POLrltEls -c.

rf

olnrn with th€ gr€twing

hm aliw ar all-
he didn't realize it at t
sbcn he was still 3-n*ri
CHAPT ER rhe Liru
q!" deanup. In his finrl x
o,t rubbish along 85 mil
had dropped from bmn
Polymers Are Forever
,A
trm the labels he could s
hdand. In turn, Ssrcdfn
Anv packegr"g Sel
ffim€d ro obev the qrr

- lon'er-profile fragmeil
in the water- Each vea
in southwestern Englandis no longer
-f HE PoRT oF Plymouth Thompson noticed mor€ al
prior to'
,1,. of the British Isles'although emid the usual botrles and
I "t"iJ'"*"'
"*orrg
\(ar II it would f'"*"q""fified' Dy1nq,:t:
"tt*::Y:** collecting sand samPk
in whatisremembe
75,000.buirdings
;Tr,'#i.,.ol o*,ioyed fuiesr panicles of whatwer aP
theplymouthBlitz.di;;"""tt"r""a:Y::::'iJ;:J'.H'Ji
!r mndera microscoPe'This P
cobbred
crooked
Plvmouth's
H:IJ::: #;#;"';;'n to allow them to PioPot
in memory' frer- sprang.
burying its medievalpast
[esatitsedg" flc ,continuedworking the an
r t t l fthe
But r'€u r d u rr'i"ol/"inrt*";'rt
*"i" u r o l v ' r ' t " r * " r i v e r s ' t h e P l y m a nId t h:Ie TTi:t:
amar'd
formed at the conflue , Once he comPleted I
j
theyjointheEnglistr.;:n;;q-']I:".i::T':.,o.'i;:;1l:;,t'*: h. his department acquired a
::lJ;?;;il;; deParted;'lZ
t*grims ::T :5: fl* e dc*ice that Passesa rnicrob'c
i'i ;i; -d-
landfall across,h.,."
landtall actoss tne sca ur !D 'w""
f:' :t S:li:i::"".:::** intrared sPecffum to a damb
circumnavtgatx
beganhere' as did Sir FrancisDrake's *trat he was looking at, v't
O.Jnt",
i::t*:,,Y- t:::tset sailfromPlvrnr '.{nv idea what these are?"
'l
grobe. And,ont*'*:: t'charles Darwinaboard' oti the Plym River estuarr'
ffi;;;,;il'' 22'r'u-ad Richi:Tf,T:::Tt;
of Plvmouth
Universiry marine biologist ise iust a few hours off, fu
soesrnwrGI
He especiallvedge.
historic n-flat scattered with bladder
,", ;1;. ffi;1ifuuth,s *' '::Y:i::tl,fiT
whenthebeaches harbor's.estuaries ridal pools, shivering rcrw
"b;;;; sweater'
zippeted'fleece hisbald
n bends over the strand
$:: *:::Tt. ;ffi"i.;-"a h1t;"0' t",,!:?l::i: t:"f#
hisruu6
hatless, fr"g;"g;;"
long''6vru 6"'-- o,-aveslapping the shore, lool
hatless,rlIS "'stuff that molluskssuch as limpets
*', do.aor"t ,t,rdy was on slimy rope, syringes, toPlessPh
algae' and tiny plants
winkles like to ott ai*o*" remains of PolYsryren
"y""ob"tteria' however' has lessto do
k"o*t' for'
cling to seaweed'\ilh;ili.;;o*
 'fha'l
';1"" in 'lheocean
r..rinerire,han-;;:';;J:";
-.;\-enever been alive at all'
Aithoughhedidn'trealizeitatthetime'whathasdominatedhislife's
1980s' spending au-
,,'-.,rkbeganwhen he *"' an undergraduatein the
"tff of Great Britain's na-
--mn weeketa' o'g""i'i"f t!" Liverpool.contingent
amassing
n"A yi"'' ht had 170 teammates
.:,nal beach .t.""t'p"t"-iJ items that
a5 of. shoreline' Apari from
.:etrictons of "'bbi'h itt'g "tile' salt boxes and Italian
n"t" boats' such as Greek
;:oarently h"d d'opptJ debris was blowing
from the t"Utt' t" could seethat most of the
:;cruets,
:;rfromlreland'lnturn'sweden'sshoreswerethereceptaclesfortrash
enough air to protrude from
-:rm England' A"y packaging that trapped
latitudes are
currents, which in these
::re water seemed,o'ob.y"ah.-wind
*tTl1"rr.r,
horil'ever,were apparently controlled
lower-profile fragments,
the team's annual re-
t"tft year' as he compiled
:'"- currents in the *""t' *": smaller and
and more g^'b^g"lit
:*rns, Thompson nodced "'o"
':nalleramidtheusualbottlesandautomobiltti"''Heandanotherstu- They sieved
'oll'"i'ngsand samples along beach strand lines'
:"nt began
ti;;;"pp"""i unnatural' and tried to identify
::c dniest particles usually
if'* **9 tricky: their subjectswere
:-am under -i"'o"opt' or appliancesfrom
" to pi"poi"t tht bottlts' toys'
::,o small to allow'it-
't'li:1":tt"T:iworking at
studies
theannualllT"'p duringgraduate Ply-
nl o; t"d btg"tt teaching at
Once
\ervcastle. he ffifttta T Infrared SPectrome-
a Fourier Transform
:outh, his departmt^t ""q"t*a compares
-it'obt"- through a substance'then
:=r, a device tt'"t p""t' " Now he could
--, infrared 'ntt**- 'o d"'"b"" of kn"o'"t material'
" his concern'
at' which only deepened
sjrow what he was looking the
i' guiding'a visitoralong
"Any idea what theseare?"Thomp'o" \7ith a full
*ht" iijoi"' tht sea'
;rore of the Plym ^'*;t;;;"'y' "t"' 200 meters' exposinga
just a few hours off' the tide is out nearly
roonrise skims
*nt' UUaatrwrack and cockle shells' A breeze
,mdy fat scafiered proiects'
'r'i"';;;;;; of reflected hillside housing
ie tidal poot',
left by the forward edge
l rrr"nd line of detritus
lhompson bends .r.r-,t hunks of
tt" 'ho"' looking for anphing recognizable:
:,f waves lapping half a ship's float'
'y'i"gtJ';;Gt ph"i"" food to"'"i"ers'
:r-lon rope, of assorted
of polysryrene packaging, and a rainbow
:ebbled, remains
 POL!- vERS dlE I

' l ] t s - EV O R L D VITIIOUT US
tr4 |

liltls, he modified it to measureerr

band of r
bottlecaps'Mostplentifulofallaremulticoloredplasticshaftsofcoffon inry.eller to flrrn a moving
uniform shapeshe challengespa twdr ^
swabs.But there are also the odd little prr:rlic lavatory moves cloth
in his fistful of sand are a
to identify. Amid twigs and seaweedfibers ffir:eredPlankton from water Pas$ng
about two millimeters high' nautical m
of dozen blue and greenplastic cylinders snmpling capaciry of 500
of plasticprc
"They're called,t,,'Jlt'' They re the raw materials gr:..tr merchant vesselsusing comrrr
kinds of things'" ttt
tion. They melt thesedown to makeall YT the" i;"*ft Atlantic to drag his
Cominrr
It contains more of so lalud
farther, then scoops up another handful' caies, amassinga database
bits:palebiueo^"t',g'"tt" reds'
plastic i*::t l*n 1f111-l' conrributions to marine science'
each holds at least 30 pellets'
lates, is about 20 percent plastit' and He took so many samPlesarctrn
these days' Obvi
"You find thesethings on virtually every beach cn,l one was analyzed' Decades
leter
in a dir
they are from some factotY"' cnes that remained stored
anywherenearby' The an
However, there is no plastic manufacturing stre a time caPsulecontaining
distance until they were de- nonhern I
lets have ridden some current over a great nrcked two routes out of
wind and tide'
posited here-collected and sizedby the ;arlr: one to Iceland, one to
the She

o; ,itt reeking of chemical Pt*:

to
lo reasonto examineYearsPnor
of Plymouth' graduate sor- for the B
In Thompson's laboratory at the Universiry ac barelY existed, excePt
had Ya
dentMarkBrowneunpacksfoil.wrappedbeachsamplesthatarriveincleer rnpliances so durable theY
transfers
intt'national nework of colleagues'He yet been ir
,ip-to.t bagssent by
"" oi"*i. packaginghadn't
with a concentratedsolution of see '
theseto a glassseParatingfunnel' filled By the 1960s, however' thes
filters our some he thinks he rec-
salt to float off the plasiic parricles.He ;reasing kinds of PlasticPanides"
colored ear-swabshafts' to che&
ognizes,such as piecesof tht ubiquitous *ith triple the amount of acn'[ic' 1
unusual goes to the FTIR Spec- thrc€ d
under the microscope. Anything really .olv-"r, than was Present
b
tfometer. Cr"t H"rdYs Plankton recorder
About one-third turn out to
Each takesmore than an hour to identify' lorv the surface, susPended
in thf
third are plasric, and another
be natural fibers such as seaweed,anorher meant theYwere seeing
just a fract
o
thirdareunknown-meaningthattheyhaven'tfoundamatchintheir .vasthe amount of Plasticin the
has been in the water so long is
polymer database,or that thJ particle it were aPPearing-small eno"gh
for their machine' which analYza th"t
color has degraded,or that it's too small ThomPson'steam realized
thinner than a human hair' turn
fragmentsonly.o 20 microns-slightly fiat grind againstshorelines'
of plastic that we're
"That meanswe're underestimating the amount the sameto plastics'The largest'
m
t know how much is out there"' . were slowly getting smaller' At dx
finding. The true answer is we just don
ettn
\Thattheydoknowisthatthere'smuchmorethaneverbefore'Dur- the plasticwas biodegradin5
ingtheearly20thcentufy'PlymouthmarinebiologistAlistairHardyde- "\(e imagined it was bt*g I
behind an Antarctic expedition
veloped an apparatu' that could be towed kind of Powder' And we realize
boat,l0metersbelowthesurface'tosamplekrill-anant-sized'shrimp- biggerand bigger Problems'"
likeinvertebrateonwhichmuchoftheplanet,sfoodchainrests.Inthe
 'ER / rrt

-:iOs, he modified it to measureeven smaller plankton. It employed an

::reller to turn a moving band of silk, similar to how a dispenserin a
p -rlic lavatory moves cloth towels. As the silk passedover an opening, it
:-,-:;redplankton from water passing through it. Each band of silk had a
;.;rpling capacityof 500 nautical miles. Hardy was able ro convince En-
e,.h merchant vesselsusing commercial shipping lanes throughout the
I - -,nh Atlantic to drag his Continuous Plankton Recorder for severalde-
-;Jes, amassinga databaseso valuable he was eventually knighted for his
- .:rributions to marinescience.
He took so many samplesaround the British Isles that only every sec-
-:,f one was anallzed. Decadeslater, Richard Thompson realizedthat the
-:es that remained stored in a climate-controlled Plymouth warehouse
-F-:e a time capsule containing a record of growing contamination.
He
; :ked two routes out of northern Scotland that had been sampled regu-
-;--ir-:one to lceland, one to the Shetland Islands.His team pored over rolls
,:: silk reekingof chemicalpreservarive, looking for old plastic.There was
: - reasonto examine yearsprior to \forld lVar II, becauseuntil then plas-
:; barely existed, except for the Bakelite used in telephones and radios,
;:pliances so durable they had yet to enter the waste chain. Disposable
:-:sric packaginghadn't yet beeninvented.
By the 1960s, however, they were seeing increasing numbers of in-
;:-'asingkinds of plasticparticles.By the 1990s,the sampleswere fecked
',irh triple the amount of acrylic, polyester,and crumbs of other synrhedc
:,-,lymersthan was present three decadesearlier. Especially troubling was
:::at Hardy's plankton recorder had trapped all this plastic 10 meters be-
.-.''r-the surface, suspendedin the water. Since plastic mostly floats, that
:reant they were seeingjust a fraction of what was actually there. Not only
;-'asthe amount of plastic in the ocean increasing,but ever smaller bits of
:: \vereappearing-small enough to ride global seacurrenrs.
Thompson's team realizedthat slow mechanical as1isn-rvxyss and tides
:rat grind againstshorelines,turning rocks into beaches-were now doing
ie sameto plastics.The largest,most conspicuousiremsbobbing in the surf
nere slowly getting smaller.At the samerime, rherewas no sign that any of
rire plasticwas biodegrading,evenwhen reducedto dny fragments.
"\7e imagined it was being ground down smaller and smaller, inro a
sind of powder. And we realizedthat smaller and smaller could lead to
biggerand biggerproblems."
 .I}lE'WORLD WITHOUT US
116 I POLY!

He knew the terrible tales of seaofters choking on polyethylene fruma mixrure of cellu
from beer six-packs;of swansand gulls strangledby nylon nets and fishi doqrr, thousands of r
lines; of a greenseaturde in Hawaii deadwith a pocket comb, a foot of Sme bags were adveni
lon rope, and a toy truck wheel lodged in its gut. His personalworst wd bs decaving organic g
study on fulmar carcasses washedashoreon North Seacoastlines.Ni &esn't happen on a b
five percenthad plastic in their stomachs-an aYerageof 44 piecesper bi y ded plastic produce b
A proportional amount in a human being would weigh nearly five poundr. i vpu could still carr,r.gr
There was no way of knowing if the plastic had killed them, alt Er.en more "xesperatiry
it was a safebet that, in many, chunks of indigestible plastic had while shopping in r
their intestines.Thompson reasonedthat if larger plastic pieceswere b e laboratory cabinee [n
ing down into smaller Particles,smaller organisms would likely be massagecreams,bod
suming them. He devisedan aquarium experiment, using bottom-feedi labels:Neova Bodr'5r
lugworms that live on organic sediments,barnaclesthat filter orgaruc rrv Almond Body j
's
ter suspendedin water, and sand fleas that eat beach detritus. In the Fresh Start, a tube
periment, plastic particles and fibers were provided in proportiona il. Some are availe
bite-sizequantities. Each creaturepromptly ingestedthem. ired Kingdom. But all h
.When the particles lodged in their intestines, the resulting constip* 'Exfoliants:
litde granul
rion was terminal. If they were small enough, they passedthrough the in. preh-colored tube of Sr Ir
verrebrates' digestive tracts and emerged, seemingly harmlessly, out thc dolianx. "This stuff is ola
other end. Did that mean that plastics were so stable that they werent ry Joba seedsand walnut
toxic?At what point would they start to naturally break down-and when epricot hulls, coarsesugr, i
they did, would they releasesome fearful chemicalsthat would endanger sseep of his hand, "have al
organismssometim€far in the future? On each, listed among
Richard Thompson didn't know. Nobody did, becauseplasticshavent Etrenules,"or "polyethylene
been around long enough for us to know how long they'll last or what hap frusrpolyethylene.
pens to them. His team had identified nine different kinds in the seaso "Can you believeit?' F
far, varietiesof acrylic, nylon, polyester,polyethylene, polypropylene, and ricular, loud enough thar F
'They're
polyvinyl chloride. Atl he knew was that soon everything alive would be selling plastic nrcz
eating them. into the rivers, right into d
.,\rhen
they get as small as powder, even zooplankton will swallow lowed by little seacreatures
them." Plasticbits are also incn
craft. Thompson shudders
paint are disposed.It woul
Two sourcesof tiny plastic particleshadn't before occurred to Thompson. But even if they're containe
Plastic bags clog everlthing from sewerdrains to the gullets of seaturtles terial that small. It's inevita
who mistake them for jellyfish. Increasingly, purportedly biodegradable He peersinto Browne's
versionswere available.Thompson's team tried them. Most turned out to greenfiber; probably from a
 POLYMERS ARE FOREVE R 1I7
I

n- 'iusr a mixrure of cellulose and porymers.

After the celulose srarch
' :se down, thousandsof clear, nearly invisibre prastic
particles remained.
some bagswere adve.ised to degradein compost
piles as heat gener-
:=J by decayingorganic garbagerises past 100"F. ,,Maybe
they do. But
-'; doesn't happen on a beach, or in salt water.,, H.,d
learned th"t
."'- tied plastic produce bags to moorings in plymouth "ft.,
Harbor. ..A year
:-r vou could still carry groceriesin them.,'
Evenmoreexasperating waswharhis ph.D. studentMark Brownedis-
'-"eredwhile shoppingin a pharmacy.Brownepulls open
the top d.rawer
i a laboratorycabinet.Inside is a feminine cornucopia
of beauryaids:
:rx€r mass€e crearns,body scrubs,and hand clbaners.
severarare by bou-
;:re labels:Neova Body Smoother, SkinCeuticals Body polish,
and DDF
:a*'berry Almond Body polish. others are inrernarional
name brands:
''nd's Fresh Srarr, a tube of corgate Icy Brast toothpaste,
Neutrogena,
-arasil. some are available in the united Srares,
-:rited oth.r, onry in the
Kingdom. But all have one thing in common.
"Exfoliants: little granulesthat massage
you asyou bathe.,,He serectsa
:h-coloredtube of St. IvesApricot Scrub; its label
reads,100%onatural
iliants."This stuff is okay.The granulesareactuallychunks
of ground-
iojobaseedsand walnut shells."other naturarbrand, ur. gr"p".,..dr,
bp,cot hd)6 €aar€cfig:at srseasalt "Tt)e resto{tfuem,-fr. J"y, vnrt| a
rneepof his hand,"haveall gonero plastic.',
on each, listed among the ingredienrs are "micro-fine polyethyrene
panules," or "polyethylene micro-spheres,',or .,polyethyl..r. b."dr.,' O,
ust polyethylene.
"can you believe it?" Richard rhompson demands
of no one in par-
icular, loud enough that facesbenr over microscopesrise ro look at him.
They're selling plastic meanr to go right down the drain, into the sewers,
nto the rivers, right into the ocean. Bite-sizepiecesof plastic to be swal-
owedby little seacreatures."
Plastic bits are also increasinglyusedro scour paint from boats arid
air-
raft. Thompson shudders."one wonders where plastic beadsladen with
'aint are disposed.It would be difficult ro conrain them
on a windy day.
fut even if they're contained, there'sno filter in any sewageworks for
ma-
:rial that small. It's inevitable. They end up in the environmenr.',
He peersinto Browne's microscope at a sample from Finland. A lone
reenfiber, probably from a plant, lies acrossthree bright blue threads
that
 II8 THE ]OfORLD WITHOUT US POLYMERS AI
/

'ft
probably aren't. He percheson the countertop, hooking his hiking bom -.olypropylene containers, and
around a lab stool. "Think of it this way. Suppose all human actiritr n-orld-changing of all was translxr
ceasedtomorrow, and suddenly there'sno one to produce plastic any-Inorc. oraps of polyvinyl chloride *d p
Just from what's aheadypresent, given how we seeit fragmenting, organ- nrapped inside them and kept ther
isms will be dealing with this stuff indefinitely. Thousands of years,possi-
bly. Or more."
Within 10 years,the downsideto d
Magazinecoined the term "throwa'
rrash was hardly new. Humans h;
IN oNr sENSE, plasticshave been around for millions of years.Plastics leftover bones from their hunt an
'Wh
are polymers: simple molecular configurations of carbon and hydrogen other organisms took over.
atoms that link together repeatedly to form chains. Spiders have been qarbagestream, they were at first c
spinning polymer fibers called silk since before the Carboniferous Age, ganic wastes.Broken bricks *d tr
whereupon trees appearedand started making cellulose and lignin, also of subsequentgenerations. Discar
natural polymers. Cotton and rubber are polymers, and we make the sruff markets run by ragmen, or were r
ourselves,too, in the form of collagenthat comprises,among other things, chines that accumulated in junkm
our fingernails. ized into new inventions. Hunls r
Another natural, moldablepolymer that closelyfits our ideaof plasticsis into something totally different. \ffi
the secretionfrom an Asian scalebeetlethat we know as shellac.It was the and air portion-was literally cons
searchfor an artificial shellacsubstitute that one day led chemist Leo Baeke- Stanford aAraeologist'Williar
land to mix tarry carbolic acid-phenol-with formaldehyde in his garage studying garbagein America, findr
in Yonkers,New York. Until then, shellacwas the only coating availablefor management officials and the gen
electricwires and connections.The moldable result becameBakelite.Baeke- that plastic is responsible for ovr
land becamevery wealthy, and the world became avery different place. Rathje'sdecadesJongGarbageProi
Chemists were soon busy cracking long hydrocarbon chain molecules suredweeks'worth of residentid'
of crude petroleum into smaller ones,and mixing thesefractionatesto see contrary to popular belief, plasdc a
what variations on Baekeland'sfirst man-made plastic they could produce. ume of buried wastes,in pan bec
Adding chlorine yielded a strong, hardy polymer unlike anphing in na- than other refuse. Although imr
ture, known today as PVC. Blowing gasinto another polymer as it formed items have been produced since d
created tough, linked bubbles called polysryrene, often known by the tions to change,becauseimproved
brand name Styrofoam. And the continual quest for an artificial silk led to bottle or disposablewrapper.
nylon. Sheer nylon stockings revolutionized the apparel industry, and The bulk of what's in land-Gll
helped to drive acceptanceof plastic as a defining achievementof modern per products. Newspapers,he chi
'World -War
life. The intercessionof II, which diverted most nylon and tion, don't biodegradewhen burier
plastic to the war effort, only made people desire them more. we haye 3,000-year-old papynrs r
Nter 1945, a torrent of products the world had never seenroared into readable newspapersout of landl
general consumption: acrylic textiles, Plexiglass, polyethylene bottles, there for 10,000 years."
 POLYMERSARE FOREVER rrg
II /

r -' 'wropylene containers,and "foam rubber" polyurethanetoys.

| Most
:rld-ch*qr"g .f transparentpackaging,
including self_cltng:ng
| "llwas
::ps of pollvinyl chlorideand polyethyrene,
which r.t ,r, ,.. the foods
I
| :appedinsidethem and kept them preserved longerthan everbefore.

I 10 years,the downside to this wonder substancewas apparcnt.

I :".'*". Life
!;gazine coined the term "rhrowaway sociery" though the idea
| of tosring
-:1n was hardly new. Humans had done that fiom the beginning
| with
=rover bones from their hunt and chaff from their h"*.ri
| whereupon
-:her organisms rook over. \Mhen manufa*ured goods entered
| the
:-f"s. stream, they were at first consideredlessoffensive than smelly or-
|
alt.,*"rtes. Broken bricks and pottery becamethe fill for the buildings
I
-: subsequentgenerations.Discarded clothing reappearedin
f secondary
-arkets run by ragmen, or were recycled into new fabric.
I Defunct ma-
:-'1a rhar accumulated in junkyards could be mined for parts
| or alchem-
-:d into new inventions. Hunks of metal could simply be
| melted down
-r: something totally different. \forld \Var II-at least the
I
-nd air portion-1as literally constru*ed out of American ,.op
Japanesenaval a
I h."pr.
stanford archaeologist\william Rathje, who has made
I a career of
.:udying garbagein America, finds himself continua[y disabusing
| wasre-
officials and the general pubric of what he deems a myth:
I T*r*:-:nt
is responsible for overflowing landfiils across the country.
| 1": .ol"r:ic
nathjet decadesJongGarbageproject, wherein srudenrsweighed
I and mea-
-.uredweeks' worth of residential waste, reported during the 19g0s
J that,
contrar)' to popular belief, plastic accounrsfor lessthan 20 percenr
I by vol-
ume of wasres,in part becauseit can be compressedmore tightly
I .buried
rhan other.refuse. Although increasingry higher p.r..nr"g.,
I of pLstic
items have been-produced since then, Rarhje doesn't expecr
I the propor-
uons to change,becauseimproved manufacturing useslessplasdc
per soda
bottle or disposablewrapper.
The bulk of what's in landfills, he says,is consrruction debris
and pa-
per products. Newspapers,he claims, again belying a common
assump-
rion, don't biodegradewhen buried away from air and warer. ,,That's
why
rve have 3,000-year-old papyrus sciolls from Egypt. \fe
puil perfectly
readable newspapersout of landfills from the 1930s. They'll
be down
therefor 10,000 years.'1
 2,O / "rI{E \TORLD WITHOUT US

He agrees,though, that plastic embodies our collective guilt oru zubstancefar lighter and more ea
trashing the environment. Something about plastic feels uneasily perma- *rains of silt.
nent. The difference may have to do with what happensoutside landfillq Capt. Charles Moore of Long
getsshreddedbywind, cracksin sunlight,anddi
wherea newspaper w 1997 when, sailing out of Hcr
in rain-if it doesn't burn first. ceramaraninto a part of the wes
\7hat happens to plastic, however, is seen most vividly where rmes known as the horse latitud
is never collected. Humans have continuously inhabited the Hopi India r*-eenHawaii and California rard
Reservationin northern Arizona since AD 1000-longer than any othcr ri-:rrr'lyrotating high-pressurevorr
site in today's United States.The principal Hopi villages sit atop three md never gives it back. Benea$
mesaswith 360'views of the surrounding desert.For centuries,the Holir *horls toward a depressionat the
simply threw their garbage,consisting of food scrapsa,$ broken cerzmr, Its correct name is the Nonh.
over the sides of the mesas.Coyotes and vultures took care of the food iomnlearnedthat oceanographersI
wastes, and the pottery sherds blended back into the ground they ca.'- t'arbage Patch. Captain Moore h
from. rerphing that blows into the nre
That worked fine until the mid-20th century. Then, the garbage :nds up, spiraling slowly toward a
tossed over the side stopped going away. The Hopis were visibly sur- For aweek, Moore and his crewfo
rounded by a rising pile of a ne% nature-proof kind of trash. The ont-r i small continent, coveredwi& fr
way it disappearedwas by being blown acrossthe desert. But it was still oesselpushing through chunls c
there, stuck to sageand mesquitebranches,impaled on cactusspines. around them was a fright of cupc
monofilament line, bits of polw
balloon$,filmy scrapsof sandwid
South of the Hopi Mesasrise the 12,500-footSan FranciscoPeaks,home counting.
to Hopi and Navajo gods who dwell among aspensand Douglas firs: holv Just two years eadier, Moort
mountains cloaked in purifying white eachwin1s1-sxsept in recentyears, trnishing business.A lifelong surfc
becausesnolv norv rarely falls. In this ageof deepeningdrought and rising self a boat and settled into whar
temperatures, ski lift operators who, the Indians claim, defile sacred retirement.Raisedby a saili''g fad
ground with their clanking machines and lucre, are being sued anew. Coast Guard, he started a volun
Their latest desecrationis making artificial snow for their ski runs from group. After his hellish mid-Pa
wastewater,which the Indians liken to bathing the face of God in shit. GarbagePatch, his group balloon
East of the San Francisco Peaksare the even taller Rockies; to their ResearchFoundation, devoted to
west are the SierraMadres, whose volcanic summits are higher still. Impos- rury, since 90 percent of the j"nlr
sible asit is for us to fathom, all thesecolossalmountains will one day erode \iX/hatstunned Charles Moon
to the sea-every boulder, outcrop, saddle,spire, and canyon wall' Every In 1975, the U.S. National Acad
massiveuplift will pulverize, their minerals dissolving to keep the oceans oceangoingvesselstogether 6lrrmF
salted, the plume of nutrients in their soils nourishing a new marine bio- More recent researchshowedthe ,
logical ageevenas the previous one disappearsbeneath their sediments. tossingaround 639,000 plastic o
Long before that, however,thesedepositswill have been precededby a the commercial ships and navieq
 POLYMERS ARE FOREVEP. I IZJ

- - ::aflce far lighter and more easily carried seawardthan rocks or even
;,r. of silt.
[apt. Charles Moore of Long Beach, California, learned that the day
uu-.497 when, sailing out of Honolulu, he steeredhis aluminum-hulled
-.irrrrxnrl into a part of the western Pacific he'd always avoided. Some-
::- -"s known as the horse latitudes, it is a Texas-sizedspan of ocean be-
*u -n Hawaii and California rarely plied by sailorsbecauseof
a perennial,
, -"i,-lv rotating high-pressurevortex of hot equatorial air inhaleswind
lfat
,r-.I never gives it back. Beneath it, the water describe-lazy, cloclavise
,' : -rrlstoward a depressionat the center.
Its correct name is the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, though Moore
..,- n learnedthat oceanographershad another label for it: the Great Pacific
'":bage Patch. Captain Moore had wandered into a sump where nearly
:- -nrhing that blows into the water from half the Pacific Rim eventually
:=,* up, spiraling slowly toward a widening horror of industrial excretion.
- :: a week, Moore and his crew found themselvescrossinga searhe sizeof
; .nall continent, coveredwith floating refuse.It was not unlike an Arctic
..sel pushing through chunks of brash ice, excepr what was bobbing
,:-''und them was a fright of cups, bottle caps, tanglesof fish netting and
:-,'rnofilament line, bits of polysryrene packaging, six-pack rings, spent
:iloong, filmy scrapsof sandwich wrap, and limp plastic bagsthat defied
: runting.
Just two years earlier, Moore had retired from his wood-furniture-
- rishing business.A lifelong surfer, his hair still ungrayed, he'd built him-
.elf a boat and settled into what he planned to be a stimulating young
:;rirement. Raised by a sailing father and certified as a caprain by the U.S.
'-oast Guard, he started a volunteer marine environmental monitoring
:roup. After his hellish mid-Pacific encounter with the Great Pacific
,JarbagePatch, his group ballooned into what is now the Algalita Marine
i.esearchFoundation, devored to confronting the fomam of a half cen,
"ury iince 90 percent of the junk he was seeingwas plastic.
What stunned Charles Moore mosr was learning where it came from.
[n 1975, the U.S. National Academy of Scienceshad estimated that all
oceangoingvesselstogether dumped 8 million pounds of plastic annually.
\{ore recent researchshowed the wodd's merchant fleet alone shamelessly
rossing around 639,000 plastic conrainers every day. But littering by all
rhe commercial ships and navies, Moore discovered, amounted to mere
 rl

POLYMERS ARE FOREVEP. I r23

crumbs in the ocean compared to what was pouring from the

rurr"dr:Trer
ilHh:r--.

lle real reason that the worldt landfills weren'r overflowing with
he found, was becausemost of it ends up in an ocean-fiIl. After a
prrru$rl.-
kw, rears of sampling the North Pacific gyre, Moore concluded that 80
puffienrof mid-ocean flotsam had originally been discarded on land. It
Luurblourn off garbagetrucks or out of landfills, spilled from railroad ship-
nnng containers and washed down storm drains, sailed down rivers or
wrlmedon the wind, and found its way to this widening gyre.
"This," Captain Moore tells his passengers,"is where all the things
r:nr up that fow down rivers to the sea." It is the samephrase geologists
inur,Eufiered to students since the beginning of science,describing the in-
*r:,r'ableprocessesof erosion that reduce mounrains to dissolvedsalts and
,re-I<ssmall enough to wash to the ocean,where they settle into layersof
::o distant future's rocks. However, whar Moore refers to is a type of
*-.:off and sedimentaqionthat the Earth had hitherto never known in
5
:,Jon yearsof geologic time-but likely will henceforth.

-'.:ring his first 1,000-mile crossingof the gyre, Moore calculatedhalf a

:,-',md for every 100 squaremeters of debris on the surface,and arrived at
: nillion tons of plastic.His estimate,it turned out, was corroboratedby
- 5. Navy calculations. It was the first of many staggering figures he
,',ruld encounter.And it only representedaisibleplastic: an indeterminate
ij:rount of larger fragments get fouled by enough algae and barnaclesto
-:L In 1998, Moore returned with a trawling device, such as SirAlistair
:ardy had employed to sample krill, and found, incredibly, more plastic
:" weight than plankton on the ocean'ssurface.
In fact, it wasn't even close:six times as much.
W-henhe samplednear the mouths of Los Angelescreeksthat emptied
:rro the Pacific, the numbers rose by a factor of 100, and kept rising every
- ;ar. By now he was comparing data with Universiry of Plymouth marine
:iologist Richard Thompson. Like Thompson, what especially shocked
im were plastic bagsand the ubiquitous little raw plastic pellets. In India
Jone, 5,000 processing plants were producing plastic bags. Kenya was
:hurning out 4,000 tons of bagsa month, with no potential for rerycling.
fu for the little pellets known as nurdles, 5.5 qaadrillion-about250
 !t

'lHB WITHOUT US PO LYME RS

r24 | \X/ORLD

Moore fi-* dfrrecdv into streams and river

billion pounds-were manufactured annually. Not only was
resin bhr ffiaanng plastic.
ing them everpvhere,but he was unmistakably seeingthe plastic
oceanr One study directly correlar
*"-pp.d inside the transparent bodies of jellyfish and salps, the
thqr-d ^*.ue of puffins. The astonish
-ort prolific and widely distributed filter-feeders. Like seabirds,
And n*' colleaguesfound that plastic pd
taken trightly colored pellets for fish eggs,and tan onesfor krill.
in bodr :o levels as high as 1 million tirn
God-knows-how-many quadrillion little pieces more, coated
that biger By 2005, Moore was referrir
scrub chemicalsand perfectly bite-sized for the little creatures
Xrilonsquare mils5-nsarly the s
creatureseat, were being fushed seaward'
.what did this mean for the ocean, the ecosystem,the future? All thfo pianet has six other major troft
-vould its chemical con- uelv debris. It was as if plastic e
plastic had appearedin barely more rhan 50 years.
coPPer- errer'World'War II and, like the
,titrr.rrt, or additives-for instance, colorants such as metallic
\rould it production suddenly ceased,,r,
concenrrateas rhey ascendedthe food chain, and alter evolution?
millions of ,Jurablestuff was already out d
last long enough to enter the fossil record?-would geologists
formed in l..llv the most common surface
y."r, h.=rr." find Barbie doll parts embedded in conglomerates
.would they be intact enough to be pieced together *ould it last?\fere there anv h
,."b.d depositions?
hydrocar- lizadon could convert to.lest th
like dinosaur bones?or would they decomposefirst, expelling
for eonsto
bons that would seepout of a vast plastic Neptune's graveyard
in stone for
come, leaving fossilizedimprints of Barbie and Ken hardened
That fall, Moore, Thompson, a
eonsbeyond?
summit in Los Angeleswith Dr-
entist at North Carolinat Resea
Tokyo one of South Asia's rubber-pro.
Moore and Thompson began consulting materials exPerts.
in EDCs- sciencein graduateschool,he rna
universiry geochemist Hideshige Takada, who specialized
been on a surging plasticsindustry. An 800
endocrine-disrupting chemicals, or "gender [snds15"-had
were leaching tics in the Enuironmenf,won hirr
gruesomemission to personally researchexacdy what evils
examining mentalistsalike as the oracle on i
Lo,,' g"rb"ge dumps all around Southeastfuia' Now he was
that in The long-term prognosis fu
plastic pulted frorrrthe Seaof Japan and Tokyo Bay' He reported
and as scientists,is exactly that: long-tm
it. ,.", nurdles and other plastic fragments acted both as magnets
an enduring messin the oceans
sponges
^ for resilient poisons like DDT and PCBs'
(they can either sink or float), ne
itt. use of aggressivelytoxic polychlorinated biphenyls-PCBs-to
among other perior strength were exacdy whl
make plastics more pliable had been banned since 1970;
such as her- abandonednatural fibers for s,vm
hazards,PCBs were known to promote hormonal havoc
pre-1970 dme, the former disintegrate;the
maphroditic fish and polar bears.Like time-releasecapsules,
But, "ghost fishing." As a result, vi
plastic flotsam will graduallyleak PCBs into the oceanfor centuries.
kinds of whales, is in danger of being sna
as Takada also discovered, free,foating toxins from all
old fuorescent oceans.
sources-copy paper, automobile gfease,coolant fuids,
plants Like any hydrocarbon, Andr
tubes, and infamous dischargesby General Electric and Monsanto
I
POLYMERS ARE FOREVEI.
I 125

inro.streamsand rivers-readily stick

I i"=--tt to the surfacesof free-
{: i--rngplastic.
f
rJne study direcdy correlatedingested
f plasticswith pcBs in the far
'e
".'; of n3ffin1. The astonishingpart was the amounr.
f Takadaand his
-.L-3agues thar plasticpe[etsthat the birds ateconcenrrare
f l".rld poisons
:': c'els ashigh as I miilion timestheir normar
I occurrencein seawarer.
rOOt,Moorewasreferringto thegyratingpacific
I _ ll dumpas l0 mil_
r r -r: squaremrles-nearry the sizeof Africa.
It wasn'rthe onry one: the
tl:"jlT^rtlother major tropicaloceanicgyres,all of them
I swirlingwith
r -=--r'deb.s. ,, *1_ asif plasticexploded
upon the world from a tiny seed
*tnd *ir,ttand, like the Big Bang,was
I I:--:*luctionsuddenly still expanding.Evenif all
I ceased, an astoundingamounror ,ir. astoundingly
: -rable stuff was arreadyout there.plastic
I - -n- rhe mosr debris,Moore berieved,was
r commonsurfacefeatureof the worrd's
oceans.How rong
ruld it last?\'er'e thereany benign,ress-immortar
I substitutesthat civi_
r -auoncould converrro, lestthe world be
prastic-wrapped evermore?

I
Thompson,and Takadaconvenedar
t a marine plastic
:l1.?tlY:.ore,
*nlrr r: L..r Angereswith Dr. Anthony Andrady.
I A seniorresearchsci_
I -:ursrar North carolina'sResearch Triangle,Andradyis from sri Lanka,
rubber-producing powers.\Vhile studyingporymer
I l::_:1,1"*o:t"s
school,hewasdistracedfrom a careerin
I -::.:::t:g::duate rubberby the
qtqllastics industry.An 800-pagetomehe eventuallycompiled,plas_
I _-t * L,n.wronmenf, won him acclaimfrom the industry and
I ,r!, environ-
rentahstsalikeasthe oracleon its subject.
;
tlr long-termprognosisfo, plartic,Andrady
I . tord assembred marine
rcrenilsrs, rsexactrythat: rong-rerm.Ir's no surprise
I that plasticshavemade
in the oceans,he explained.Their elasticiry,
I ::.:i::1,?J:': versatility
eithersink or foat), nearinvisibiliryin
| _r::1.*strength water,durabiliry, ,u_
p,t"": were-exactly why ner and fishing rine manufacturers"rd
I had
abandonednatural Gbersfor synthetics
such as nylon and polyethylene. In
rime, the former disintegrate;the lamer,
.ghost evenwhen ,orr, lost, continue
fishing"' As a resurt, virtually every "rrd
marine species, incruding
rvhales,is in danger of being snared
by great'rangresof ,ryto' Lor. in the
oceans.
Like any hydrocarbon, Andrady said,
even plastics ,,inevitably must
 POLYMERS

biodegrade,but at,': ;':;. ;--""r conseque,.* pt,ethylene to biodegradeby ir

":;:".
They can, however,photodegradein a meaningful time frame." tuure"A yearlater, lessthan 1 per
'When -And
He explained: hydrocarbons biodegrade, their polymer moh- that's under the best a
cules are disassembledinto the parts that originally combined to crem wirar vou will find in real life,'s
them: carbon dioxide and water. \flhen theyphotodegradr,ultraviolet solr rnound long enough for microbr
radiation weakensplastic'stensile strength by breaking its long, chainJik rhfl. can only biodegrade tk
polymer moleculesinto shorter segments.Sincethe strength of plasticsde- p'iastic"-meaning, the smallest"
pends on the length of their intertwined polymer chains, as the UV rayr nulv biodegradableplastics deri
snap them, the plastic starts to decompose. treared,aswell as biodegradable1
Everyone has seen polyethylene and other plastics turn yellow at d ot them replacing the peuole'rn
brittle and start to flake in sunlight. Often, plastics are treated with addi- "Since the idea of packagin
tives to make them more LfV-resistant; other additives can make them, Jrady observes,"wrapping leftovr
more LfV-sensitive.Using the latter for six-pack rings, Andrady suggested, earit may not be the smanest tli
might savethe lives of many seacreatures. But even if it worked, or ev
However, there are two problems. For one, plastic takes much longer duced another nurdle, all the
fl
to photodegradein water. On land, plastic left in the sun absorbsinfrared how long?
heat, and is soon much hotter than the surrounding air. In the ocean,not "Egyptian pyramids havepre
only does it stay cooled by water, but fouling algaeshield it from sunlight- such ashair becausethey were sez
The other hitch is that even though a ghost fishnet made from pho- or moisture," saysAndradn a mi
todegradableplastic might disintegratebefore it drowns any dolphins, its ;lipped, persuasivelyreasonabler
chemical nature will not change for hundreds, perhaps thousands of Iike that. Plastic buried where th
years. intact a long time. That is also tm
"Plastic is still plastic. The material still remains a polymer. Polyethyl- sediment.At the bottom of the s
ene is not biodegradedin any practical time scale.There is no mechanism He gives a clipped lide laugh
in the marine environment to biodegrade that long a molecule." Even if much about microbiology at rho
photodegradable nets helped marine mammals live, he concluded, their rhere can biodegrade it. It's nor i
powdery residue remains in the sea,where the filter feederswill find it. mersibledown to check. Basedon
pect much-slower degradationat t
an order of magnitude longer.'
"Except for a small amount that's been incinerated," saysTony Andrady An order of magnitude-th
the oracle, "every bit of plastic manufactured in the world for the last 50 thousand years?Ten thousan&
yearsor so sdll remains. It's somewherein the environment." No one knows, becauseno pL
That half-century's total producdon now surpasses1 billion tons. It today's microbes that break hyd-
includes hundreds of different plastics,with untold permutations involv- long time after plants appearedto
ing added plasticizers, opacifiers, colors, fillers, strengtheners,and light recently, they've even learned to r
stabilizers.The longevity of each canvary enormously.Thus far, none has cause50 years is too short a tirrr
disappeared.Researchershave attempted to find out how long it will take biochemisiry.
 POLYMERS ARE FOREVER I I27

gldlmrhrlene to biodegrade by incubating a sample in a live bacteria cul,

lm- A n-earlater, lessthan 1 percent was gone.
'And
that's under the best controlled laboratory conditions. That's not
ffim'i.ou will find in real life," saysTony Andrady. "Plasticshaven't been
m[l]i long enough for microbes to develop the enzymesto handle it, so
rdhr:'scan only biodegrade the veryJow-molecular-weight part of the
frhmc--meaning, the smallest,already-brokenpolymer chains.Although
biodegradableplastics derived from natural plant sugars have ap-
mrnuu'"
pusre'd.aswell as biodegradablepolyestermade from bacteria,the chances
,nf =em replacing the petroleum-basedoriginals aren't great.
-Since
the idea of packaging is to protect food from bacteria," An-
observes,"wrapping leftovers in plastic that encouragesmicrobes to
,drns:\-
nsr :r may not be the smartestthing to do."
But even if it worked, or even if humans were gone and never pro-
rnq:,'.6{
ar1e1[er"nurdle,all the plastic already produced would remain-
tum,-long?
*Egrptian
pyramids have preservedcorn, seeds,and even human parts
n"i,ch ashair becausethey were sealedawayfrom sunlight with little oxygen
rr raoisture," saysAndrady, a mild, preciseman with a broad face and a
-' r'.ed, persuasivelyreasonablevoice. "Our waste dumps are somewhat
uuierhat. Plastic buried where there's litde water, sun, or oxygen will stay
n:acr a long time. That is also true if it is sunk in the ocean,coveredwith
;cdiment. At the bottom of the sea,there'sno oxygen, and it's very cold."
He gives a clipped little laugh. "Of course," he adds, "we don't know
::uch about microbiology at those depths. Possibly anaerobic organisms
can biodegrade it. It's not inconceivable.But no one's taken a sub-
::-1ere
:renible down to check. Basedon our observations,it's unlikely. So we ex-
:ect much-slower degradationat the seabottom. Many times longer. Even
;r order of magnitude longer."
An order of magnitu6[s-*r21'5 10 times-longer than what? One
iousand years?Ten thousand?
No one knows, becauseno plastic has died a natural death yet. It took
:oday'smicrobes that break hydrocarbons down to their building blocks a
-ong time after plants appearedto learn to eat lignin and cellulose. More
:ecently, they've even learned to eat oil. None can digest plastic yet, be-
;ause 50 years is too short a time for evolution to develop the necessary
:iochemistry.
 ,,Butgivei roo,oio;;";; Hewasin his
"0,,-*..and even there"
narive Sri Lanka when the Christmas 2004 rcunami hit,
"I'm
after those apocalyptic waters struck, people found reason to hope.
sure you'll find many speciesof microbes whose geneswill let them do
this tremendously advantageousthing, so that their numbers will grcm
and prosper. Today's amount of plastic will take hundreds of thousands
of years ro consume, but, eventually, it will all biodegrade. Lignin is far
more complex, and it biodegrades.It's jusr a matter of waiting for evolu- The
tion to catch up with the materialswe are making"'
And should biologic time run out and someplasticsremain, there is al-
' geologictime.
ways
,,ih.
,rphe",r"ls and pressurewill change it into something else.Just
like trees buried in bogs a long time ago-the geologic process, not
biodegradation, changed them into oil and coal. M"yb. high concentra-
tion, of plastics will turn into something like that. Eventually, they will
HEN HUMANS DEPA

change.change is the hallmark of narufe. Nothing remains the same."

our absencewill be r
worldview may flatter us inro
their survival, in fact thry are r
veins of mosr warm-blooded r
birds. In our absence,presrmr
rush to fill our void and set r
numbersno longer culled bv o
such abandon that humaniqrt
gist E. O. \Tilson esdmatesw,
missedfor long.
At the sametime, an)'ffi
consoled by two bequesa. Firr
were targeting mosquitoes lon
spreadingoil on rhe surfaceso{
breed. This larvicide, which d.n
practiced, as are all other ml
They range from hormones &
to-especially in the malarid t
'Wirh
only in pamsof the world.
that would otherwise have died
secondarybeneficiarieswill be n
chains mosquito eggs and larrn