Friday

Plastic bags: we’re eating them too

A photo of Kamilo Beach in Hawaii which is known for its accumulation of plastic debris from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Picture: Tim Silverwood.

IT’S the dirty secret most of us are harbouring: that stash of plastic bags stuffed in a kitchen drawer or at the back of the cupboard that we kid ourselves we’ll use again. They’re not in the bin, so they’re not doing any harm, right?

But next time you go to the supermarket, take a moment to think about whether you want to be eating those same plastic bags in your food.

Plastics from bags, straws and takeaway coffee cups we use everyday are already making their way into the stomachs of seabirds and fish, and — now they have entered the food chain — we are consuming them too.

The Project’s Waleed Aly this week highlighted how bad plastics are for our environment, launching a campaign to ban plastic bags.

“On average a plastic bag is used for just 12 minutes, so that’s 12 minutes carrying your groceries to the car (and) the pantry and after that it’s tossed away and it takes 1000 years to break down,” Aly said.

“So your great, great, great, great, great … grandchildren will share a planet with the plastic bag that you just used to bring home tonight’s dinner.”

On The Project, Waleed Aly dishes out the dirt on plastic bags and how bad they are for the environment and calls for a ban. Courtesy: Network Ten

Worse, researchers recently calculated that Europeans who ate shellfish like mussels were consuming 6400 microplastics per year, and a third of fish caught in the UK contained plastic.

Will this be you after your weekly grocery shop this weekend?Source:News Corp Australia

Australian surfer Tim Silverwood has backed a plastic ban bag, having seen first hand the terrifying “plastic smog” that is spreading through our oceans.

In 2011, Silverman sailed across what has been known as the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” in the north Pacific. The area between Hawaii and Canada, part of the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, was the first place where the accumulation of plastic in the ocean was discovered in 1997.

Silverwood told news.com.au it wasn’t quite what he was expecting.

“There wasn’t this island of trash, it was more like a plastic smog,” he said.

“The ocean can look pretty normal but if you closely examine it under a microscope it’s terrifying.

“There is enough trash in the oceans to make many islands but it is dispersed across incredibly vast areas and much of it is undetectable to the naked eye.”

This is because plastic that ends up in the ocean often breaks up into tiny particles, less than 5mm in size. This plastic is being absorbed by marine life and can also end up on people’s plates.

“It’s been estimated there are more 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic in the ocean,” Silverwood said.

“Eight million tonnes of new plastic are going into the ocean every year and we are clearly not doing enough to turn off the tap, to stop it at the source.

“We know this is an issue and many countries are acting. Why isn’t Australia?”

Australians are the second highest producers of rubbish per person in the world, second only to Americans. Each Aussie sends almost 700 kilos of waste to landfill every year and the country uses more than 10 million plastic bags every day.

If we continue with current trends, by 2050 it’s been estimated that there will be more plastic by weight in our oceans than fish.

Kamilo Beach in Hawaii is known for its accumulation of plastic debris from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Picture: Tim Silverwood.Source:Supplied

DO YOU WANT TO EAT PLASTIC?

Many of us use plastic bags or buy a bottle of water without a second thought, tossing the items in the bin shortly after. However, our plastic can come back to haunt us, sometimes ending up in our oceans and reappearing in our food.

Recently researchers calculated that Europeans who ate shellfish like mussels were consuming 6400 microplastics per year, with unknown risks to human health.

In the UK, a study published last year found a third of UK-caught fish contained plastic.

Microplastics have been found floating in the waters of the Arctic, Antarctic, Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans as well as in deep-sea sediments.

An analysis of waters around Australia in 2013 found there was about 4000 microplastic fragments per square kilometres on average, but this rose to about 15,000 to 23,000 in some areas. Higher concentrations were found near cities such as Sydney and Brisbane.

The plastic is still in relatively small concentrations and international expert Professor Richard Thompson said it was not yet a cause for alarm.

“You would have to eat well over 10,000 mussels a year to reach the quantities of plastics the Belgian studies suggest,” he told The Guardian.

The remains of a sea bird shows the plastic debris inside its body. Picture: AAPSource:Supplied

But he warned that quantities would only increase and if things didn’t change there could be problems 10 or 20 years down the track.

Microplastics are concerning because they may release toxic chemicals into the surrounding water or impact living organisms.

Scientific studies have already recognised the toxic effects of additives such as bisphenol A (BPA), which can leach from microplastics, but the health implications of these particles in the ocean are not yet clear.

While Australia is not one of the top 20 polluters sending plastic into waterways, it has still contributed about 13,888 tonnes of litter every year.

Wildlife workers in Sydney have treated turtles with stomachs full of plastic waste.

A 2015 study found nearly 60 per cent of all seabirds species were found to have plastic in their guts and estimated 90 per cent of seabirds had eaten plastic of some kind.

It also predicted 99 per cent of the world’s seabird species would be impacted by plastic by 2050.

Silverwood said 80 per cent of plastic in the ocean is thought to have been washed there from land. Litter often ends up in waterways after heavy rain through streams and the stormwater system.

“The ocean is downhill from everywhere,” Silverwood said.

“Plastic never goes away, and these items we use for a few minutes — a straw, coffee cups, bottles — they get into the ocean and become a problem for decades, if not hundreds of years.

“Single-use plastic is a massive, massive problem. It doesn’t add up.

“Sure it might be more convenient to use a plastic straw or coffee cup but it’s not convenient for our planet and so we need to respond accordingly.”

Plastic gradually breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces. Picture: Tim Silverwood.Source:Supplied

WHAT CAN WE DO?

The Project has called on the state premiers of NSW, Victoria and Western Australia to ban plastic bags, following the lead of other Australian states. People are being urged to support this by contacting their representatives and signing a change.org petition.

Individuals can also make changes in their own lives, refusing to accept bags and other items made from plastic. In fact there’s a growing number of people who are adopting a zero waste lifestyle and have proved it is possible to dramatically reduce the amount of rubbish households produce.

Silverwood is also encouraging people to take action on the rubbish already out there. He co-founded the organisation Take 3 in 2009 to motivate people to pick up rubbish, take a photo and share it on social media with the hashtag #take3forthesea.

“Being a surfer we get so much from the ocean, when you realise how threatened it is … you have to do something,” he said.

“Seeing images of albatross stomachs full of plastic and when you learn they are dying in huge numbers, you realise that’s our trash, that’s our plastic.”

Many people might not think their individual efforts can make a difference but Silverwood said it only took one piece of rubbish to kill wildlife.

“I think of that when I say no to a straw or pick up rubbish, every piece causes harm,” he said.

“So often people think it’s up to someone else to change the world, but we need to be the change we want to see.”