Plastic can end up on your dinner plate

By Grete A. Husebø

By GRID-Arendal

September 13^th, 2016

This article first appeared online in Norwegian as PLASTEN KAN ENDE OPP PÅ MIDDAGSTALLERKENEN in Arendals Tidende on 10 September 2016.

Garbage from all corners of the Earth has washed ashore along the south coast and put its stamp on all living things in the ocean. Now local scientists are sounding a warning.

Early afternoon sun shines over Bjellanstrand on the island of Tromøy and the smell of saltwater and seaweed creates immediate southern idyll. This afternoon, however, it is not the idyll that is in focus. On the contrary, it is about garbage and toxins that affect all living things in the sea, and ultimately people who eat fish.

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A world traveler

Joan Fabres wears a waterproof jacket over a blue shirt and sneakers that will easily become soggy if he steps wrong between rocks or slips on the rocks on Bjellanstrand. The project manager at GRID-Arendal is one of those who have worked with a report his organization published about marine litter earlier this summer. Now he wants to tell how close the problem is to home.

“I was out here in the spring, and then it was completely disgusting here. There was trash everywhere. Now much of it is covered by seaweed, but it has not been picked up and over autumn it‘s going to be washed back into the sea,” he says while he balances on rocks, pulls away seaweed and discovers more and more rubbish.

“Therefore, beach cleaning campaigns are very important,” adds Malin Høyme. In recent months she has been an intern at GRID-Arendal and used one of her last days to study the garbage situation at Bjellanstrand.

Fabres goes barely a step without stopping and pointing to a large or small piece of plastic from far or near, the results of a journey on the seven seas. Soap from England. Butter from Denmark. Four of the six million plastic pieces that disappeared from Saulekilen treatment plant last year. Norwegian jam. Fishing lines. Plastic from silage bales. A glove used in the offshore industry. The end piece of a red balloon.

“People release balloons just up in the air, they do not think about where garbage ends,” comments Fabres.

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The food chain

The GRID-Arendal report establishes that plastic is the main problem in marine litter and estimates that 86 million tons of plastic ended up in the sea. This is 1.4 percent of the total amount of plastic produced since mass production began in the 1950s. Most have sunk to the ocean floor, and what we see along coastlines and floating on the surface probably represent only a half percent.

“Plastic is not only dangerous in itself, but it can attract toxins. When marine organisms eat plastic it’s not only plastic that harms them, but also the toxins plastic carries,” says Fabres.

Micro Plastics

The plastic that floats along the surface will eventually break down into tiny particles, the smallest called micro plastic. Micro plastic is usually defined as plastic pieces that are less than 5 millimeters, and as a rule so small they are not visible to humans. These pieces can take hundreds of years to break down. They can attract toxins and they may eventually be eaten by everything that lives in the ocean: invertebrates, small fish, big fish, whales, seals, dolphins and turtles. In addition, birds that eat fish. The last stop is on your dinner plate.

“The mussel is an example of something that can have a lot of toxins in them. They attract small pieces of plastic that can contain toxins and we eat the whole animal. Other types of seafood are more uncertain. Such as cod — we do not know how many organisms with plastic cod eat, and how much ends up in the parts we eat. We don’t eat the stomach. But toxins from plastic could easily have spread to the parts of the fish we eat,” says Fabres.

Besides that, plastic film itself breaks down into microscopic pieces and microplastics from makeup and cosmetic products are a major problem. Tiny plastic pieces are found in some abrasive creams, toothpastes, facial and body scrubs, and treatment plants do not have good enough filtering capabilities to prevent these from being washed directly into the sea. It attracts tiny particles of toxins in the same manner as other plastics, and can again move up the food chain before they finally landing on the dinner table.

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Unknown, or consuming?

Fabres says that one of the biggest problems with marine litter is that it is hard to identify the origin of all plastic. A quick look at the findings from Bjellanstrand takes us to a butter factory in Denmark, Arendal municipality‘s own treatment plant, local farming, the offshore industry and fishing boats. The GRID-Arendal report also mentions the plastic industry, illegal garbage dumping, plastic that is lost during transportation, garbage from the streets and garbage that blows away from landfills.

The plastic cycle

So in other words, imagine that you are on a boat trip in the middle of summer. The slightly worn water bottle you have filled up with water and taken with you blows into the water, spout open. You don’t plunge in to retrieve the bottle, so it gets away. When the spout is open air rapidly disappears from the bottle and it sinks to the ocean floor.

Here it floats around, crosses national borders and absorbs toxins over many years, until it begins to dissolve. Next to the bottle lives a little mussel that believes one of the microscopic plastic pieces that detaches from the bottle is food. Even if the plastic or toxin is bad for it, that’s not what kills it. A cod swims in and snatches mussel. The cod has previously bitten on a bit of a fishing line and tasted a cigarette stub, which has lodged in its stomach. And when the cod later ends up on an Arendal dinner table, it is difficult to say whether it carries toxins from plastic that has spent years in the sea.

GRID-Arendal researchers believe we can put the brakes on plastic production and use with better knowledge, regulation for dealing with garbage, beach cleaning and behavioral changes in individuals, governments and industry.