Fancy some roasted plastic? Or how about plastic marinated in wine and garlic? Or maybe baked in a salt crust? Really, we are spoilt for choice. That plastic butter container in your fridge? That will end up in the sea and the fish will eat it. We’ll eat the fish and the toxic plastic ends up in our tummies, into our blood system, causing unpleasant things to our body.
Har, har, har, you might say. Not in our lifetime. Well, in 2050, for my 75th birthday, it is very likely that as I’ll be jogging by the sea front (the plan is that I’ll be an active septuagenarian) and I’ll ask the Significant Other:
“Please tell me that that’s a huge shoal of fish that I’m spotting over there by the shore.”
Alas, he will shake his head mournfully. According to the prestigious Ellen MacArthur Foundation – which carries out lauded marine research – it is estimated the volume of accumulated plastics in the oceans will be greater in weight than that of fish by 2050.
Already eight million tons of plastic end up in the sea each year. For some perspective: a car is two tons. Which means we’re throwing away the equivalent of four million cars stacked on top of each other every year, and actually creating a whole new floating continent of debris – twice the size of France – which goes by the fancy name of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Some of the fish eat this plastic because they think it’s plankton. In fact, if you love shellfish, the chances are that you’re eating 11,000 plastic fragments with your seafood each year, scientists at Ghent University in Belgium tell us.
It is all very depressing. What are we meant to eat? In a world where meat is derived from animals who are made to live in tiny cages and pumped with growth hormones, you’d think fish is the healthiest option. Not so. Are we doing anything about it?
Very Concerned People from some 100 countries met in Malta last Thursday at the Our Oceans conference to discuss ways to clean up the oceans and then to pledge, hand-on-hearts to protect the sea. However, you could tell that for the majority of them it was just a photo opportunity, craning their necks and putting on I-so-care-about-marine-life faces, but the minute the cameras are gone, they’ll trot off for lunch cracking jokes about how much they love the taste of plastic.
All, perhaps, except for Prince Charles for whom I have a soft spot, because it must be hard to be born in a job where you have to shake people’s hand all your life. And he’s always had the environment close to heart. I imagine his herb garden is all organic, and I’d like to think that if he has any plastic at all at home, he has discussions with Camilla to see how they can recycle it.
It is all very depressing. What are we meant to eat?
“Maybe we can use this Kerrygold butter container as a tub to grow rosemary on the window sill Charles, what do you think?” You can tell, from the passion of his speeches that he practises what he preaches.
Last Thursday Prince Charles highlighted how the waste material is increasingly found in fish caught for the dinner table. “The growing threat to the world’s marine ecology has reached a critical point where plastics are now on the menu,” he told the conference, urging world leaders to promote circular economy which allows plastics to be recovered, recycled and reused instead of created, used and then thrown away.
Polystyrene, polyester, PVC, nylon and worst of them all, the throwaway polythene bag, came to be in the 1950s and none of them were recyclable. I’m trying hard to think of something plastic-y which my granny would have owned back in the 1950s – butter didn’t use to come in tubs those days – but whatever plastic thing she had, it is still around.
“All the plastic that we have produced since the 1950s that has ended up in the ocean is still with us in one form or another, so that wherever you swim there are particles of plastic near you and we are very close to reaching the point when whatever wild-caught fish you eat will contain plastic,” Prince Charles said.
He urged us all to stop the devastating impact plastics are having on our oceans. But what can we do in practice?
For starters: we can stop drinking liquids from plastic bottles (and while we’re at it stop drinking soft drinks altogether). Up to a few months ago, every Tuesday at home we’d throw out five or six grey bags fat with empty plastic water bottles. Our doorstep was a sad sight. Now we’ve installed a home reverse osmosis (avoid the teleshopping ones – they’re super expensive rip-offs) and we’re down to just one grey bag a week. And the water tastes much better. Kim Kardashian may go round clutching a bottle of Fiji, I carry around my very own Kristina-water in a stainless steel can.
What else can we do?
Buy ridiculously cheap glass bottles from Flying Tiger and use for water instead of plastic ones.
Do away with plastic bags and get a lovely Butlers wicker bag for your grocery shopping.
Watch the National Geographic video ‘Are you eating plastic for dinner?’
Buy yoghurts in glass jars instead of plastic containers.
When buying cotton buds choose the brand Johnson & Johnson because they have recently switched from plastic to paper stems.
Refuse to buy plastic children’s toys, instead buy beautiful, timeless wooden ones which they can pass on to their children and grandchildren.
If each one of us does their little bit, hopefully we’ll all make it to the age of 75.
krischetcuti@gmail.com
Twitter: @krischetcuti