Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death: JUNKRide Exposes Effects of Plastic Pollution on Our Health

Plastics are destroying our oceans, and yet it has taken a long time to get communities and governments to commit to working towards gleaning us off of our plastic dependency. To expose the issue on large scale, a team of Algalita Marine Research Foundation staff set sail last year from Los Angeles to Hawaii on JUNKRaft, a raft made from 15,000 plastic bottles and other garbage, hoping that the trip would get on the media’s radar about the full scale epidemic that is plaguing our oceans.

Now JUNKRaft has turned into JUNKRide, with two Algalita staff, Anna Cummins and Dr. Marcus Eriksen, cycling from Vancouver, B.C. to Tijuana, Mexico educating organizations and legislators along the way, not only about the threats of plastic pollution to the environment, but to humans as well.

“Plastics are a medium for other pollutants to get into food webs,” says Eriksen. Toxins like Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs), Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs), Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) and other pesticides in our watersheds are liphophilic compounds. This means that although they don’t mix with water, they do stick to plastic particles, and in turn migrate into the tissue of animals ingesting plastic in polluted waters. As these toxins are ingested, they make their way up the food chain, eventually ending up our dinner plates. Ingesting toxics through the food we eat is such a concern that during JUNKRide’s stop in Portland, Cummins will be getting her blood tested to find out the concentration of PCBs, PAHs, and DDT in her own body.

When the Algalita Marine Research Foundation traveled to the North Pacific Gyre last year they found plastic particles in over a third of the lantern fish that they collected for research, showing that marine and human health are equally dependent on solving the problem of plastic pollution. “We know that the situation is getting significantly worse. On our last voyage we found that the density of plastic particles had double in just 10 years. That, coupled with the fact that we found plastic particles in the fish we brought back, is enough to tell us we have to make some drastic changes,” says Cummins.

Along their 2,000 mile ride, Cummins and Eriksen will be advocating for that change, educating voters and legislators about the severe threats that plastic pollution poses. Seeing images of fish with plastic particles in their stomach has been powerful. After a recent presentation in Edmonds, WA, the Edmonds City Council unanimously voted to draft a plastic bag ban. “There were maybe some people that were on the fence, and I think that visual images helped push some people over the edge,” says Cummins.

The duo is hoping that they can get more anti-plastic pollution legislation moving. Although most legislators will probably never travel to the North Pacific Gyre, Eriksen and Cummins know the impact of actually seeing the density of pollution in this area of the Pacific Ocean is what pushes them over the tipping point. Hearing that the ratio of pounds of plastic to pounds of zooplankton is 46 to 1, isn’t nearly as valuable as seeing what that actually looks like. So they brought part of the Gyre back with them, collected in small vials. “We have 100 samples that we want to put into the hands of influential people. By putting this into the hands of legislators we’re showing that it’s not just an out of sight out of mind issue. We need legislation right away.”

Single-use plastics are the main offender when it comes to pollution; Americans throw away about 100 billion polyethelene plastic bags per year. Only 0.6 percent of those plastic bags are recycled. Switching to reusable bags is an important first step in moving towards a lighter environmental footprint. Eriksen and Cummins are adamant about people changing their lifestyles to cut down on single-use, throw away plastics, but they also emphasize that the issue is bigger than individual habits, “The fact that we’re using a resource as valuable as petroleum to make a product that’s made to last forever to make things that can be thrown away is absurd…beyond citizens, it’s going to take cooperation from the industry (to get alternatives to single use plastic containers),” says Cummins. That means putting pressure on the industry and speaking up and getting involved with educating others when legislation does come up.

As they ride, Cummins and Eriksen will continue emphasizing that, be it altering our personal habits, or pushing for industry-wide changes, solving the plague of plastic pollution is necessary for the health of our future. As Cummins says, “it’s a human issue, it’s one that we’ve created and it’s one that’s starting to impact us.”

You can catch JUNKRide in the following places, check out the JUNKRide website for event details:

• April 17, Portland, OR
• April 21, Portland, OR (Wend is hosting this event along with Surfrider and Ban The Bag, come join us at Keen HQ!)
• April 22, Salem, OR
• April 24 Corvallis, OR
• April 27 Newport, OR

Dates for California will soon be added to the JUNKRide website, so keep checking back.