At Sea Turtle Camp, we often talk about plastics. And that is because it is a big problem. Plastics persist all over the planet in landfills, national parks, lakes, streams, beaches, and obviously the ocean. It has entangled turtles, been ingested by whales, and is working its way up the food chain. Plastics are such an enormous issue, that they now even have a United Nations classification – of statehood.

Earlier this month, the United Nations convened and agreed to grant statehood to the Garbage Patch. Their designation of this accumulation of plastics is not just for Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the most well-known of the marine debris fields, but to all five of the known man-made floating nations in the North Pacific, South Pacific, North Atlantic, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

These newly appointed federal states, whose area covers many square miles, will have a population of 36,939. Its citizens are the tons of garbage present in the oceans. The flag, a simple, understated blue field in representation of a cleaner ocean that once existed. They have nicknamed this new federation the “away state”.

Obviously, this designation is symbolic in nature, and the Garbage Patch is far from habitable. It began through a collaborative effort between the University Ca’ Foscari of Venice, the Italian Ministry of the Environment, and the University of Rome. The hope is that this will bring attention to the pervasive problem of marine debris. Even though it is the “Away State”, we should neglect how significant this problem is and how it is inherently a man-made issue.

Since the 1960s the amount of plastic waste in the oceans has increased dramatically. Prior to that, plastic use was negligible, as the polymer chemical hadn’t yet been perfected. And all the plastics from the 1960s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and today is all still out there. There is nothing on the planet that can biodegrade plastic. It only breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces (photedegradation), which means it enters the food chain and lower and lower rungs. This isn’t just a trash heap; it’s a threat to ocean health.

So yes, at Sea Turtle Camp we talk a lot about plastics, but thankfully, it is an area that campers can see a significant impact from changes in their consumption.

While geographically distinct, Sea Turtle Camp; the University of Vermont; and Concord, Massachusetts have something in common – a conservation philosophy. All three locations have banned the sale or consumption of single-use plastic bottles in their area.

Last summer, Sea Turtle Camp turned down a generous offer of free bottled water, in favor of keeping to our mission. The University of Vermont recently cut ties with the Coca-Cola Bottling Company opting to install refillable water stations on their campus, making it the largest public institution to do so. UVM now joins a list of 22 other colleges and universities to have made the plastic prohibition pledge. And a revolution is also underway in Massachusetts as the community of Concord put in a by-law this year outlawing the sale of “unflavored drinking water in single-serving polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles of 1 liter (34 ounces) or less.”

With US consumption of single use plastics ever on the rise, communities and conservationists are looking for better ways to address plastic problem. While recycling is always encouraged, the reality is that on about 28% of plastics are actually recycled. This stems from the fact that not all areas have developed recycling programs, and those that do can only handle a few of the different types of plastics.

Flip over your beverage or food container and there is the ever familiar recycling symbol stamped on the bottom. Accompanying that symbol is also a number indicating the composition of the plastic (and therefore its readiness to being recycled). The most common type is #1 or Polyethylene Terephthalate, which comprises the majority of our drinking bottles. This is also the most easy to recycle. However, the plastic cap affixed to the top is not made of the same material. Most caps are #5, or polypropylene, a more stubborn plastic not as frequently recycled. Unwanted numbers, usually the higher ones, are pulled out of the pile before the recycling process even begins – and end up in the landfill with many of their plastic brethren.

The holes that still presently exist in the recycling process require us to pay attention to the other components of the conservation triangle – reduce and reuse, which is what UVM and Concord are attempting to do. Please work with your community to see ways in which you can get involved, and hopefully a revolution of another sort will have begun in Concord.

With each new year there are New Year’s resolution. Each year, we at Sea Turtle Camp try to be a greener company, which includes our energy and fossil fuel usage. However, sometimes the environmental options are not presented clearly and cause confusion. In this blog, we’ll try to clear some of that up.

Reliance of fossil fuels poses two problems. First, they represent a diminishing, non-renewable resource, so we need to seek out even riskier and environmentally hazardous deposits – think the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster. The second complication is that as these fuels are combusted they release harmful greenhouse gases. As fossil fuel use continues to threaten the ecosystem, potential solutions need to be seriously considered. While biofuel alternatives have been discussed for several decades, the talk seems to become muted in the climate change debate and complicated by chemical confusion.

One of the biggest arguments against renewable biofuel options is both the loss of arable land and a potential food source. While crops like soybeans, corn, sugar cane, canola, and sunflowers have the ability to produce oil which can be converted to fuel they do require land, water, and some energy input to do so. And the yield can vary. According to data from Exxon’s Biofuel team 1 acre of soybeans yields about 50 gallons of biofuel, 1 acre of corn yields about 250, with similar amount of land for planted with sugar cane gives forth about 450 gallons.

The process of extracting the oil from the different products can also be energy intensive. For example to get oil from corn we take the kernels (currently, there isn’t a good way to use the entire crop) and grind them down. Then warm water and yeast are added, causing fermentation to occur and giving you alcohol (ethanol to be exact.) While corn production uses the edible portion of the plant, soybeans do not. The protein portion can be extracted for human consumption, and the remainder used to create oil. Sugar cane requires the burning of the entire field, further releasing greenhouse gases, so a more effective way could be found. Grasses, especially those that are inedible, seem to be good options, and switchgrass could hold much promise.

However, the greatest hope could come from the ocean in a most humble form: algae. This organism conjures images of large stalked forests of kelp or leafy seaweed growths covering l rocks, but that is only a fraction of the algae group. They are a diverse group, being unicellular or multicellular, microscopic or up to 65 meters tall, and  grow in either salt or freshwater. With climate change forecasting increasing demand for freshwater supplies, it would be unwise to lock up large quantities of the precious resource for algal growth, but saltwater is ever abundant.

Scientists from UC San Diego have recently concluded that the marine algae can be just as capable as producing biofuels as their freshwater counterparts. This means that arable land can be left for farming, freshwater can continue to be used by plants and animals, and fuels can come from the ocean. And, since the algae are photosynthetic they take up carbon dioxide, helping sequester one of the greenhouse gases contributing to climate change. Oh, and the yield? Up to 2000 gallons of fuel per acre.

While the highly charged climate change debate will most likely spark considerable debate for the foreseeable future, the search for ways to ameliorate the problem needs to be achieving greater prominence. And the humble algae needs to be given serious consideration.

A recent announcement in the consumer products world marked a major victory in the battle again plastics today. Unilever Global announced this week that they will be phasing out the use of microplastics in their body soaps, scrubs, and gels. This major company which brings us famous brands like Dove, Vaseline, Axe, St. Ives, TreSemme, and Ponds, will be completely microplastic-free by 2015.

Plastic usage has been increasing since the 1950s, with around 80 million metric tons of polyethylene made each year. Polyethylene is created by the linkage of many ethyl groups (C₂H₄), and is used in the production of many familiar products, most familiarly the dreaded plastic bags. In the huge plastic market expansion, these polymers occasionally pop up in some unlikely, and unnecessary, places – namely our personal cleaning products. Microplastics, also known as polyethylene beads, have slowly crept their way into our face scrubs and shower gels claiming to provide extra exfoliation.

A large part of their attraction is the bright colors they appear in, which can be quite eye-catching. Despite their visual appeal, the plastics are not necessary. There are naturally occurring exfoliants that can do the same work of the plastics. And these natural products will prove far less environmentally damaging. Polyethylene beads eventually get washed down the shower or sink. They are then most likely transported to water treatment facilities, but these facilities are not equipped to process the microplastics. Therefore, they usually make their way into our waterways and ultimately the ocean.

Over the past half a century that plastics have been transforming our lives, they have also been altering the lives of many organisms that call the ocean home. Plastics do not biodegrade, but instead photodegrade, meaning that they break down into smaller pieces without actually going away. This means that as plastic pieces gets smaller and smaller, they can be ingested by smaller and smaller organisms allowing these hazardous chemicals to infiltrate almost all levels of the food chain. In addition to the complications resulting from the chemical composition, animals can frequently become entangled in plastic bits or swallowed plastics can become impacted in their digestive tracts inhibiting digestion.

We applaud Unilever taking a stand, and now it’s time to ask the other corporations to follow suit. Pressure companies like Proctor and Gamble, Johnson and Johnson, and Nestle to phase-out similar polyethylene beads from their products.

Whether its creamy lobster bisque, crunchy calamari, or cedar planked salmon, if you’re a seafood lover there probably isn’t a crustacean or fish you haven’t tried baked, broiled, seared, and served!

Unfortunately the ocean is no longer an all-you-can-eat buffet. Poor fisheries management, population increase, pollution, and large scale man-made disasters (Gulf Stream oil spill) all contribute to the world’s decreasing commercial fish stock. According to Seafood Watch over 75% of the worlds fisheries are currently overfished, and since recovery takes decades, not days, we are faced with a serious problem.

Right now you are most likely thinking “I’m not a commercial fisherman, I can’t control population growth, and I don’t work for British Petroleum.” You would be right, but you can still make a significant impact on the oceans rapidly ­­­­depleting fish stocks by making sustainable seafood choices in your community. 

Sustainable Seafood is defined not only by species population, but also fishing and harvesting methods. The species should be naturally abundant and the population maintained by responsible harvesting habits that do not harm habitats, the environment, or other species. Choose species that are low on the food chain like catfish or mussels because they require fewer resources to survive and usually contain lower levels of mercury then large predators like swordfish and tuna. It is also essential to access the individual growth rates of the fish species you choose to consume. Fish like mahi mahi and tilapia mature very quickly versus species like the orange roughy or Chilean seabass which can take between fifteen to thirty years to reach adulthood.

Encouraging a sustainable seafood supply is more in your control then you might think.  Consumers dictate what the local fishermen supply to the market based on their seafood purchasing habits. If you are buying all the Chilean seabass, then harvests of this un-maintainable species will not only continue, but increase. However, if you choose to only purchase fish that were caught using sustainable methods, then other overexploited species have a chance to recover.