WHERE DOES PLASTIC COME FROM? YEAR END RESULTS.

It is the third day of a new year and six months since the beginning of my work with plastic along beaches of the world. Acting locally, I've been picking up plastic along the northern shores of Marrowstone Island, Washington State, for about ten years but far more seriously for the past six months.

The two photos are samples of the past month's collection of plastic that I keep to show others. They are mostly pieces of plastic that are a size an albatross or other seabird might swallow along with some "interesting" objects such as the toy handgrenade and green "Speak no Evil Monkey".

If you look closely in the bottom photo you will see some sinister pieces. The white or clear pieces of plastic with a round bottom and flared sections are wadding from shotgun shells. When I was a kid hunting ducks, the shells were made of paper and brass with wadding of paper. Aside from shot and powder, today's shells are almost entirely plastic. The flared wadding appears to be about as deadly a seabird item as can be found in the ocean since it is designed to travel in only one direction - out the barrel, or, if you are a baby albatross, down the throat. Once inside the bird, those flared sides of the wadding will push out and prevent anything from dislodging, likely causing many deaths we do not yet know about. Time will tell if this plastic finds its way in large numbers out and into major seabird feeding areas. But, look at the following to see just how prevalent it is in the marine debris of Marrowstone Island.

The following are numbers of items within categories of plastic with ten or more occurences (individual caps, etc) during December of  2009. This listing does not include the many large buckets full of plastic and styrofoam taken to the recycling center. It is only a reflection of "smaller" plastic pieces or whole, identifiable objects:

BOTTLE CAPS     193

SHOTGUN SHELLS AND WADDING     178

FIREWORKS PARTS (Mostly rocket tips)     59

STRAWS     28

LIGHTERS     20

TOYS     16

PENS AND MARKERS     15

CELL PHONES     1

In addition to the above, I picked up well over a dozen flip flops, 10 aquaculture discs (Penn Cove Recyclable Mussel Discs), hundreds of yards of monofilament, about one hundred plastic bottles, a pickup load or two of styrofoam, crab buoys, rope and netting, woven bags, and many broken pieces of buckets and flower pots.

Marrowstone Island is uniquely situated in the Salish Sea (Washington inland waters), receiving debris in winter from the high population centers near Seattle during south winds. We also receive debris from the West (Port Angeles and Victoria during strong winds out of the west. Based on drift cards I've found on the beach, some debris also works its way from the north along Vancouver Island's inner shores. The largest accumulations of debris occur on Marrowstone's northeast shore near Marrowstone Point, a convergence zone where drift cells bring sediment and debris from the south and west at "The Point". Orcas, minkes, river otters, sea lions, and harbor seals are often seen close to shore and until fairly recently, a kelp forest formed along the shoreline. Rhinoceros auklets, red-breasted mergansers, common loons, surf scoters, rednecked grebes, horned grebes, and murres are common but a decline in marine birds has been observed with puffins virtually gone after having been common just ten years ago. Western grebes have also been mostly absent.  

If anyone has information on seabird or marine mammal ingestion of shotgun shell wadding, please be in touch. If you have any contact with Ducks Unlimited or others who might influence an end to plastic shotgun shells be in touch too. Duck hunting is, by nature, a water sport and millions of rounds are fired into the sky with the wadding dropping out of reach of even the most thoughtful hunter. It is easy to pick up spent shells, but my findings suggest about one third of the shells fired are picked up (based on shell to wadding ratio).

Happy New Year and Please go

PLASTIC FREE FRIDAYS

in Memory of X310.