Plastic Pollution Overwhelms America’s Recycling Systems

by Gabriella Shell, age 16

Generations of Americans have grown up on a doctrine of “reduce, reuse, recycle.” Everyone, from the oldest Boomers to the youngest of Gen Z know what to do when they see the little triangle made of arrows on the bottom of a plastic product: chuck it in the recycling bin. However, unbeknownst to the masses of routine recyclers, this casual recycling may be causing more problems than it fixes.

Although recycling has been pushed as the solution to the ever-growing piles of trash for decades, according to the Los Angeles Times , less than 10% of single-use plastic ever produced has actually been recycled. Unfortunately, because corporations have been so successful at “greenwashing,” there is no massive movement to improve the effectiveness of recycling in the U.S.

According to environmental groups, greenwashing is the process of conveying a false impression or providing misleading information in order to deceive consumers into believing that a company's products are environmentally friendly. [read more]

"Trash Island" Forming in the North Pacific

by Dyami Rodriguez, age 16

In the North Pacific Ocean, there is a huge accumulation of marine debris called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Reaching from California to Japan, the trash collects mainly because there are four currents all moving clockwise forming a vortex that keeps the waste from escaping.

The currents within the Pacific Ocean all work together to form a gyre, which is a giant system of currents concentrating the trash in one place. While the current outside of the Pacific Trash Vortex is fast-paced, the center of the vortex is calm. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, however, is not just one big island of trash. Instead it consists of a western and eastern patch containing many small and large patches, some being up to 15 meters long. There is a larger current that moves trash back and forth from the western and eastern patch called the Subtropical Convergence Zone (C zone). While the C zone moves the refuse back and forth, other currents take the litter and move it more toward the calmer center.

The vortex was discovered by Charles Moore in 1997 during a yachting race. The largest amount of the trash comes from onland sources while 20% comes from marine sources, such as fishing nets and discarded plastic. Plastic is a huge danger since it is not biodegradable. Instead, it does something called photodegradation, meaning the sun breaks down plastic into smaller pieces called microplastics. Overtime, microplastics ooze bad chemicals into the ocean hurting the environment and animals. [read more]

New Recycling Technologies Needed to Combat Plastic Pollution

by Jazmin Becerril Gonzalez, age 14

Recycling plastic has become a big issue in today’s world. Millions of tons of plastics enter landfills while few are recycled. In fact, there are only two kinds of plastics that are commonly recycled in the United States. These plastics are polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and high-density polyethylene (HDPE) which are the main components of soda bottles, milk jugs and detergent containers. Due to limited recycling capabilities and low recycling rates, scientists are developing new technologies to improve recycling in the future.

The main issue in recycling involves processing and sorting the material. Typically, plastics are sorted at a recovering facility where they are shredded, melted and remolded. However, this only works well for products such as bottles and containers while other packaging or plastic film materials take more effort. There are several types of plastic being used in the production of such material..

Geoffrey Coates, a chemist at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., states, “Most plastics are like oil and water.” Plastics don’t easily combine and some objects are made of multiple types of plastic. This makes separating the different plastics in products very difficult. [read more]

The Devastating Effects of Garbage in Our Oceans

by Alan Cruz, age 17

Over the last several decades, the proliferation of disposable plastics has emerged as one of the most critical threats to the environment. Plastic pollution is especially problematic in impoverished Asian and African countries, where waste collection services are frequently ineffective or nonexistent. Even developed countries, especially those with low recycling rates, are having difficulty collecting discarded plastics in a proper manner. Plastic waste has become so omnipresent in our world’s natural environment that scientists have speculated that it could act as a geological indication of the current Anthropocene period.

Plastic products made from fossil fuels have been around for a little over a century. Following WWII, the production of thousands of new plastic products skyrocketed. Plastics changed medicine with life-saving gadgets; enabled space exploration; helped make possible lightweight vehicles and aircraft; and saved lives with helmets, incubators, and equipment for safe drinking water. These innovations revolutionized the modern world to the point that living without plastic would be unimaginable today.

However, the use of plastic has a significant cost. Since the 1950s, a consequential amount of solid plastic has been produced and accumulated but it has not been disposed of properly. While much of this plastic has ended up in landfills around the world, an extensive amount of waste has entered the natural ecosystem. Over half of all plastic is used once and then discarded, taking hundreds of years to degrade completely. [read more]

Massive Ship Catches Fire in Sri Lanka!

Burning Container Ship Pollutes Beaches with Oil and Toxic Plastic Pellets

by Allison Torres, age 12

Recently, a large container ship, the X-Press Pearl , caught on fire and sank off the coast of Sri Lanka and filled its west coast beaches with oil and plastic debris. The ship, based in Singapore, was carrying cosmetics and chemicals, including some substances that are very harmful to the environment.

The ship contained tons of oil and tiny plastic pellets, which are harmful to marine life because they release microplastic fragments into the water. When the ship caught on fire and remained on fire for multiple days, it released these substances into the water and onto nearby beaches. Chemicals and cosmetics are washing up onto the beach of Negombo, a place with a lot of tourism.

The navy of Sri Lanka and the Indian navy along with other experts tried to clean the waters near the ship. The navy wanted to move the ship further into the sea so it didn’t affect the fishing in the town, as it is their main source of food. Soldiers started cleaning operations on the beaches, but, unfortunately the ship sank as it was being towed out to sea, which makes the ongoing cleanup efforts more difficult. [read more]

Measuring the Amount of Ocean Trash Is a Daunting Task

by Jazmin Becerril Gonzalez, age 13

Did you know that over 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic exist in the ocean today? More surprisingly, there are four billion plastic microfibers per square kilometer beneath the surface, and nearly 269,000 tons of microfibers litter the surface. Ocean trash is a major environmental concern that scientists have only begun to understand.

For years, scientists have studied the amount of ocean trash and its escalating effects on marine life. While studies date back decades, it was not until recently that certain small regions in the Southern hemisphere were analyzed. These remote regions were challenging to sample in the past; however, recent technology has made it possible to study them. This is an important development for understanding how plastic pollutes the world’s oceans.

Kara Lavender Law, an oceanographer at the Sea Education Association in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, said, “The first piece is to understand where [ocean debris] is.” Scientists are working to understand the full extent of plastic pollution in the ocean. Studying how much plastic is in the ocean is the first step in figuring out how to solve the problem. [read more]

Plastic Pollution Is a Global Environmental Crisis

by Valeria Moreno Lopez, age 13

The amount of plastic pollution in our oceans has grown rapidly over the last 40 years. At this rate, plastic is expected to outweigh all the fish in the oceans by the year 2050.

Plastic pollution has very direct and deadly effects on sea life, killing thousands of marine animals each year. Around 700 species eat and get caught in plastic waste. Fish in the North Pacific Ocean ingest 12,000 to 24,000 tons of plastic annually, which leads to intestinal damage and death. Scientists estimate that half of the world’s sea turtles have eaten plastic. Sixty percent of all seabird species have ingested plastic and that number is predicted to climb to 90% in the next 20 years. Marine mammals can also die from getting caught in plastic, packing bands being the most common entangling material.

Plastic accumulation on the ocean surface is becoming a global crisis. Plastic is used everywhere and is very durable. It’s made to last for hundreds of years, which is why 40% of the Earth’s oceans are now covered in plastic. Not one square mile of the ocean’s surface is free from plastic pollution. One of the five gyres on Earth that has the largest amount of plastic is called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, located in the North Pacific Ocean. Scientists estimate that there are currently 15-51 trillion pieces of plastic in the world’s oceans. [read more]