If I told you there was a swath of plastic two times the size of Texas floating 800 miles north of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean, would you believe me? Probably not. But itís true. The slow swirling vortex of water and air covers a 10-million-square-mile oval known as the North Pacific subtropical gyre.
Larger marine animals and sailors alike avoid the gyre, which stretches on for miles. Calm and glass-like, it resembles a desert more than an ocean. But break the smooth surface of the pristine seascape and you will find a tangle of junk; strings of plastic bags, tires, cracked bath toys; a stew of plastic.
How did all of this plastic end up here? Where did it come from and what does it mean? For humans and animals alike, the consequences are dismal at best. Many have seen the commercial that boasts, ìPlastic saves lives,” and while it does in fact do so, the commercial fails to inform you that plastic accounts for a rise in obesity, infertility and more.
For animals, plastic pollution is wreaking havoc. Dead birds have been washing ashore in startling numbers.† As their bodies biodegrade it becomes evident that they are filled with plastic ó cups, bottles and colored scraps all resembling fish. After dissecting one animal, Dutch researchers concluded that it contained 1,603 pieces of plastic. Birds arenít alone. Your typical pictures of a turtle with a plastic ring around its shell or a dolphin swathed in plastic fish nets are no longer representative of the severe cases, but of everyday instances.
In the gyre alone, tiny pieces of plastic easily mistakable as plankton swirl everywhere. By weight, this section of the sea contains six times more plastic than plankton, a scary number to comprehend. Not only does this prove devastating news for animals, but for humans the repercussions are also high.
The more microscopic and invisible the plastic is, the more likely it is to end up inside your body. The information is disturbing, but we are already constantly ingesting plastics and the toxins associated with them. The most alarming of all is that even the slightest of quantities can severely disrupt gene activity; our amounts are far from miniscule. Best Life Magazine Pacific gyre researcher Charles Moore suggests, ìYou could take your serum to a lab now, and theyíd find at least 100 industrial chemicals that werenít around in 1950.” While most of the chemicals donít cause instantaneously detrimental reactions, that does not render them benign.
Simply put, according to Moore, ìPlastic is a petroleum-based mix of monomers that become polymers.” He continues, ìChemicals are added for suppleness, inflammability and other qualities.” When it comes to the compounds even the words can appear scary, and chances are if you canít pronounce it you probably shouldnít be eating it. This being said, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) may confuse and frighten you, and it should because it was recently deemed a likely carcinogen by the Environmental Protection Agency. PFOA is used in packaging whose contents render it heat and oil resistant. Frequently used in microwave popcorn, PFOA can leach into the popcorn oil when it heats in the microwave, spiking the amount of the chemical in your blood.
Other chemicals like polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) are known to cause liver and thyroid toxicity, memory loss and developmental disabilities in the reproductive systems. Yet this chemical is used in the manufacturing of cars, in moldings and floor coverings, giving your car that ìnew-car smell.”
One of the most prevalent chemicals, and one of the most toxic as well is bisphenol A (BPA). This compound is incredibly detrimental to the body and is produced in mass quantities ó 6 billion pounds each year. As of late, every human that has been tested for BPA has come back positive. Every day we eat, drink, breath and absorb BPA into our systems through water bottles, canned foods, plastic wrap and many other household items and foods.
Alarmingly, BPA causes disruptions in the endocrine system, a delicately balanced system of hormones that regulates every cell in our body. Prenatal exposure can cause irreversible disruptions in unborn babiesí reproductive systems. According to Best Life Magazine and Fredrick vom Saal, Ph.D., a professor at the University of Missouri at Columbia,ìWe now know that BPA causes prostate cancer in mice and rats and abnormalities in the prostateís stem cell, which is the cell implicated in human prostate cancer.† Thatís enough to scare the hell out of me.” At Tufts University, Ana M. Soto, M.D., has discovered a connection between BPA and breast cancer.
Lastly, research has shown that BPA is accountable for a rise in obesity, bridging a gap between the sky rocketing levels of obesity as well as plastic production. BPA causes insulin outputs to climb dramatically and then crash, essentially mimicking diabetes.
According to Dr. vom Saal, ìThese findings suggest that developmental exposure to BPA is contributing to the obesity epidemic that has occurred during the last two decades in the developed world and is associated with the dramatic increase in the amount of plastic being produced each year.” To back up this information, America has seen an exponential increase of 735 percent in diabetes since 1935.
The compounds and the effects are endless. The list goes on and on, and yet awareness of this issue is minimal. Most individuals have been affected, whether through a family member, friend or personal experience by a debilitating disease or cancer. You hear that smoking, drinking, doing drugs and a plethora of other things could be to blame, but did you ever think that the plastic water bottle you drink out of or your microwave popcorn could be responsible for these large-scale health problems? Probably not.