June 8, 2004
Radically Creative... Let's take five with Moira Gunn. This is "Five Minutes."
There's all kinds of garbage in the world. Like those that break down, and keep on breaking down, but are only arguably biodegradable. By that I mean the stuff won't turn into anything else during my lifetime or yours, and this is certainly the case with many plastics, They turn into what some British researchers refer to as "microscopic rubbish," a term I'm rather partial to.
Turns out these tiny globules of plastic have been insidiously embedding themselves in beaches, coastlines and sea beds all over the world for decades. They even build up inside creatures who live in the sand and the mud, and happen to innocently swallow them along with their favorite treat.
While we've been hearing about these "pasticinos" on and off for years, the decibel level has begun to rise. From beaches to plankton, from seawater to the deep ocean floor, worldwide testing is underway and scientists are now on the look-out.
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If only the sum total of our technowaste were a mere drop in the ocean, maybe we could ignore it, but it's far more than that, and you don't need to be an oceanographer to know that water flows everywhere - a sensational natural distribution system.
The problem extends to bigger items, as well, like plastic bags and foam packing pellets. To seabirds and other underwater creatures they look like food. Still, it's surprising to learn that the annual death toll runs into the millions.
The bottom line is this: We don't exactly know how long plastic actually lasts before it truly biodegrades, before it breaks down into something we would no longer call plastic. One scientist tells me about 100 years or more, while another claims it could be up to a thousand. With timeframes like that, why bother to argue?
The further you look the more you realize there's complexity at every turn. One example is that some of the toxic chemicals which have found their way into our oceans, don't much like it there. They'd rather latch on to passing plasticinos, and then these combo's are consumed as well. In short, we've inadvertently created a highly efficient toxin delivery system for wildlife living in or on the water.
A triple whammy, so to speak: two unforeseen consequences of modern technology combine to create another.
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The proposed solutions to all this fascinate me. There's the "re-cycle absolutely everything" contingent vs. the "we just need to do a better job of containing it" lobby. This can overlap with the "aren't we all being a little alarmist?" crowd, but everyone agrees that the beachgoers need to clean up after themselves.
But the solution goes far beyond simply cleaning up the plastics we're already made, if that's even a possible option.
We've got to think up some new concepts about how to build packaging. We need to think outside of the box here - especially if the box is plastic. You tell me that the plastic rings from six-packs strangle seagulls, but what are my choices when I go into a supermarket?
Engineering and science need to get radically creative here. So many times in history, we didn't know we could do something until someone thought it up. Well, that time is now. Actually, that time was about 30 years ago, but today will do just fine.
And while we're working on it, let's remember one thing: Any approach that depends upon billions of people being tidy is flawed from the get-go.
I'm Moira Gunn. This is Five Minutes.
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