Why Fish for Garbage?

So where does it go?

• Most of it sits in landfills for hundreds of years, building and releasing toxic chemicals into the air and ground.

• A considerable amount also ends up in other parts of the environment, likely finding its way into our waterways and creating pollution concerns. 

• According to the EPA, nearly half of our rivers and streams and more than one-third of our lakes are polluted and unfit for swimming, fishing, and drinking. 

• Many waterways lead to the ocean, bringing garbage pollution downstream with them.

• Certain types of garbage can persist in nature for much longer than our lifetimes.

Have you ever wondered how long it takes for common garbage items to break down?

Littering is bad, but garbage is worse. 

While some forms of littering are intentional, much of it is unintentional and is a result of poor waste management practices. Regardless of how it ends up in the environment, garbage compromises the beauty of natural places and can be very harmful to ecosystems. 

Plastic garbage is especially concerning. Whether it ends up in a landfill or in nature, it will stay there for hundreds of years releasing toxic chemicals into the ecosystem and endangering wildlife.

Plastic is everywhere, and it never goes away. 

Comprehensive studies now provide evidence that plastic has been found in waterways all over the world. 

• About 380 million tons of plastic is manufactured every single year and 92% is considered non-biodegradable. 

  • About half of this plastic is designed and manufactured to be thrown away after a single use, but can remain on Earth for thousands of years without being decomposed. 

  • Common single-use plastics include food packaging, plastic cutlery, disposable cups, plastic bottles, and plastic grocery bags, just to name a few. 

Some of the biggest concerns come from the accumulation of microplastics in the environment, which are small plastic particles less than 5mm in size. These tiny pieces of plastic easily travel from place to place and are extremely difficult to remove from ecosystems. 

• It is estimated that over 5 trillion microplastic particles are floating on the surface of the Earth’s oceans, weighing over 250,000 tons. 

• Microplastic pollution comes from everyday sources like soaps, toothpastes and household cleaners or from bigger pieces of plastic breaking down over time. 

• Our waterways are the major pathways for microplastic transportation, making our aquatic species especially vulnerable to the harmful physical and chemical effects.

Why is plastic so harmful?

• 8 million metric tons of plastic enters the ocean every year. This is the equivalent of dumping a garbage truck full of plastic into the ocean every minute of every day. 

• 80% of those plastics come from land, reaching oceans through our waterways. 

• Plastics remain in the ocean for long periods of time. The oceans’ natural currents, or gyres, cause the plastic to accumulate in concentrated areas adding to continuously growing garbage patches. 

• The largest collection of plastic in the ocean is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, located between Hawaii and California in the North Pacific gyre.

• In this one garbage patch alone, there’s an estimated 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic covering an area that is twice the size of Texas.

• However, there are five gyres in the ocean and each of them contains plastic garbage patches of varying sizes.

How does plastic pollution impact aquatic species and other wildlife?

• Wildlife can become entangled from accidental interactions with plastics, compromising their ability to swim, fly, breathe, and survive.

• Birds, fish, and other aquatic species frequently ingest microplastics mistaking them for food which exposes them to chemical toxicity, intestinal damage, or organ failure.

  • A recent study done in the Great Lakes region showed that microplastics were present in 100% of the fish that were sampled and nearly all of the birds. 

• Plastics carry toxins from the manufacturing process that are known to have adverse health impacts on all living organisms. 

• When consumed, these toxins are absorbed and easily transferred to other species. 

  • For example, fish are a common food source for many other forms of wildlife. When predators eat fish they are also consuming the toxins that exist in the fish. This process continues, meaning microplastics can end up affecting an entire food chain.

• Trout are also considered an indicator species, which are known to reflect the overall health of their environment. 

• Detecting the presence of microplastics and toxins in trout populations can show us that an entire ecosystem is in danger.

How does this affect people?

• Not only are microplastics extremely persistent in the environment, they continue to show up in large quantities in our food chain. 

• Once microplastics are ingested by fish they are able to bioaccumulate, meaning they are easily transferred from species to species. 

• This means the fish we eat are increasingly exposed to microplastics, and there is a very good chance we are consuming those toxic chemicals.

What Can We Do?

Individual action can make a massive impact. By doing these simple things, we can create noticeably healthier local waterways while contributing to the solution of this global crisis. 

3. BE AWARE OF MICROPLASTICS IN YOUR HOME

Two of the most significant contributions to microplastic pollution in our waterways actually come from households.

Microbeads are small plastic pellets commonly used in face scrubs, body washes, household cleaners, laundry detergent, and even toothpaste. They are so small that they are able to bypass treatment facilities and about 8 trillion beads (enough to cover more than 300 tennis courts) end up in our waterways every day.

In 2015, Congress signed the Microbead-Free Waters Act into law which banned the use of microbeads in many health and beauty products – but many companies are still finding loopholes to use them.

By simply being aware of the issue and avoiding products that contain microbeads, we can cut out a large contributor of microplastic pollution. 

Microfibers are tiny plastic fibers that are shed from our clothing in the washing machine, and also easily make their way into our waterways.

Microfiber filters for our washing machines available on the market (Cora Ball). They are affordable, simple to use, and have proven to be 90% effective.

For more research-based information on the harmful effects of plastic, check out our anthropogenic litter article here.