Disasters and International Cooperation: Plastic in the Ocean

Earlier this April, a bottlenose dolphin was found dead surrounded by beach debris. Last year, a sperm whale was found with car parts and plastic resting in its stomach. These are only a couple of examples of hundreds of thousands of animals that are adversely affected by the human junk that is in the ocean. However, the trash that float in the ocean do not only affect birds and marine life. It harms humans as well.

Among the reasons there are such great loads of plastic in the oceans, particularly the Arctic Ocean, the usage of plastic is by far the biggest. Over the past 50 years, plastic use has increased by 20-fold and is expected to continue to rise. There's currently 165 million tons of plastic floating in the ocean, and the amount of plastic residing in the ocean will surpass fish by 2050 according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. This causes the world's oceans to have plastics that are swept around uncontrollably and end up in less than desirable locations. Not only this, marine organisms humans eat will consume some of the plastics. In turn, whatever wastes seeped into the marine animal will enter the human that eats it. Not only that, the plastics wallowing in the sea may harm marine plant life, which provides 70% of the breathable oxygen.

While things can improve a little by having people recycle at an individual level, large companies need to step up in order to make real progress on the issue of plastic in the ocean. Recently, Adidas announced that they plan on releasing a million new shoes called Ultraboost sneakers. These shoes will recycle 11 bottles per pair, so it is not a bad start. If more companies can follow suit and recycled plastic materials from the ocean instead of making plastic from scratch, it would greatly help out in fighting the expanse of plastic in the oceans.

Sources:

Centre for Research on Globalization