[audio:http://wamcradio.org/EarthWise/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/EW-04-23-14-Danube-Plastics.mp3|titles=EW 04-23-14 Danube Plastics]
Plastics, Mr. Robinson advises the young Ben Braddock, played by Dustin Hoffman, in the Graduate more than 40 years ago. And, he was right: the production of plastics increased from 1.7 to 280 million tons per year during the past 60 years. Plastics are found in nearly all products we buy, either as central components or in the packaging that contains them.
Unfortunately, we don’t do well in the disposal of plastics. Only a small fraction of our production is recycled. Some plastics end up in landfills, and a considerable amount of plastic is simply left to the environment. Lofted by winds, plastic grocery bags adorn trees throughout New York City.
A considerable amount of plastic ends up in waterways, where it washes to the sea. A recent study reported that every day 4.1 tons of plastic washes down the Danube, Europe’s second largest river, to the Black Sea. Along the way, some plastic is degraded, especially by sunlight, into small particles. Some particles are small enough to be ingested by zooplankton, where they make their way into the food chain of aquatic ecosystems.
The study of the Danube reports more than 300 plastic particles per 1000 m3 of river water. The weight of these plastic particles exceeds that of larval fishes in the same volume. Thus, human debris in the river exceeds nature’s productivity.
We don’t know the full impact of all the different types of plastics that are found in the environment. But, the sheer volume of these materials in lakes, rivers, and washed to the sea should give us pause.
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Photo, taken September 19, 2013, courtesy of Nicolas Vollmer via Flickr.
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Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio. Support for Earth Wise comes from the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, NY.