Conservation, ecological justice and harm to nature - Environmental Harm: An Eco-justice Perspective - page 78

Plastics and pollution in the ocean
There are five gyre or high pressure zones - slow, deep vortexes of
air and water - in the world's oceans: in the North Pacific, the South
Pacific, the North and South Atlantic and the Indian Ocean. Together
these cover some 40 per cent of the sea. What distinguishes these gyres
is that they are places where plastic gathers in currents. The amassing
of plastic waste across hundreds of kilometres of sea is having dramatic
negative impacts. It has been pointed out that 'More than a million
seabirds, 100,000 marine mammals, and countless fish die in the North
Pacific each year, either from mistakenly eating this junk or from being
ensnared in it and drowning' (Casey, 2007: 3). The permeation of plastics
throughout the food chain (including highly toxic chemicals) means
that humans, too, are being affected by their ubiquitous distribution
through land and sea environments.
The plastic debris deposited in the planet's oceans is generating
increasing concern because of the potential impact of releases of
persistent bio-accumulating and toxic compounds (PBTs). Much
of the plastic takes the form of microplastics, plastic particles smaller
than 5 millimetres in diameter. This also means that the plastic debris
in the ocean may not be distinguishable on satellite images where the
concentrations consist of fragments that are small in size.
While the greatest technological development of modern plastics
took place during the first half of the twentieth century, their use
accelerated greatly in the period after the Second World War with
increasing reliance upon and growth of chemical and synthetic products.
This has been subsequently accompanied by new problems and
complexities in waste disposal, especially in relation to toxicity as well
as extent of waste (Field, 1998). The emergence of e-waste (computers,
mobile phones, and so on) has only added further to existing waste
management problems (White, 2008a; Gibbs et al, 2010a, b).
Chemicals and other toxic waste such as peristent organic pollutants
(POPs) have proliferated over the past 60 years. Specifically, the rise and
rise of the chemical industries means that many different types of toxic
waste are produced, gathered up and put together into the same dump
sites (for example, rivers and lakes and ocean outlets, landfills). Much
of this occurs without adequate precaution or scientific testing. This
accelerated in the post-war period (until people like Rachel Carson
(1962) start to write about the 'silent spring' and the environmental
movements begin to crank up). The extent of the chemical revolution
cannot be underestimated: