Page 57: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (January 2022)

OPINION: The Final Word © Romolo Tavani/AdobeStock

Let’s Get the Plastic Out of

Our Lives (& Waterways)

By Thomas N. Thompson, Maritime Environmental and

Energy Technical Adviser, MARAD (retired) confession. I’m part of a 5 mm (the size of a sesame seed) and Most micro-plastics are dyed or paint- very big problem that’s nano-plastics, which are smaller, that ed, which causes them to absorb sunlight, easy to ignore. Last year, are the problem. Because we have con- thus increasing global temperatures. But

A I contributed the U.S. sumed much of it in the food chain, more urgent research is needed to know average-per-person 300 pounds of plas- we’re eating it, and not in the way we the exact radiative effects of plastics.

tic garbage to wherever it went after like to think of “recycling.” The deluge of plastic waste in the convenient curbside pickup. So out of Plastics are not biodegradable. They world’s oceans, with the attendant gen- sight, out of mind, right? Not really, break down into tinier and tinier pieces. eration of GHGs, needs to be reduced. but does it matter? Yes, it does. So human health is especially at risk, Higher ocean water temperatures in-

In a fascinating recent report, the Na- with everybody’s food safety and qual- crease the breakdown of plastics. And tional Academy of Sciences, Engineer- ity in jeopardy. The human body cannot it’s well documented that phytoplank- ing, and Medicine politely told us that digest plastics. ton, which produce ? fty percent of the we’re choking ourselves to death on Plastic pollution also contributes to earth’s oxygen, are ingesting micro- manufactured plastic waste and that climate change. Plastics are synthetic plastics, reducing the typical amount of 80% of the harmful plastic in the ocean polymers manufactured at petrochemi- carbon dioxide that they consume. comes from land-based sources. cal plants where Greenhouse Gases The National Academy tells us they

It’s the micro-plastics, smaller than (GHG) are produced. estimate that 8 million tons of plastics www.marinelink.com 57

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