Cleaning plastic in the sea it may seem like a good idea. Besides, the oceans make up more than 70% of our planet, and we have lost them. The world loses a jaw-drop 17.6 billion pounds (8 billion kilograms). new plastic in the sea every year.
There is a great deal of interest in cleaning plastic already in the sea on the other hand because it looks so good. But some experts are skeptical that we are too focused on removing all debris from the oceans – which has reached a point where, no doubt, it is impossible to clean up – and not working enough on the real solution: Stop making things first.
Increasing the production of plastic means that the amount of plastic waste dumped into the sea can triple over the next few decades. As the world prepares to buy Black Friday and prepare for Cyber Monday, it has never been more important to think about how to solve the problem – although the answers are more difficult than just removing the confusion that already exists.
To address some of these issues, I invited Max Liboiron, a professor at Memorial University in Newfoundland and a specialist in plastic contamination. This interview has been modified and shortened to make it clearer.
Molly Taft, Earther: We are prepared to think that cleaning up the oceans is good, which is why projects with high goals of removing all waste from the ocean seem to have such a culture. What’s the matter with that idea?
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Max Liboiron: One of the things that’s really important to understand is that cleaning up the oceans is fundamentally different than something like cleaning up litter on the street. That’s mostly because of scale problems. The stuff we’re really familiar with at the scale of being a human does not track into the ocean because the ocean is the biggest thing in the world.
You actually have a scale problem where you cannot clean up the ocean in any way at a rate that is commensurate with the amount of plastic going into it. Microplastics are some of the smallest things in the world. They’re smaller than a grain of rice, and they’re in one of the biggest things in the world from a numbers standpoint.
When we teach pollution science, which is different than litter science, what we teach people is that it’s called a stock-and-flow problem. The best metaphor is, OK, you walk into your bathroom and your bathtub is overflowing. Do you, a) turn off the tap, or b) get a mop? I mean, eventually you’ll do both, but you better turn off that tap before you start mopping up or you will never stop mopping up and you will never catch up to the water spilling out. That’s a great model for job security but a horrible model for dealing with pollution.
Earther: There’s this big cleanup program right now on YouTube with the aim of raising $ 30 million to remove 30 million pounds of waste from the oceans. It seems that, in terms of what you are saying, 30 million pounds may seem important to us, but it really is not in the big deal.
Liboiron: Of course not. I could get you 30 million pounds, like, out of town with fishing gear.
Earther: Really?
Liboiron: Completely. I live in Newfoundland, Labrador, and it is a fishing district. What is one gill net, 200 pounds? 300 pounds?
Earther: Are you telling the truth?
Liboiron: Yeah, I can hear that in a hot minute. We have some serious problems.
Earther: What about the argument that cleaning up the contents can be beneficial? Have people set an example in commercials that allow plastics in the ocean to continue to evacuate and try to get others to clean up?
Liboiron: Any mathematical reason for these reasons may be highly questionable for a number of reasons. The biggest numerical problem we will be trying to emulate is: What do you mean by plastic being harmful?
My specialty is the animals that eat plastic, and the animals, in particular, that humans eat. Most of your meat eats and produces plastic well because your normal meat also eats things like fish, which have bones, and this meat that has very strong beaks that you can cut. There are problems like closure, absolutely. Is there more trouble from fishing gear than fishing from fish? That is unknown, and it is difficult to measure it because no one is watching ghost fishing.
The question remains, is cleaning more efficient than tapping? We know that pumping is good. Complete suspension.
If you want to clean up — and in some areas you really need to clean up — there are better and worse ways to clean. Cleaning the beach? Amazing. Those trash cans on slopes, putting things at the end of toilets and gutters? Absolutely. That’s a good way to clean up. There are many places in the world where these things are important, because if you have closed the canals and you have a rainy season, you are experiencing climate change to meet the pollution of plastic, there is clusterfuck. Therefore, yes, cleaning is very important in many places.
Earther: I read a piece you wrote a few years ago and there was an interesting idea you had of how plastics exist in real time beyond what we can comprehend.
Liboiron: Yes. Plastics are present in the geological period.
Earther: What does that mean?
Liboiron: It contradicts the timing of colors. People talk about different seasons in the period — Paleolithic, Jurassic, and so on. They are talking about the time of the nations. Dinosaurs were some of the most enduring species in the world and they died. Isn’t it because we are desperate? That’s the way the colors work. Plastics last longer than that. Plastic is longer than time.
Earther: Yeah, that’s wild.
Liboiron: If you want to go for nitty gritty, which includes polymers, or just plastics, as well as other synthetic compounds. Even if you burn the plastic, and you can still have the plastic product and slag, the two last much longer than the colors. Even if you cut out plastic or burn it. Or bury them or send worms after them. They will last longer than the species, slightly different.
Earther: I don’t think people understand that.
Liboiron: Well, it seems like making plastic was a bad idea.
But let’s say you picked up this plastic bag. What are you going to do with it? You will not be able to recycle plastic for a number of reasons, plus they cannot be recycled. They are driven into the sea, and they are very different. So even if you take them to a landfill, well, now they are there, what, another 400 to 1,000 years? All right. The landfill will then be covered by water and climate change, or because it is a planetary phenomenon, and will be released and return to the ocean. When you mix plastic all around, you just stop the problem.
That is why turning off the tap is so important. If you return to the pattern of mopping, the water will eventually rise to the surface of the container you are cleaning and will simply return to the rest of the water.
Earther: Correct me if I am wrong here, but it seems like we made something by accident, like, on Earth. That is eternal life.
Liboiron: There’s a group, I forgot what it’s called. It is like — a worldwide union of people who refer to the weather. [Mawuamkonzi:LiboironakunenazaInternationalStratigraphicCommissiongawolaInternationalUnionofGeologicalScienceslomwendi[Editor’snote:LiboironisreferringtotheInternationalStratigraphicCommissionpartoftheInternationalUnionofGeologicalScienceswhichisresponsible for naming geological periods.] They are geologists, rock people, and they talk about the Anthropocene — there is a scientific question in the Anthropocene. This new era, a new era of biodiversity, is marked by human activity. What is the main controversy among geologists? [geologic] will we use a token this time? The two opponents are plastics or a nuclear collapse from atomic bombs.
Earther: Oh shit.
Liboiron: It will be forever in the history of the geological record.
Earther: That is very sad.
Liboiron: Yeah, it’s a fun conversation.
Earther: People who think we can tackle the problem of plastic in the ocean may find that the conversation is very difficult and that one way is to die. What do you tell people who want to find a solution?
Liboiron: I’ve been saying you have to turn off the tap all this time. Turn off the tap, turn off the tap. That’s what we do. And we can name the bombers. Coca Cola. ExxonMobil. We have their phone numbers.
Continuous growth and excess oil have been under threat due to climate change and increased energy. These monoliths, in turn, turn the experiment into plastic. That is good news, because it has already been revised and is subject to revision. We have a game book and it is a game book for climate change. It is very similar to the gamebook for climate change, even for some of the same actors.
Compared to climate change, people sometimes say, “Yes, we have to go and release air into the atmosphere.” And we do a little bit about that. But no one thinks that this will solve the problem of climate change. It is exactly the same as plastic.
Earther: What do you say to people who are concerned about plastics that enter our food chain and enter our waterways? Obviously there is a huge amount of what is bad about plastics as opposed to what they have not learned and what can be good, what we can have.
Liboiron: There are two ways to think about the dangers of plastic-eating animals – and they should not be different. One is moral or ethical, where you say, “That’s a mess. That’s wrong. That should not happen.” Yes, a full acceptance of the fact that it is bad. It does not matter whether it harms the animal or not. This is dangerous, 100%. meat.
An example you can consider is a dog. Domestic dogs eat a lot of plastic because they eat toys or eat anything they find. They eat plastic all the time. Of course, sometimes dogs go to the vet because they have a barrier and if they do not deal with it they die. With lots of dogs? No. Is this dangerous for dogs? No. Does this happen to several dogs? Absolutely.
Earther: So what is your biggest scientific problem?
Liboiron: My biggest concern is the power of the petrochemical industry. Canada is on the verge of eliminating oil aid. This is more important in terms of the amount of plastic damage than any other cleaning that is going on.
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