Ever since David Attenborough stared out at us from our TV screens at the end of the series Blue Planet II, his head at a slight angle, his expression patient but firm like a favourite uncle, and told us that we had to do something about plastic pollution in the world’s oceans before it was too late, we have taken his words to heart and set about trying to make a very complicated problem better. However, despite our good intentions, it’s not proving easy.
We’re all trying our best to recycle as much plastic as we can but, when it comes down to how much you’re able to achieve, it seems that we’re all up against a postcode lottery, due to a lack of uniformity operating in councils across the country. Some are excellent, recycling a large variety of plastic waste whilst, at the other end of the scale, a few offer only a very minimal service. Personally, I’ve got to the stage where I can’t bring myself to put any plastic into the general waste bin, so I sneak it all in the recycling hoping, perhaps naively, that something will be done with it.
There are plenty of volunteer groups who regularly remove plastic off our beaches, but it’s a never ending task – a drop in the ocean. It’s a cliché I know, but here it seems appropriate. It’s a soul-destroying activity, because the following week the shoreline will be covered in plastic waste again, as if you hadn’t done a thing. It doesn’t matter how enthusiastic you are, there’s only so many times you can do this without getting disheartened.
So what about something on a larger scale. A Dutch teenager called Boyan Slat was swimming in the sea in Greece and was appalled at what he saw there – more plastic than fish. He became an ardent campaigner determined to clean up our oceans and, in 2013, founded The Ocean Cleanup. Their plan is to deploy a fleet of long floating barriers to collect plastic in the eastern Pacific where it accumulates, trapped there by the circular currents and get rid of most of it by 2040. However, even this ambitious undertaking has it’s critics, with many making the point that, rather than spending time and money on this, we could be researching alternatives to plastic. But are there any viable, practical alternatives to plastic?
Surely the production of biodegradable plastics is the answer to the problem. Well, no, apparently not. A lot of plastics labelled ‘biodegradable’ will only break down in temperatures of 50C and that’s not going to be in the sea. They’re also not buoyant which means they sink so, as with landfill, they’re not exposed to the UV at all.
The Guardian newspaper recently decided to switch from its polythene wrappers, for its weekend supplements, to a compostable material made from potato starch. Sounds like a great idea, but feedback has suggested that the infrastructure is not always in place to support these initiatives and that some councils won’t accept them in food waste bins, as they clog up the mulching mechanisms.
It’s an interesting fact that the very first man-made plastic appeared in 1862 and was made from an organic material derived from cellulose that once heated could be moulded and retain its shape when cooled. It wasn’t until 1909 that the first completely synthetic plastic, Phenol-Formaldehyde, was invented with the trade name – Bakelite. Perhaps we should have stuck to the cellulose.
In a discussion with Prince William at the World Economic Forum, Davos, 2019, David Attenborough had this to say. “Every breath of air we take, every mouthful of food that we take, comes from the natural world. And if we damage the natural world, we damage ourselves.” With the sobering discovery of minute particles of plastic in drinking water across the world, perhaps it’s time for some joined up thinking, because we really need to get a move on now.
sue yockney 