We’re surrounded by plastic–eating from it, drinking from it, and wearing it. But unlike other materials, it doesn’t biodegrade. In fact, every piece of plastic that was ever created, still exists in some capacity. Filmmaker Angela Sun shows us where all that plastic goes when she journeys to the infamous Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Does the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, known to be two times the size of Texas, actually exist? Sun journeyed from Honolulu to Midway Atoll to find out. Getting there is no easy feat–only one government plane journeys there every few weeks to deliver supplies. The island, which today houses a research facility, is most famous for its important role in World War II.

Midway should be an untouched paradise, but as a result of waste coming from North America and Asia, upwards of 10,000 pounds of plastic washes up on its shores annually. The island is filled with towers of plastic waste and the dead birds that perished after ingesting it.

“EVERY single piece of plastic that has ever been createdsince the 19th century is still SOMEWHERE on our planet.So if it never goes away, where does it go?”

But the plastic eyesore is only a small piece of the puzzle because Midway is also home to 70 percent of the world’s Laysan Albatross breeding population–regal seabirds that live long lives and choose one mate. But many of them are dying at the hands of debris from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a swirl of trash that seems invisible because it’s found just below the surface.

The world’s sea creatures are also getting swept up in the nearly 640,000 tons of discarded plastic fishing nets that sink to the ocean’s floor and destroy coral reefs in their path. While macro pieces of plastic may seem the most daunting, it’s the micro pieces that present the largest problem because they get ingested by fish and make their way up the food chain into our bodies.

In the end, we ingest plastic and the toxins that make it up. BPA, DDT, PCBs, known human carcinogens that flow through our bloodstream whether we ingest them in fish or they leach into us via sales receipts, water bottles, or single use plastic bags.

This movie explores the lobbying machine behind the plastic industry and their role in ensuring that we’re not truly aware of plastic’s harm to our health and the health of the planet.

“Plastic Paradise“, like Chris Jordan’s visually stunning “Midway“, is deeply alarming and hurts your heart, but all should watch it.

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Image: Plastic Paradise

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Kids these days. Texting with one hand, solving the world’s problems with the other.

Meet Boyan Slat, a 19-year-old Dutch student who has plans to remove more than 7 million tons of plastic waste currently polluting the world’s oceans. Slat created the Ocean Cleanup Foundation, a non-profit organization that’s helping to develop his novel idea, which he revealed at a TEDx event last year.

The Ocean Cleanup Array is a device Slat developed that includes an anchored network of floating booms and processing platforms capable of being delivered to large areas of the ocean where plastic debris has accumulated, such as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch—a gigantic floating area thick with plastic waste that may be as large as twice that of the U.S.

Among the challenges in dealing with these plastic islands is that the debris is often dispersed over hundreds or thousands of miles, and can be found floating just beneath the ocean’s surface—so the areas are not necessarily visible to the naked eye. But the new technology seems to be capable of working with these conditions and removing the plastic in a low impact and feasible method. Once in the troubled area, the Ocean Cleanup Array would work much like a funnel, forcing plastic towards the platforms where it would be filtered out and later recycled.

Slat’s idea came about through a school paper he wrote that analyzed the plastic particles common in the oceans for size and amount. The paper won him praise and prizes, including Best Technical Design 2012 at the Delft University of Technology.

If dispatched to the oceans, the technology could help to save the lives of countless marine animals and fragile ecosystems impacted by the plastic debris. As well, it could reduce human health risks by eliminating common causes of toxicity in fish including DDT and PCBs.

Keep in touch with Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

Image: Tyler Ingram

The post Ocean Plastic Pollution Meets Its Match: A 19-Year-Old appeared first on EcoSalon.