Transcriber: FLORES ORNELAS REGINA Reviewer: David DeRuwe
Microplastics.
They're everywhere.
They’re in the air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink.
In our very blood. And how have we gotten to this situation?
We've been relentlessly producing plastics for the past 70 years.
Plastic production growth rates have increased faster
than human population growth rates.
And there’s no end in sight.
As plastics are made from fossil fuels,
plastic production has created a global ecological crisis.
A recent UN report noted that we have already produced more plastics
than the combined weight of all land animals on Earth.
Recently, we have been using more carbon to make plastics
than the global airline industry uses for fuel.
And by mid-century, it is projected that we will use
more carbon to make plastics than the global coal industry uses.
It is the unseen monster in our midst.
And unlike smoggy skies or rivers set aflame,
plastic pollution tends to be an out-of-sight, out-of-mind problem.
This is particularly true of microplastics -
those little bitty pieces of plastics that can come from the breakdown
of larger plastics or even be made that way.
Now, as daunting as this problem may seem, we can do something about it.
We can affect the pollution of microplastics
in our local environment by changing our choices.
Now, I’m a marine scientist who studies the chemistry of the oceans,
and about 15 years ago, I was looking at some samples
from the North Sea,
taken from between England and Denmark.
And I saw tiny pieces of plastic in them,
smaller than the hairs on your head are wide.
At first I was confused, I thought,
“Maybe I’d contaminated my samples, this is unexpected”.
But as we now know,
it’s the whole ocean that’s contaminated!
As people started reporting more and more of these tiny pieces of plastic
around the world,
I became really interested in finding out what the problem was like in our backyard,
along the coastal Georgia coast,
and put together a team of educators and volunteers to measure and examine
the problem of microplastics here.
Now,
Georgia has some of the least developed estuaries along the United States.
They’re nurseries for fish and birds and turtles and many other organisms.
And microplastics are of a size
that’s the same as the food that a lot of these organisms eat -
organisms like shrimp, and oysters and small fish.
So with all this concern about microplastics,
how big is that problem we have in our backyard?
How big is that monster in our midst?
Now, it’s a big problem or a big job
finding microplastics and measuring them,
but with the hard work of our team of educators and volunteers,
we put together a picture
of microplastic contamination along our coast.
And this picture, a snapshot of the summer of 2017,
told us a lot.
You see high concentrations
around the cities of Savannah and Brunswick.
You see much, much lower concentrations in the rural areas in between.
This data tells us that microplastic pollution around here
is coming from local sources.
lt’s not coming from Atlanta or some other country.
Now, locally for seafood,
locally-sourced seafood is a wonderful thing, right?
But locally-sourced microplastics, I think we can all agree,
is not a good thing.
We also saw a lot of variability,
especially close in to a city like Savannah.
This is data with a high standard deviation,
and experience tells me that when I see data with a high standard deviation,
it means a very dynamic system.
Microplastics are coming in, and Mother Nature is trying
to remove and bury them as quickly as the system allows.
We took a look at one of the rivers nearby Savannah,
only looking in time instead of just a one-time snapshot,
and we saw something very, very similar.
Concentrations were low on some days and some tides,
and high, sometimes 50 times as high, on other days and tides.
High standard deviation.
Imagine being a poor aquatic creature having to deal with these flurries
of microplastics on a sort of chaotic basis.
It seems as if the system is struggling to process
the amount of microplastics that are coming into it,
and that makes me wonder if we’re approaching a tipping point here.
As we produce more and more plastics,
will these highs and lows gradually just become highs,
ever increasing and horrendous?
Will that monster win?
But buried in this data is hope
because
most of the microplastics that we see are tiny threads and fibers.
And this is what scientists all around the world are seeing.
80% of the microplastics that we analyze,
are tiny threads and fibers most likely coming from the clothing,
and other fabrics that we use.
Now,
you are all likely familiar with cleaning the lint trap in your dryer.
What you may not be as familiar with
is that that lint is composed of microplastics and other fibers
reflecting the clothing and things that you dry in that dryer.
And washing machines do exactly the same thing,
except that microplastics in that case, go right out with the wastewater.
That’s where we think the main source of microplastics
from our local environment is coming from,
and that suggests a solution.
Now we can and should ask and demand of our wastewater treatment plants
that they do a better job of filtering out the microplastics that reach them
and prevent them from getting out into the global environment,
but, basically more centrally,
let’s cut the source:
Remember that curve I showed you early on of plastic production?
We need to flatten and turn down that plastic production curve
by changing our choices.
We need to wean ourselves
of plastic-containing clothing and fabrics in our lives,
not just by going back to all-cotton, or wool, or linen
or however you wish to choose, but there are newer fabrics
like from bamboo and other natural alternatives that one can choose.
It’s not easy.
I am wearing mostly clothing that is of natural fiber construction,
but the buttons on my shirt, elastic in my pants,
and most of my shoes are plastic.
I have reduced the amount of microplastic producing fabrics in my life considerably.
If we make the choice,
then manufacturers and the world will follow.
Look at the labels of the things that you buy.
Avoid
things like polyethylene, polypropylene, spandex,
and the like wherever possible.
The textile industry has been marvelously inventive,
but they need a push from us
to start using things other than the plastic materials
that have been “Oh so easy to incorporate into our everyday wardrobes.”
And as the data I’ve shown you suggests,
if we reduce the amount of microplastics in our lives
or amount of fabrics in our lives that produce microplastics,
we will reduce the amount of microplastics in our environment.
The power to do this is in our hands.
(Applause)