Ocean plastic could outweigh fish by 2050

Plastic rubbish will outweigh fish in the oceans by 2050 unless drastic action is undertaken to recycle the material, warned a recent report by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

At least eight million tonnes of plastics finds its way into the ocean every year – equal to one garbage truckful every minute, said the report.

An overwhelming 95% of plastic packaging worth up to R1.8-trillion a year is lost to the economy after a single use, said the study, which proposed setting up a new system to slash the leaking of plastics into nature, especially the oceans, and to find alternatives to crude oil and natural gas as the raw material of plastic production.

This is frightening news for a seaside town like Toti which relies on its beautiful beaches to attract holidaymakers to the region, as well as neighbouring towns where deep sea diving is a major income generator. After torrential downpours earlier in the month, Toti beaches were awash with tons of garbage, much of it plastic, which washed down after river mouths breached.

Fortunately currents deposited the majority of the garbage onto beaches and municipal workers and residents worked desperately to bag the garbage and stack the bags above the high water mark to stop it being washed back into the ocean.

Ward 97 councillor, Andre Beetge said a mammoth 3,500 refuse bags of garbage was picked up from Toti beaches after the floods.

“According to many credible organisations, plastic pollution is a huge problem for the oceans, ocean life and a potential problem for people who eat ocean food,” said Toti’s ocean information specialist, Rolf Collins.

According to Collins, there are four persistent organic pollutants, DDT, PAH, HCH and PCBs, that are attracted to virgin polypropylene and polyethylene plastic pellets in the oceans.

Plastic constitutes 90% of all trash floating in the world’s oceans.

“Strangely, you find virgin plastic pellets on beaches across the world – they travel in amazing ways. DDT, which is supposed to have been banned after Rachel Carston’s book ‘Silent Spring’ many years ago, is still used to spray huts to kill mosquitoes in northern Zululand and further north. Polycarbonate plastic contains bisphenol A, which is toxic.

There are plastics that bio-degrade by bacterial decomposition, but as I understand it, most plastic in the oceans are degraded by sunlight and this takes many years.

There are plastics that bio-degrade by bacterial decomposition, but as I understand it, most plastic in the oceans are degraded by sunlight and this takes many years.”

In the Pacific Ocean, the North Pacific subtropical gyre – a slowly moving, clockwise spiral of currents created by a high-pressure system of air currents – has accumulated millions of tons of plastic. It’s the largest landfill in the world, which floats in the middle of the ocean.

The gyre has given birth to two large masses of ever-accumulating trash, known as the western and eastern Pacific garbage patches, sometimes collectively called the great Pacific garbage patch.

Contrary to initial belief, the patches are not trash islands, but rather whirlpools containing tons of plastic.

The eastern garbage patch floats between Hawaii and California and scientists estimate its size as twice the size of Texas. The western garbage patch forms east of Japan and west of Hawaii.

The great Pacific garbage patch is the most well known, but there are five gigantic clumps of trash in the world’s oceans, including in the Atlantic and Indian oceans.

Over time, in a process called photodegradation, UV radiation causes large plastic objects to fragment into smaller pieces, which are consumed by small creatures that form the base of the marine food web. These small creatures are consumed by fish and birds which transport the toxic-persistent chemicals into the food chain, which includes humans.

“Current estimates of fish biomass in the oceans is around 1,000-million tons and of course there is debate about this, but this is a number that is commonly stated,” said Collins. According to National Geographic, around eight million tons of plastic goes into the oceans every year to add to the estimated 150 million tonnes of plastic that already exists.

“Trash outweighing fish in the ocean by 2050 could be reasonably accurate, but it also might not be,” said Collins. “Irrespective, there is a problem as the oceans are finite in size and in ocean ecosystem services. Of course the environmental footprint of poor people is smaller than that of affluent people and I would speculate that most of the plastic trash in our rivers is from poorer people.

Mercury is found in our rivers and near shore ocean sediments here in Amanzimtoti, Doonside and off-shore.

The oceans and their inhabitants have a huge trash problem, followed by humans who have a looming problem in the contamination of ocean food. Plastics that contain toxins move up the food chain and can accumulate in the same way that methyl mercury is translated by bacteria from the shiny inorganic liquid element mercury into methyl mercury. Mercury is found in our rivers and near shore ocean sediments here in Amanzimtoti, Doonside and off-shore.”

The Dusi Umgeni Conservation Trust (DUCT) and MACE Labs last week introduced a ground-breaking ‘booms, bins and bags’ project to clean up the Mngeni River. Dr Deborah Robertson-Andersson, the director of MACE Labs, introduced the project that will be able to catch plastic and other debris from oceans and rivers.

It is hoped that the collaboration will serve as a pilot project for wider implementation of the programme. Perhaps in time, Toti’s shores and rivers will benefit from this pilot plan.

DID YOU KNOW?
Click on the words highlighted in red to read more on this and related topics.
To receive news links via WhatsApp, send an invite to 061 694 6047
The South Coast Sun is also on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest – why not join us there?

Do you have more information pertaining to this story?
Feel free to let us know by commenting on our Facebook page or you can contact our newsroom on 031 903 2341 and speak to a journalist.