Plastic (42 page)

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Discovery of that fact
:Gary Cohen, Health Care Without Harm, Skoll video, accessed online at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR4Pz9qwRy0
. Information on the group's history also gathered through author interviews with Tickner; Mark Rossi, research director, Center for Clean Production, September 2009; and Stacey Malkin, former spokeswoman for Health Care Without Harm, September 2007.

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about 120 of the more than 5,000 hospitals
: Health Care Without Harm, "List of Hospitals Undertaking Efforts to Reduce PVC or DEHP." Accessed at
http://www.noharm.org/lib/downloads/pvc/List_of_Hosps_Reducing_PVC_DEHP.pdf
. Most are located in California, the Pacific Northwest, and New England. See also Laura Landro, "Hospitals Go 'Green' to Cut Toxins, Improve the Patient Environment,"
Wall Street Journal,
October 4, 2006.

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what's really driven change
:Author interviews with Rossi, Tickner.

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Hexamoll DINCH
: Author interview with Patrick Harmon, September 2009.

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they constitute only about a quarter
: Estimate by Mark Ostler, manager of materials technical services at Hospira, in interview with author, December 2009.

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there are also applications for which no alternatives
: That fact recently put Luban and Short in the strange position of having to lobby against a local proposal to outlaw the use of medical devices containing DEHP. Even though both doctors are concerned about the health impacts of the chemical, had the law passed, said Luban, "no one [in DC] would have been able to receive a blood transfusion."

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recent study of the vinyl-free Brigham NICU
: A.M. Calafat et al., "Exposure to Bisphenol A and Other Phenols in Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Premature Infants,"
Environmental Health Perspectives
117 (April 2009): 639–44; author interview with Steve Ringer, chief of newborn medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, August 2009.

5. Matter Out of Place

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I was talking to a researcher
: Author interview with David Karl, professor of oceanography, University of Hawaii, July 2009.

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hundreds of beached lighters
: Author interview with Seba Sheavly, marine-debris consultant who has done studies of debris on Midway beaches, January 2010.

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"
could stock the check-out counter
": Charles Moore, "Trashed,"
Natural History
112 (November 2003).

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He routinely finds
: Author interview with John Klavitter, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, April 2010.

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One dead chick
: Curtis Ebbesmeyer and Eric Scigliano,
Flotsametrics and the Floating World: How One Man's Obsession with Runaway Sneakers and Rubber Ducks Revolutionized Ocean Science
(New York: HarperCollins, 2009), 212.

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major threat is plastic
: Heidi Auman et al., "Plastic Ingestion by Laysan Albatross Chicks on Sand Island, Midway Atoll, in 1994 and 1995," in G. Robinson and R. Gales, eds.,
Albatross Biology and Conservation
Chipping Norton, Australia: Surrey Beatty and Sons, 1997), 239–44.

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In one two-month cleanup
: Webpage of Midway volunteers, accessed at
http://kms.kapalama.ksbe.edu/projects/2003/albatross/
.

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a new factor likely contributing: Author interview with Klavitter; Auman, "Plastic Ingestion"; also, Kenneth R. Weiss, "Plague of Plastic Chokes the Seas,"
Los Angeles Times,
August 2, 2006.

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more than 260 species of animals
: Jose G. B. Derraik, "The Pollution of the Marine Environment by Plastic Debris: A Review,"
Marine Pollution Bulletin
44 (September 2002): 842–52. See also David Laist, "Impacts of Marine Debris: Entanglement of Marine Life in Marine Debris Including a Comprehensive List of Species with Entanglement and Ingestion Records," in J. M. Coe and D. B. Rogers, eds.,
Marine Debris—Sources, Impacts, and Solutions
(New York: Springer Verlag, 1997), 99–139.

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"
One of the most ubiquitous
": David Barnes et al., "Accumulation and Fragmentation of Plastic Debris in Global Environments,"
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B
364 (July 2009): 1987.

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a hazard for wildlife
: A recent news story described how German hedgehogs, having developed a taste for McDonald's McFlurrys, kept getting their heads caught in the dessert containers' convex lids and then starving to death. To its credit, McDonald's changed the lid design to one that was more hedgehog-friendly. Patrick MacGroarty, "McDonald's Redesigns Deadly Lids,"
Der Spiegel,
February 27, 2008. Accessed at
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,538125,00.html
.

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Even plastics that are properly thrown away
: Emma L. Teuten et al., "Transport and Release of Chemicals from Plastics to the Environment and Wildlife,"
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B
364 (July 27, 2009): 2027–45.

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No one knows for sure
: The figure of 13,000 pieces per square kilometer is cited in a report issued by the UN Environment Program, "Marine Litter: An Analytical Overview," 2005, 4. Accessed at
www.unep.org/regionalseas/publications/Marine_Litter.pdf
. The source of the 3.5 million pieces per square kilometer is Richard Thompson et al., "Plastics, the Environment and Human Health: Current Consensus and Future Trends,"
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B
364 (July 27, 2009): 2155.

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One expert estimated
: Andrady, "Applications and Societal Benefits," 1981. Andrady calculated that 0.2 to 0.3 percent of all plastics produced worldwide each year end up in the ocean, which would be 1.0 to 1.6 billion pounds. Cod fishery information from UN Food and Agricultural Organization,
Fishery and Aquaculture Statistics,
2007 (Rome, 2009), 12. Accessed at
http://www.fao.org/fishery/publications/yearbooks/en
.

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Researchers first began noting
: The first accounts came from reports of plastic fragments found in carcasses of sea birds collected from shorelines. Thompson, "Plastics, the Environment," 2154.

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the volume of plastic fibers
: Richard Thompson, "Lost at Sea: Where Is All the Plastic?"
Science
304 (May 2004): 838; also Ebbesmeyer and Scigliano,
Flotsametrics,
203.

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may be leveling off
: Thompson, "Plastics, the Environment," 2155; author interviews with Seba Sheavly, marine-debris consultant, January and June 2010; author interview with Kara Lavender Law, chief scientist Sea Education Association, an educational nonprofit based in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, August 2009. According to Law, since the 1980s the group has run research vessels on the same route through the North Atlantic and the Caribbean, sampling plankton with special nets that have 0.3-millimeter mesh. The trawls have always pulled up plastic. There's no sign the amounts are increasing, but in the 1980s the nets collected large number of preproduction pellets, and today the trawls are more likely to bring in fragments of postconsumer plastics.

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Plastics weren't something people could make or fix
: Susan Strasser,
Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash
(New York: Metropolitan Books, 1999), 267.

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"
rosily astronomical
": "Plastics in Disposables and Expendables,"
Modern Plastics
(April 1957): 94.

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as a speaker at a 1956 conference
: Ibid., 93.

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such products were a tough sell
: Heather Rogers,
Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage
(New York: New Press, 2005), 109.

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when vending machines
: "Plastics in Disposables,"
Modern Plastics
(April 1957): 96.

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Life magazine celebrated
: "Throwaway Living,"
Life,
August 1, 1955.

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half of all plastics
: Jefferson Hopewell et al., "Plastics Recycling: Challenges and Opportunities,"
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B
364 (July 2009): 2115.

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The lighter was the brainchild
: Gordon McKibben,
The Cutting Edge: Gillette's Journey to Global Leadership
Boston: Harvard Business Press, 1998), 101–4.

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"
the attractive toss-away
": Lee Daniels, "Gillette Gives Up on Cricket,"
New York Times,
October 5, 1984.

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the two companies duked it out
: McKibben,
Cutting Edge
. The lighter was actually just one product in a long and legendarily nasty war over consumer disposables waged between the two companies. They first battled over ballpoints, with Bic eventually beating out Gillette's Paper Mate pen. Then came the lighter fight, which Bic quickly won; by 1984, when Gillette sold off Cricket to a Swedish company, Bic controlled 55 percent of the estimated $325 million market (Daniels, "Gillette Gives Up"). The companies also fought over disposable razors, which each introduced in the mid-1970s. "We beat them in ballpoints, we beat them in lighters, and there's no reason we can't beat them here," one advertising executive told the
New York Times
when Bic launched its throwaway shaver in 1976 (Philip Dougherty, "Bic Pen Challenges Gillette on Razors,"
New York Times,
October 29, 1976). But in that battle Gillette has retained the edge.

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worldwide annual sales
: McKibben,
Cutting Edge,
102. Yet as rich as the market was, neither Bic nor Gillette made big profits because, in the aggressive battle for dominance, each company kept dropping prices to undercut the other.

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smoking is on the rise
: Judith McKay and Michael Eriksen,
The Tobacco Atlas,
The World Health Organization, 2002, 91. Accessed at
http://www.who.int/tobacco/en/atlas38.pdf
.

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Bic now has markets
: Information accessed from Bic website,
www.Bicworld.com
.

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In exports alone, China sold
: Allen Liao, "Born of Fire: China's Lighter Manufacturing Industry,"
Tobacco Asia,
Q2, 2009. Accessed at
http://www.tobaccoasia.net/previous-issues/features/39-featured-articles-q2–2009/128-born-of-fire-china-is-lighter-manufacturing-industry
. The business still has high enough volumes that one Chinese manufacturer of disposable lighters advertises it will not take any orders of fewer than 500,000 units.

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"
a bridge between metal
": DuPont Delrin website, accessed online at
www2.dupont.com/Plastics/en_US/Products?delrin/Delrin.html
.

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"
of little practical consequence
": Anthony Andrady, "Plastics and Their Impact in the Marine Environment," Proceedings of the International Marine Conference on Derelict Fishing Gear and the Ocean Environment, August 2000. According to Andrady, how long it takes for a polymer to biodegrade also depends on the immediate environment—whether it is wet or dry, cold or warm, exposed to a lot of sun or not—and on the type of polymer. In one study, researchers incubated polyethylene in a culture of live bacteria. After a year, less than 1 percent was gone. (Author interview with Andrady, October 2009, and described in Weisman,
The World Without Us,
127.)

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In the ocean, that process slows
: The one exception is expanded polystyrene, a.k.a. Styrofoam, which is more persistent on land than in the ocean, according to Andrady. On land, it reacts with UV radiation to form a yellowish surface layer that helps hold the material together. In water, the film washes off, and the material quickly disintegrates into microscopic pieces. The material is no longer visible, but that doesn't count as degradation.

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"
the sea floor
": Murray R. Gregory, "Environmental Implications of Plastic Debris in Marine Settings—Entanglement, Ingestion, Smothering, Hangers-on, Hitch-hiking and Alien Invasions,"
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B
364 (July 27, 2009): 2017.

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"
assembly of ghosts
": Ibid.

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I'd been told about the beach
: Author interviews with Judith Selby Lang and Richard Lang, March and November 2008.

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converging currents throw up
: Ebbesmeyer and Scigliano,
Flotsametrics,
200–201.

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when fishing fleets began switching
: Gregory, "Environmental Implications," 2014.

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Plastic makes up only about 10 percent
: Barnes et al., "Accumulation and Fragmentation."

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beach surveys around the world
: Derraik, "Pollution of the Marine Environment." In some places it's even higher. One survey of Cape Cod beaches and harbors found 90 percent of the debris was plastic.

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"
lubricant of globalization
": Author interview with Charles Moore, May 2009.

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what's also striking is the uniformity
: Ocean Conservancy,
A Rising Tide of Ocean Debris and What We Can Do About It: 2009 Report.
There's also a lot of nonplastic debris collected, including paper bags, glass bottles, tin cans, and pull-tabs.

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cigarette butts
: Ebbesmeyer quoted in Hohn, "Moby-Duck."

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Disposable lighters aren't far behind
: Ocean Conservancy,
Rising Tide.
The United States reported finding 18,555.