Plastic Paradise

Heal the Bay's Kirsten James, left, and Sarah Sikich, right, enjoy a shave ice with their fellow eco-activist Leslie Tamminen. The group participated in the just concluded International Marine Debris Conference in Hawaii.

Today’s guest bloggers are Kirsten James, Heal the Bay’s Water Quality Director, and Sarah Sikich, Coastal Resources Director. Here they discuss their experience traveling to Hawaii last week and participating in the 5th International Marine Debris Conference.

Sarah: It’s unreal – spending a week in Hawaii for work! Not to mention meeting some of the leading researchers, government agencies, environmental organizations, and explorers working on marine debris and plastic pollution issues. Was there any research presented that you found particularly memorable?

Kirsten: It’s hard to pick just one presentation but one that stands out is the work being done by Dr. Jan A. van Franeker from the Netherlands.  He gave several revealing talks on his research with Northern Fulmars, a marine bird species. He found that in the North Sea, the “average” Northern Fulmar flies around with 0.3 grams of plastic in the stomach, rising to 0.6 grams in more polluted areas.  If you scale this bird up to the size of an average human, that would equal 30 grams of plastic, resembling a lunchbox full of plastic sheets, foams, threads and fragments!  How about you, did any of the presentations stand out?

Sarah: I’m glad to see how much research is being focused on endocrine disruptors and plastics. Many researchers in the field have raised concerns about whether chemicals associated with plastics are leaching into the tissues of wildlife and fish ingesting this trash. Previously little work had been done to determine whether this was actually occurring. Several scientists presented preliminary research at the conference showing that chemical plastic additives (like phthalates and Bisphenol A) and PCBs that stick to plastics are present in the tissues of animals that have ingested plastic materials. Potential hormone system disruption is also of concern. Pretty scary stuff.  But, at least we were learning about it in blissful, tropical Hawaii. How did the conference location influence your experience?

Dirty Money

Green is not necessarily good for environment.

All public offices are now officially for sale — thanks to last year’s disastrous U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing corporations to buy elections with unlimited corporate donations. The corporatizing of Congress and state legislatures has been discussed forever.  But the upcoming Nov. 2 election is an eye-opening example of Big Business aiming to further its interests to the detriment of our environment.

We have Texas Oil and the Koch Brothers trying to buy California’s air quality, the state’s economic future and a stabilized global climate through Prop. 23.  And some members of the auto industry have been funding the “No on Prop. 21” campaign because they fear opening the flood gates on vehicle license fees.  One would think that the folks that build cars would realize that people generally drive to state parks so protecting them and operating and maintaining them is probably good for the environment and good for the auto industry. And it’s hardly a surprise that the petrochemical industry has heavily backed Prop. 26, the initiative that would take away government’s fee programs to actually provide services like processing permits and regulating and enforcing pollution requirements.