Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Plastic waste an emerging threat to life

It might sometimes seem we can't catch a break.
col-whitcombe.21_3202019.jpg

It might sometimes seem we can't catch a break.

First, it was a threat of a nuclear winter, then ozone depletion and acid rain, followed by anthropogenic climate change, and now we are finding out the plastics upon which we have built our modern society are devastating the environment.

For some people, it is overwhelming and they simply choose not to deal with it. After all, solving a problem might mean compromising their lifestyle.

Or others - in particular the younger generation - they worry about the fate of the planet. I can give them the assurance the planet will go on.

Whether we are here to enjoy it is another matter.

The history of materials is very interesting. Our most distant ancestors discovered wood and stone as building materials. One was bendable and easy to manipulate; the other strong and tough though hard to work with. Both can be recycled. For most of our existence, woody materials and stones constituted our basic building blocks.

Consider any of the ancients wonders of the world. They were constructed from stone blocks shaped with simple tools. Feats of engineering, such as Machu Picchu, perplex stone masons to this day.

The Romans discovered cement and concrete which aided in their construction projects. They were excellent engineers with works which have lasted well over two millennia. But they weren't the only ones building magnificent edifices. Temples in Central and South America, the Great Wall of China, and elaborate palaces throughout Southeast Asia were all constructed with stone, wood, and in some cases cement. Plus an awful lot of manual labour.

With the industrial revolution in the early 1800s, a whole range of products became available for construction. The first plastics were invented by modifying naturally occurring fibres. The manufacture of steel was refined into large scale production. And other metals were weaned from their ores.

By the end of the 1800s, we were poised to engage in a massive surge of modern technology.

If you read through newspaper articles and magazines from the time, they present an optimistic view of the future replete with flying vehicles, horseless carriages, and every modern convenience.

We prospered. Our population grew. We occupied the globe.

And the detritus from this surge became a problem.

When there are only 500 or a 1,000 people living in an area the size of Prince George, the rate of consumption of materials is balanced against the rate of disposal through decomposition or the simple expediency of burying the material. But with a population closing in on 80,000, we have a much larger and longer lasting ecological footprint.

The world's human population hasn't increased quite so dramatically but it has grown from 1.6 billion in 1900 to close to eight billion today. All of these people consume resources. Our ability to supply those resources sometimes outstrips our thinking on the consequences.

Indeed our history, over the last 200 years, has many examples of "unintended consequences."

In a recent paper on the "production, use and fate of all plastics ever made," Roland Geyer, Jenna Jambeck and Kara Law start off by saying "a world without plastics, or synthetic organic polymers, seems unimaginable today, yet their large-scale production and use only dates back to the 1950s."

But they point out these compounds have outgrown pretty much every other human-made material. They estimate 8.3 billion tonnes of material have been generated to date resulting in 6.3 billion tonnes of waste.

Only a small fraction has been recycled - on the order of nine per cent. About two billion remains in use but will eventually be discarded.

While the convenience of single use items - from grocery bags to soda straws to plastic cups to packaging for deodorant to any number of other items - is evident, the long term consequences of these products is now something we need to consider.

It is not enough to simply throw them into landfills although this does offer the opportunity to capture their carbon content for a very long time.

But it is the plastics which escape the landfill which are causing the major problems. This was first noted a number of years ago when the micro-plastic beads found in facial scrubs and such were detected in the water column in the Great Lakes.

These tiny particles, now termed "micro-plastics" are finding their way into the ocean at a rate of over eight million tonnes per year.

And they are finding their way into our food supply as a consequence.

Filter feeders, such as clams, scallops, and mussels, have high concentration of micro-plastics.

Their predators are consuming these particles which accumulate in their bodies. And at the top of the food chain, apex predators such as killer whales and humans are getting large doses.

Plastics - the wonder compounds of the 1950s - have dire consequences.

Life just can't catch a break.