In the latest episode of As You Sow’s interview series “As You Talk” on Clubhouse, Conrad MacKerron, senior VP of As You Sow and Marcus Eriksen Ph.D., author of “Junk Raft” and co-founder of Five Gyres Institute, discuss the ecological, social and economic impacts of plastic waste.

The 5 Gyres Institute, founded in 2009, is a leader in the global movement against plastic pollution, named after five giant swirling ocean currents called gyres where plastic particles tend to accumulate.  It has completed 19 research expeditions in all five subtropical gyres, bringing more than 300 citizen scientists, corporate executives, brands, and celebrities to gyres, lakes, and rivers to study plastic pollution.

We were thrilled to have Eriksen as a guest on “As You Talk.” Plastic pollution is an issue As You Sow has worked on for many years. Through our Waste Program, As You Sow challenges companies to use less plastic, avoid single-use plastic, dramatically increase plastic recycling, and promote reusable alternatives. 

As You Sow has had numerous recent victories in this area. McDonald’s Dunkin Donuts, and YUM! Brands agreed to stop using Styrofoam cups globally, and Starbucks agreed to shift away from single use cups to reusable cups. Most recently, we finalized agreements with PepsiCo, Mondelez International, Keurig Dr Pepper, Target, and Walmart to cut use of virgin single use plastic by tens of thousands of tons. 

5 Gyres Institute spearheads research on plastic pollution

Few people understand the environmental impacts of plastic waste better than Eriksen. The 5 Gyres Institute uses firsthand research on plastic pollution to drive data-driven solutions. In 2014, it published the first global estimate of plastic pollution in the world’s oceans, estimating that more than 5 trillion pieces of plastic waste are floating across the five gyres.

Plastic pollution only recently became a hot-button issue, said Eriksen. It “has been researched since the early 1970s,” he said. “But in recent years, you've seen the issue really just blow up as the world's really coming to terms with the amount of waste and the end game for much of this waste. We're finding it in the most remote parts of the planet.”

Eriksen’s work involves understanding where plastic waste goes and how much of it is in the environment. He also looks at how plastic waste behaves and studies its ecological, social, and economic impacts.

Texas-sized garbage patch: fact or fiction?

One of the most misunderstood notions about plastic waste involves the Pacific garbage patch. People wonder why they can’t see it on Google Earth, said Eriksen.  The term “Pacific Garbage Patch” was coined by surfer, scientific researcher, and sea captain Charles Moore. He discovered the stretch of floating plastic while sailing across the North-Central Pacific in 1997. Early media accounts erroneously suggested that the plastic trash was in the form of large clusters or islands of plastic. The idea of a Texas-sized garbage patch or a giant island of floating trash is a myth, said Ericksen.  Ocean plastic waste is instead more in the form of a smog of tiny particles floating throughout the water column, he said.

“You get dense accumulations on the surface of these small, tiny particles by the billions or trillions, each carrying its own brand of toxicity. The science backs up the metaphor of a smog rather than a patch. And that's perhaps the biggest myth that we still have to contend with today.”

A smog of microplastics

Of the trillions of pieces of plastic 5 Gyres estimated to be floating in the ocean, 90% are smaller than a lentil or about the size of a grain of rice, Eriksen said, either in the form of degraded single use plastic or microbeads from consumer products flushed down sinks and toilets and into waterways.  Microbeads are found in many everyday consumer products including toothpaste, and facial exfoliants. Another large source of microplastic are tiny fibers from synthetic clothing.

When microplastics make their way into the ocean, marine animals can mistake it for food. Microplastics can absorb toxins such as dioxins from water and transfer them to the marine food web and potentially to human diets.

Another source of microplastic pollution are pre-production pellets or “nurdles” that often spill during transport. As You Sow has successfully challenged six petrochemical manufacturers to publicly report on their pellet spills so reliable baseline data on the size of spills can be developed.

Picking up a trillion particles of microplastic is “economically and practically unlikely,” Eriksen said. It’s more effective to pick up plastic waste along the coastline, where a lot of it accumulates, he said.

Ultimately, the real solutions to plastic pollution begin upstream with decisions by companies on “whether to use plastic and how it's designed into their products and packaging,” said Eriksen.

Sadly, plastic pollution is not confined to the world’s oceans.  A lot of plastic waste initially escapes into the environment on land. On one expedition, Ericksen was shocked to discover as many as 2,000 plastic bags crammed into the stomach of camel corpses in the desert of Dubai.

As You Sow salutes 5 Gyres’ pioneering work in identifying and remediating the scourge of plastic pollution.

Stay tuned for more episodes of “As You Talk,” which air Thursdays at noon Pacific on Clubhouse.