bags to cutlery. Disposable plastic constitutes one third of the total production of plastic. Imagine how much oil and gas will be saved when we bring our own shopping bags and drinking cups!

After it has served its purpose, other plastic can be recycled; to be used again and again and not ending up in the waste dump in the sea. By organizing national beach clean-up days, we can make sure that the waste being washed ashore doesn’t flow back into the oceans.

Thus, step-by-step, we move towards a cleaner environment, and a healthier existence.

My travel through the plastic soup is far from over. Before I can finish my book, I will be talking to people in the Netherlands, Germany, and England.

I have heard there are storms in the Netherlands. I wonder what they will bring!

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On the day that Obama became president

I believe that we can solve the plastic problem.

I believe we we can make this world a cleaner, better, safer place for ourselves and for our children.

I believe we can achieve what today may seem impossible.

“Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions—who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.”

Barack Hussein Obama

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Sick of plastic

We were on the plane from Los Angeles to New York for over five hours. Time to go through the enormous pile of scientific articles that we got from Charles Moore. Piece by piece they describe the sickening effect that plastic waste has on animal and on man.

For a lay audience, these articles are almost impossible to get through, and it seems to me that this is the only reason why the results aren’t printed in headlines on every newspaper in the world: WE ARE POISONING OURSELVES.

I will only name two products and a few of their effects on our health.

Ever heard of Bisphenol A (BPA)? Probably not.

But you probably have heard of baby bottles, food packaging, and plastic wrap, Tupperware, microwave trays, most of the plastic drinking bottles, cups, and plastic cutlery; to name a few of the products. BPA is being use to produce polycarbonate plastic—the material from which all of these products are made.

When these products are used, they release bits of BPA. This increases when BPA is warmed (for example: during transport in a hot truck, having something warm inside of it, or putting it in a microwave). This can also happen when the product starts decaying (for example: on a garbage dump, on the side of the road, or in water).

Research on what happens when people ingest BPA has only started recently; but the results are already alarming. In women, BPA causes (among other things), obesity, a higher risk of miscarriage, womb deformation, and ovarian cysts. There are strong indications that BPA plays a role in the development of breast cancer, cervical cancer, prostrate cancer, other forms of cancer of the reproductive organs, and male fertility problems (such as a decrease in sperm quality and quantity).

During pregnancy, BPA affects the baby and can cause behavioral problems and birth abnormalities.

Then there are phthalates. These are softeners that are used to produce certain types of plastic. There are all kinds of phthalates, (they are all toxic), but the most toxic of them is DEHP. This is used, among other things, in the making of PVC. PVC can be found in what? Too much to name: from crown caps to shower curtains; baby mattresses to roof-gutters; carpets to children’s toys; food packaging to infusion tubes.

All PVC releases DEHP. When people ingest DEHP it causes, among other things: respiration problems, sperm damage, miscarriages, excessive rapid development of the genital organs in girls, smaller penis and scrotum, and disengaged testicles in young boys. Furthermore it causes cancer and especially increases the risk of liver cancer.

Like Bisphenol A, phthalates are transmitted from mother to child to in the womb, and later through breast-feeding.

I know what I am going to do when I get home: clear out the cupboards and take all that sick-inducing trash to a good plastics recycling service. By the way, phthalates are in everything, not only in the plastic products you would expect, but also in all kinds of cosmetics (from creams to baby towels).

I have only named two products that are added in the manufacture of plastic (and that end up in the environment or ourselves): Bisphenol A and DEHP.

Who will uncover what other man-made toxics are contained in plastic, and that end up in our bodies?

Only then we will finally develop good, safe and one hundred percent healthy, recycled plastic.

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Zolezzied

Working on this project, I have the feeling of being on a roller-coaster; not only because of the great speed, but also the way in which each interview shakes me up. This morning, I talked to Anthony Zolezzi, and again, I experienced a full loop.

I didn’t want to write a depressing book. That was my commitment from the beginning. But after hearing, time and again over the past few days, how every initiative to tax or ban plastic bags is crushed by the plastics and retail industry, I was starting to become negative myself. This was exactly what I was trying to avoid.

The best remedy against this rising depression was Anthony Zolezzi. This son of a fishing family has traveled the world investigating the problem of plastic waste (since plastic is a fantastic product that in our society, one can’t imagine living without). “Don’t fight them, embrace them!” was his conclusion. And he didn’t mean that in an Oscar Wilde sort of way (who quipped: “Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them more.”)

Anthony Zolezzi assumes the only way to win the battle against plastic is to cooperate with the producers. Once they are conscious of the advantages of durable production and recycling, they will change on their own accord.

Playing devil’s advocate, I pointed out to him that they did not have to change—that they made profit by maintaining their modus operandi. But he had a couple of very convincing arguments:

− More than anybody, plastic producers are aware that oil is a limited raw material, and that it is necessary to look for alternative methods of production.

− When the buying public can choose between two identical, equally expensive products, but one of these products has been produced responsibly, the consumer will choose the “good” product.

− As soon as this chain is put into action – the consumer has a choice and will choose the responsible product – the producer will conform to consumer demand and produce more and more responsible products. Eventually the ‘bad’ products will vanish from the market.

Nice scenario, I thought. But I countered that if people are focused on brand names to choose between the bad grade-A product and a responsible product of an unknown brand, most will purchase the grade-A product anyway.

“Embrace them!” Anthony smiled. Especially the bigger brands!

Not only does he present a nice theory; he also puts it into practice. Together with the largest food manufacturer and the most important water producer in the United States, he presents the consumer a choice of between a grade-A responsible brand and a grade-A irresponsible brand.

Who will then consciously choose something bad, for himself and the environment?

Forget petty government regulation. Forget a Don Quichotte-like battle with an invincible industry.

Change the world by choosing responsibly.

I embrace Anthony Zolezzi.

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Loser

One of the issues I grapple with most is how to approach the plastics industry in my book on the plastic soup.

When I started this project, after having spoken to Rinus van den Berg of DSM for the first interview, I told him that I did not want to attack anyone—didn’t want to point fingers at anyone. Instead, I wanted to write a book in which, together, all parties would look for a solution. However, in the course of talks I have had, and images I have seen, my attitude towards the global plastics industry has become less friendly.

We are all to blame for the problem. Rinus van den Berg said: “Naturally, we produce plastic and the consumer buys it. But we have never told them to throw it in the ocean!” That is true, but, on the other hand, producers of plastic do not tell you not to throw the material into the ocean. They don’t tell you how toxic it is and under what circumstances the various plastics begin to release toxic substances. They don’t identify which manufacturers they deliver to, or whether durable or disposable products are made from the plastic. They don’t inform us about the consequences of when these substances break down in the environment (ending up in our bodies). They don’t extensively cooperate in recycling programs. On the contrary, on a global scale, the plastics lobby is constantly busying itself in impeding measures and bills that could decrease the production of new plastic.

Jean-Michel Cousteau, (the son of the famous discoverer and oceans expert Jacques Cousteau), has accepted millions of dollars from the chemical industry to spread the message that the waste problem is not a problem of the producers, but of the people that do not discard the waste appropriately. It all sounds very logical, as in the words of Rinus van den Berg. Thus, everyone from the production end of the chain washes their hands of the matter, even though the polluting products wouldn’t exist had they never have been brought to market.

When I asked Charles Moore about the responsibility of this problem, he replied that everybody is partially to blame, but that we sometimes forget who plays a very large part in this: the marketing agencies. The billion-dollar think tanks proclaim to the world how indispensable the latest gadget is, how easy the last development was, and how we miss the boat when we don’t buy into the very latest trend.

Together with producers and the retail industry, the marketing industry has brainwashed us all. Why don’t we think twice before we buy something? Why do we need the latest cell phone every six months, when the previous one was still working fine? Why do we throw away a pair of sneakers that are perfectly comfortable, but haven’t got the right fashionable colors?

I feel uneasy when in this blog, I proclaim to the world to take a step back and take a closer look at our patterns of consumption (and to see in what crazy state we’ve ended up). I realize that the success of marketing agencies is to make a loser out of anyone who does not follow trends.

From now on, I am a loser, and proud of it!

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500 words

In July the international Earth Charter Day Academic Conference 2009 will take place in the Netherlands. I received an email from Charles Moore calling for abstracts for contributions to this conference.

I thought it a great challenge: on paper precisely define the problem in five hundred words.

This is what I came up with:

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Saving the oceans by closing the plastic circle.

Floating in the Pacific Ocean is a vast amount of plastic waste, twice the size of the United States. Marine life and sea birds are dying, and we are also finding plastic in our own foods from the sea … all with dire consequences – not only because of the toxic effects of the different kinds of plastic, but also because in the sea water toxic substances have attached themselves to the plastic.

As far back as three years ago, shocking United Nations accounts show that every square mile of ocean water contains 46,000 plastic particles. Alarmingly, this number is rapidly increasing. Whoever considers that on a global scale, one million plastic bags are produced every minute and 2.5 million plastic bottles are discarded every hour, can draw their own conclusions. Hardly any of this plastic will end up neatly in a trash can.

April 2009 is the launch date for an extraordinary project: A Convenient Truth, or ACT. Young Dutch academics create an international network to look for solutions to important global problems, and will put their solutions into practice. The first subject they will tackle is the plastic waste in the oceans.

The main problem is caused by the fact that a linear consuming process has been created. Raw material is being extracted, plastic is being produced and products are being made from it, which, after use end up in a garbage dump.

When this linear process is reformed into a circle (and the plastic is reused), a first step towards cleaner oceans has been made: the garbage dump will no longer increase.

In this way we also save oil and gas, the only raw material from which plastic is being produced. It is a myth supported by the plastic industry that much plastic is not recyclable. Research has proven that technically every type of plastic is recyclable. When producing recycled plastic to produce the same amount of equal quality to new plastic, only 5% of the current energy is required and only a fraction of the amount of clean water.

Governments can act as forerunners by banning or taxing the distribution of disposable plastic articles, and by stimulating the plastic recycling industry. But by now all over the world, the chemical industry lobby has quashed innumerable initiatives.

Yet still the solutions are available to ensure that the amount of plastic in the oceans does not increase.

Now science is faced with an important task: the answering of pressing questions. How large is the damage that has already been done? How really toxic are the seemingly harmless plastics that we so take for granted? And above all, how does one filter out microscopically tiny particles from 170 million cubic miles of Pacific Ocean (only one of the five locations where plastic in the seas has accumulated).

In order to provide a solution, the ACT scientists need the full support of the international academic community.

Currently, ACT is supported by the Wetsus Institute, nine universities, and eighty private companies.

Maybe I’ll submit this …

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Plastic Mafia

Yesterday was an important day here in Santa Monica. At least, it should have been. A vote should have taken place for a bill that would ban plastic bags in the city and allow people to pay for their paper bags (to encourage people to bring their own bags in the future). But at the last moment, the vote was called off: the plastic bag industry threatened to sue …

It makes you sick when you take a minute to look on the Internet to see how the plastic industry tries to sabotage the ban on (or even the deposit charge for) plastic bags, and how it opposes the recycling industry. Lobbying agencies are being hired to go from door-to-door to collect signatures against “green” decisions. Not only do these lobby agencies receive huge amounts of money, but those who recruit signatures also receive an additional two dollars per signature. Matters are taken to court to financially exhaust the opponent. Threats are uttered. Bribes are paid. Everything to continue the production of polluting disposable articles which are only used for a minute by the consumer. And not only in the United States. It’s just as bad in Canada, Asia, and within the countries of the European Union, including the Netherlands.

Too much is at stake for the oil industry to drop disposable plastic. What is more profitable than to produce something that can be carelessly produced in large quantities and that can be discarded just as carelessly?

Whoever considers that on a global scale, one million plastic bags are produced every minute and 2.5 million plastic bottles are discarded every hour, can draw their own conclusions.

What are we talking about, people? Do we really have to start thinking about alternative kinds of plastic, such as bioplastic?

In my quest, I came across a shocking calculation. I was already opposed to the use of corn for the production of plastic. But who can be in favor of this when you consider that in the US, 13.5 billion plastic bags and packaging are being discarded annually; if this were bioplastic, it would be the equivalent of food for some 61 million people.

Let’s just STOP producing disposable plastic. Right away, that would be the first step towards cleaner oceans!

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Road Trip

We rode from Santa Cruz to Santa Monica. Endlessly through the California landscape. Pump jacks, Harley Davidsons, long-haul semis, endless nut and orange orchards, garlic farms, ranches full of cattle, a whole lot of nothing, and endless rolling hills until we approached Los Angeles … Images of James Dean, Easy Rider and Lucky Luke came to mind.

The most beautiful part of the trip rolled through the Pacheco Pass. After hills which looked real sheared, we came across miles of fields covered in fresh snow. Snow? In 79°F? It turned out to be fields stretching far out and covered with white sparkling plastic …

We then hit Interstate 5, on which we drove southwards for hundreds of miles. After my blog about the cleanliness of the Pacific Coast Highway (Route 1), the translator Skyped me to say that I may have a false impression about American highways based on that particular highway. Here, it was obvious that he was right. Entangled on both sides of the highway were full trash bags, thrown out from cars, food containers, long strands of agricultural plastic sheeting blown off from trucks, inner tubes, pieces of torn rubber, whole tires, even whole wheels.

The translator wrote how when he came to the Netherlands, he was struck by how clean everything was. He found that we in the Netherlands are lucky to have a government that takes care in maintaining our streets and highways so that they stay so clean

That got me thinking. Why am I bothered by so much government intervention? Because the impression comes to mind that people can or will take no responsibility. Aren’t we all just like spoiled children who throw their rubbish on the ground after themselves, in the full knowledge that their parents will surely pick up after them?

So can’t we have a better environment without the government? We need government to ban the handing-out of plastic bags (as Ross Mirkarimi has done in San Francisco), or even better to restrict all disposable plastic–from plastic cutlery to food packaging.

But at the same time, I think that the role of the government as enforcer and solution provider should not be allowed to become too great. They should rather create the conditions whereby we ourselves take the initiative and responsibility beforehand. We could step up to the plate, if more subsidies were provided for environmental education, recycling and waste processing projects.

With some allowance from our parents we will grow into mature adults.

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Back on Earth

It’s all so incredible: while there’s a sharp frost in the Netherlands, I am walking about in summery California in a little dress and flip-flops. As a result, everything starts looking brighter—even the problem of the plastic soup.

But this afternoon, I was brought back to Earth, during an interview with Dan Haifley (director of O’Neill Sea Odyssey). Or rather, I came crashing back to Earth.

It is not that the project is disappointing. On the contrary, my eyes filled with tears on seeing the short film on the way children sailing on Jack O’Neill’s catamaran were educated about life in the ocean and the role they play in preserving it.

No, it was what Dan told me—what I already knew—how complex the problem of the plastic soup is. Even if the money is there. Even if the boats are there. Even if the recycling installation is there. Even if the people are there. The soup is a soup. Literally. The plastic is spread throughout the water in minuscule particles. What we can filter out of the upper layer is maybe five percent of all the plastic.

As Dan formulated: “It’s a biological—a chemical problem—for which a solution does not yet exist.”

The Pacific Ocean consists of 170 million cubic miles of water. Each cubic mile weighs 151 million tons. Try to filter out the microscopic particles without damaging fish, reefs and other marine life …

But after our conversation, coming back outside, the sun was still shining and I thought: “Let’s start with that floating five percent anyway?” In any case, then we make sure that we don’t add anything to it.

Perhaps it’s just as well that I don’t all at once find the solution. Otherwise later, those scientists at A Convenient Truth are left without anything to do.

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Dream Team

Sunday was a day without engagements–a day when we reflect on everything that had gone the week before, and all the people that we met.

I realized that all the people I had met have never spoken to each other. Imagine if we could bring all of them together … Certainly then a solution for the plastic waste would be very close!

At the head of such a Plastic Soup Dream Team would naturally be Maria Westerbos–the person who conceived A Convenient Truth, and who is a walking energy-explosion. At her side, we need the expert in the field of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch: Charles Moore, himself.

Then there are the people who all personify some part of the solution: Jackie Caddick of Liverpool’s Water Witch who helps in designing the right plastic-dredging ship. Michael Biddle of MBA Polymers, who thought up the best way to process the dredged-up plastic into new plastic or fuel. Peter Prows, the young and talented lawyer who specializes in the Law of the Sea, and who has established a global network of lawyers to address authorities on their responsibilities. Jay Golden of Gorilla in the Greenhouse, who will be the head of the department that will storm the world via multi-media. Rudolph Eilander whose floating island will be the base of operations for the plastic soup clean-up campaign.

Of course, I can take part as well in the writing down of everything; the publisher to publish it; and the baby to inspire everyone–since we do this for her generation.

Indispensable is Dave Cooper, the passionate translator, who has thrown himself into the fray of the plastic soup, providing an inexhaustible source of suggestions and representing the world on his own as a South African-Rhodesian with a Yorkshire sense of humor and a heart for San Francisco. Together with his partner and co-translator Vince he makes the Dream Team complete.

That is to say, complete … But we have only finished a quarter of our journey. We will undoubtedly meet more visionaries, experts, and designers to include on our Dream Team.

We can all get to work at Jack O’Neill’s house. In that three-story wooden dream house on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean above Santa Cruz, we first develop a plan to prevent any more plastic ending up in the sea, and then start cleaning it up.

Before you know it, hundreds of Dream Team boats will sail through the plastic soup, manned by dreamers like us believing that dreams can come true.

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