Latest / The Animal Advocate / How Plastic Pollution Harms Animals (and What We Can Do)

Transcript

How Plastic Pollution Harms Animals (and What We Can Do) · The Animal Advocate

• 0:00
  In 2015, marine biologists working off the coast of
• 0:04
  Costa Rica pulled a male Olive Ridley sea turtle onto
• 0:08
  their boat. Something was stuck in his nose.
• 0:12
  At first, they thought it was a worm. They spent about
• 0:16
  8 minutes pulling it out with pliers. It was a
• 0:20
  plastic drinking straw. The turtle bled.
• 0:24
  He winced. And tens of millions of people watched.
• 0:29
  That turtle was lucky. He surfaced next to
• 0:33
  a boat full of biologists. Most animals harmed by our
• 0:37
  plastic aren't so fortunate. Sea turtles
• 0:41
  mistake floating plastic bags for jellyfish.
• 0:45
  Albatross parents scoop plastic off the surface of the Pacific
• 0:49
  and bring it home to feed their chicks. On Midway
• 0:52
  Atoll, researchers have found plastic in the stomachs of nearly
• 0:56
  all the albatross chicks they've examined. Some starve to death
• 1:00
  with stomachs full of plastic. And seals,
• 1:04
  sea lions, and dolphins become entangled in discarded fishing gear
• 1:08
  and other plastic debris. Some of them drown because
• 1:12
  wrapped up in that plastic, they can't get to the surface.
• 1:16
  I'm Penny Ellison, and this is The Animal Advocate. You
• 1:20
  may have noticed this episode is shorter than usual. That's because I'm
• 1:24
  introducing something new, and I'm calling them Advocacy Bites.
• 1:28
  They'll be under 10 minutes, cover one issue, and one thing you
• 1:32
  can do about it. They're short enough to fit in your
• 1:35
  schedule, and they help me make sure I get you a new episode
• 1:39
  every week. Now, back to plastic.
• 1:44
  Every time I walk past someone leaving Costco with a shopping
• 1:48
  cart piled high with cases of plastic bottles, I
• 1:51
  have to remind myself that screaming at strangers isn't an effective
• 1:55
  advocacy strategy. But I have considered it.
• 2:00
  And every time I see a trash can at a school or an athletic field,
• 2:03
  like I did last week, overflowing with disposable
• 2:06
  plastic, I think about how we use this stuff for just a
• 2:10
  few minutes, then leave it behind for
• 2:13
  generations. Honestly, How dumb and
• 2:17
  shortsighted are we? 50 years from now, I
• 2:21
  hope people look back at us and cannot believe that we ever did this.
• 2:26
  So what do we do about it? Well,
• 2:30
  we've won some plastic battles before. In 2015,
• 2:33
  Congress passed a law banning plastic microbeads, those
• 2:37
  tiny plastic scrubbing particles that used to be in face
• 2:41
  washes and other personal care products. They were
• 2:45
  washing down our drains and ending up in our rivers and lakes.
• 2:49
  Republicans and Democrats agreed on a ban. Both
• 2:53
  chambers passed it without opposition. Yes, our
• 2:57
  Congress. The United States Congress. Apparently,
• 3:01
  there was a brief moment when everybody agreed that washing your face
• 3:04
  with tiny pieces of plastic was a bad idea.
• 3:08
  And a dozen states and Washington, DC have adopted
• 3:12
  statewide restrictions on single-use plastic shopping bags.
• 3:16
  Does any of this make a difference? It does.
• 3:21
  A major study published in the journal Science examined more than
• 3:24
  600 plastic bag policies and 45,000
• 3:28
  shoreline cleanups. Researchers found that
• 3:32
  bans and fees reduced plastic bags' share
• 3:36
  of shoreline litter by about 25 to
• 3:39
  47%. compared with places without those
• 3:43
  policies. That's an enormous difference. And
• 3:46
  I think this is the most important part. Your reusable
• 3:50
  shopping bag is great. You should absolutely do it, and the
• 3:54
  more people that do it, the better. But a law that
• 3:58
  changes what millions of people carry out of the grocery store, well,
• 4:02
  that's a lot better. Unfortunately, the
• 4:05
  plastic industry knows this too. Take
• 4:09
  Philadelphia. City council tried to rein in plastic bags
• 4:13
  in 2007, 2009, and
• 4:16
  2015. All 3 attempts
• 4:20
  failed. After the 2009 vote, a council aide
• 4:24
  said he'd never seen a lobbying effort like the one the
• 4:27
  industry mounted. When council finally passed a ban in
• 4:31
  2019, The state legislature had already
• 4:35
  put local bans on hold, so the city and 3
• 4:39
  suburban towns sued Pennsylvania. The hold
• 4:42
  expired, and the bans finally took effect.
• 4:46
  4 tries over 12 years. That's what a city ban can be
• 4:50
  up against, but it's also proof that you can win.
• 4:55
  But of course, the fight continues. When the industry
• 4:59
  can't win city by city, it goes to the state legislature
• 5:03
  and tries to make city bans illegal everywhere at once.
• 5:07
  And they've succeeded in 21 states so far.
• 5:10
  Meanwhile, the plastic just keeps coming. And if you're
• 5:14
  thinking, that's okay, I recycle, don't take
• 5:18
  too much comfort from your recycling bin. Department of
• 5:22
  Energy researchers found that only about 5%
• 5:26
  of the plastic waste in this country gets recycled.
• 5:31
  About 86% ends up in landfills,
• 5:35
  and most of the rest is burned. Putting a
• 5:39
  bottle in the bin doesn't mean it gets recycled.
• 5:43
  Much of the time, it doesn't. And the
• 5:47
  plastic that never makes it even to a trash can or a recycling bin, the
• 5:50
  littered and the dumped plastic, That just breaks into smaller and
• 5:54
  smaller pieces. An estimated 8 million metric
• 5:58
  tons of plastic ends up in the ocean every year. That
• 6:02
  works out to be one garbage truck full of plastic
• 6:06
  tipped into the sea every single minute.
• 6:10
  Those tiny pieces, called microplastics, are turning up throughout
• 6:14
  the food chain, including in the seafood people eat.
• 6:18
  Scientists are still studying the consequences.
• 6:21
  I'd rather we didn't have to find out.
• 6:32
  Which brings me to Be the Change. This Be the
• 6:36
  Change is so simple and so important.
• 6:40
  This time, it's 2 things that go together. Stop
• 6:44
  taking disposable plastic shopping bags and stop
• 6:48
  buying water in single-use plastic bottles.
• 6:53
  I know it's convenient, but you can really make a
• 6:56
  difference on this one. Keep reusable bags in your
• 7:00
  car. Keep a refillable water bottle with them. Yes,
• 7:04
  sometimes you'll forget to bring them in the store. You'll get to the checkout
• 7:07
  line holding a cantaloupe and a carton of eggs,
• 7:11
  Wondering whether to put everything down and run back out to the car, but you
• 7:15
  don't want to waste the time, so you risk looking like an idiot juggling
• 7:18
  everything across the parking lot. Well, I bet you'll remember
• 7:22
  the bags next time. You've learned to live with every app
• 7:26
  update your phone has ever forced on you. You can learn to carry a
• 7:30
  bag. A few awkward weeks of trying to remember
• 7:34
  your bags against plastic that outlives every one of us and
• 7:37
  kills animals? That's not a close call.
• 7:42
  Then, if you're particularly energetic, take one more step.
• 7:46
  Find out whether your city or town has ever considered banning plastic
• 7:50
  bags. If it hasn't, email your council member
• 7:54
  and ask why not. Individual habits are part of
• 7:57
  the solution. Changing the rules can change millions
• 8:01
  of habits at once. If you want to learn more, I've written a
• 8:05
  longer article about single-use plastics and their effect on animals at
• 8:08
  animaladvocacyacademy.com.
• 8:13
  I just keep thinking about that sea turtle and the 8 minutes those
• 8:16
  biologists spent pulling a plastic straw out of his nose.
• 8:21
  He had people there to help him. The
• 8:25
  albatross chicks being fed our plastic garbage instead of
• 8:29
  food?
• 8:38
  That's it for today. The Animal Advocate podcast is brought to you
• 8:42
  by the Animal Advocacy Academy. You can find
• 8:45
  episodes and show notes at
• 8:47
  animaladvocacyacademy.com, along with a link
• 8:51
  to our Facebook and LinkedIn pages where we discuss our
• 8:54
  podcasts, and we'd love to discuss
• 8:56
  your your thoughts and experiences there. If you're interested in
• 8:59
  learning more about protecting animals, subscribe to the show so
• 9:03
  you get every episode when it comes out. If you have any
• 9:07
  questions on this or any other topic related to animal law,
• 9:11
  email them to podcast@animaladvocacyacademy.com,
• 9:16
  and we'll make sure to get them answered. We'll either email you
• 9:19
  back or feature them in a future episode. Or both.
• 9:23
  And remember, compassion is great, but compassionate
• 9:27
  action is infinitely better. Until next week,
• 9:31
  live with compassion.