5 Gyres - Understanding Plastic Pollution Through Exploration, Education, and Action

As part of the 5 Gyres mission, we look for common sense policy on single-use plastic and have been engaged in policy efforts to ban plastic bags locally, nationally and internationally.  In Oregon, we've worked for four years on a bag ban, realizing that Portland, where one in seven people in the state live would have a huge impact with regard to reduction. The city is situated right on one of the largest watersheds in the world. Banning the bag here would stop the lion's share of plastic bag pollution in the state.  

It's a fierce fight against industry and it's straight up hard, even with extremely dedicated people to beat a petrochemical industry with a 124 million dollar annual budget, especially when they'll openly buy your legislators.  They've touted recycling as the answer and so we've looked at amendments to the bill, SB536, that would set recycling thresholds for 80% of plastic bags by 2014.  The response? Anna Richter Taylor, spokesperson for plastic bag recycler, Hilex Poly, says that's 'unrealistic.' Well, Ms. Taylor let me tell you what's 'unreal' to me, even at the risk of sounding slightly naive: we as people live in a society where petty convenience and consumption is more important than the duty we feel to protect the sanctity of the very ocean that bore us.  The video depicts a Bryde's Whale dying from ingestion of Polyethylene film, six square meters of it, mostly plastic bags.  

What's crazy is that baleen whales don't even hunt for their food, they simply sine the water for krill. But what happens when a whale swims, mouth wide open through our ocean? She catches everything in its wake: including the plastic bags that industry so vehemently protects. 

When 5 Gyres crossed the South Atlantic in November 2010, we encountered another baleen whale, a Minke.  While we were sampling the ocean for plastic pollution, the Minke came up on our starboard and cruised with us for about 25 minutes and then disappeared. It was one of the most incredible events I've ever witnessed. After the whale had left, we pulled up our trawl which has an opening of 25x60 centimeters. In the sample was microfragments of plastic, maybe a small handful. 

It was one of those moments in your life where all of the sudden, the world collapses around you. Immediately, I thought about how small our trawl opening is compared to how large a Minke's mouth is. How much does she take in on an average day? How much money made on a product is enough to justify this?