Why Do Garbage Patches Matter to Me? Part 2 of 2

Earlier this week we defined the garbage patch by what it isn’t.  If it’s your first time learning about the garbage patch, it helps to understand the many misconceptions surrounding it. Today we answer another question: “Why does it matter to me?”

And why does the plastic garbage patch matter to you, thousands of miles away from it? The effects on the environment are obvious (plastic never breaks down; wildlife often mistake it for food, eat it, and then die), but how does it affect you in your cozy apartment, thousands of miles away from the floating plastic soup? Here’s why it matters.

Here's why it matters to you:

 1. If plastic is in the middle of the ocean, it’s ruining your favorite vacation spot. Take a beautiful vacation destination like Hawaii and go to the beach at its southern most point. And there you will see plastic piling all over the beach. Don’t believe us? Look here. Take Singapore, one of the world’s cleanest (if not the cleanest) countries, and then go out to the beaches and look at the trash washing up on the shores. It’s not some corporate conglomerate’s trash. It’s the disposable items that get us through our days. It’s our trash that ruins our vacation locales. 

Photo Credit: Forest and Kim Starr 

2. With beach pollution comes economic damage. Dirty beaches detour tourists just as much as shark attacks, which mean that fewer visitors patronize beachside businesses. (Whoever was in Hurricane Irene’s path knows that losing just one weekend of beach-going traffic can put a serious dent in small business revenues.) Additionally, beach-goers often foot the bill for beach cleanup by paying for a beach badge.

3. If fish are eating plastic and you’re eating fish, then you’re eating plastic.  In many cases, fish, birds, and other marine life mistake plastic for food, eat it, and then, feeling full but being unable to digest nutrient-empty water bottle caps and lighters, die. Footage of dying baby birds is one of the reasons we started Throwaway Nation. 

Midway Atoll: Chris Jordan

But in many other cases, fish confuse the teeny tiny pieces of plastic that has photodegraded with zooplankton. They eat some plankton and some plastic, and live long enough to be eaten by a larger fish. Eventually, the larger fish, or another one, ends up on our dinner plates. And the plastic is still there. So far, little research has been done on the effect of plastic in our seafood.  But with all the evidence on what plastic does to us out there, it’s a pretty scary notion.

4. As go the oceans, so goes the rest of the world. The oceans play a huge role in keeping life on land humming along smoothly. It covers over two thirds of the planet and over 70% of the world’s population depend on it as their primary source of protein. When the underwater ecosystem is disrupted, so is our own.

What can you do to help shrink the size of the plastic garbage patch today? Easy. For starters, cut out any and all unnecessary single use disposable items. Cutting plastic water bottles, for starters, can save you around $150-$300 a year. If you must eat from a single use bag, make sure you bring it back to the supermarket to be recycled.