Tag Archives: video

Must-Read: Plastiki: Across the Pacific on Plastic: An Adventure to Save Our Oceans

The “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” has become an issue that is at times both forgotten and exaggerated. Group 3 is focusing on the Pacific Gyres, a multilayered phenomenon involving the ocean currents that lead to the plastic accumulation, the spatial distribution of the plastic debris, and the effects of the microplastics on ecosystems and on our lives. Plastic accumulation in the Pacific is clearly a problem with many components; aside from the research already done to lay the groundwork, it’s still an area of active scientific study, and many articles stress the need for more research. The use of advanced mathematical models and varied sampling methods, contributing to our still-developing understanding of the facts, might make the (dys)functioning of the Pacific Gyres seem too complex for most lay people to get involved with. David de Rothschild’s Plastiki, however, makes plastic accumulation in our oceans an extremely accessible topic.

The book deals with 12,500 plastic bottles that were built into the titular boat and taken on a 10,000 mile journey from the U.S. to Australia. One of de Rothschild’s primary goals was to raise awareness for ocean pollution, and he presents the voyage in an engaging format that makes the read as exciting as it is educational. He details the construction of the boat and then how he and his five-person crew take it on what’s billed as an “extraordinary journey” across the Pacific, describing “urgent study of ocean pollution, island nations threatened by rising seas, damaged coral reefs, and the acidifying ocean itself.” He was motivated by a desire to prompt people to learn about plastic as a material — the way we’re using it and disposing of it — and to further our understanding of how we’re dependent upon the viability of the planet for our survival. For that the earth needs people to be both aware and active. De Rothschild does an excellent job of communicating an environmental message and of providing an “entertaining adventure for sailors and explorers alike” (x), and Plastiki is full of graphics, diagrams, and photographs to both raise interest in the subject and to inform people of the facts through a digestible format. As both a “unique narrative [of a] first-hand experience” and a scientific investigation (A. Caruso), the book provides a singular introduction to the growing problem of plastic accumulation in the Pacific while giving readers further impetus to do something about it.

Check out the publisher’s website for a preview of the book, and this video for a sampling of the work that went into creating it:

Zooplankton Lunch Special: Plastics

Five Films, a UK based film company invested in sharing the stories of our Earth and biology filmed for the first time in recorded scientific history the event of zooplankton eating plastics. Although a seemingly mundane discovery, this evidence of microorganisms filling their tiny little bellies with plastics provides more backing to the claim that plastics are affecting our marine life in a fundamental way. So in order to eat, the little plankton guy stirs up all the water surrounding him in a frenzy of limbs and eats up all the foodstuffs he draws into his mouth from the water. In this case, the foodstuffs being plastics. As observed in the video, the plastics are the florescent green beads in the water, and you can see the plankton eating and having the plastics in their bodies. Now, from our research in class, and basic knowledge of the plastics that exist in the oceans, it is not too surprising to find out that the plankton are eating the micro pieces of plastics which makeup the majority of plastic pollution in the ocean. The significance of this video is the amount and concentration of plastics eaten by the plankton, and how this affects the biology of our oceans. It is almost impossible/very very hard to know the correction concentrations of plastics in the ocean because we as individuals/ scholars, and the scientific community do not exactly how big our ocean is. So its very hard to calculate how the presence of plastics and the organisms who eat them when we can’t accurately measure the body in which they live in. But when we can know is that these feeding habit it altering our ocean ecosystem in ways we don’t entirely understand yet. Plastics are unnatural substances, and so when something like, i don’t know, a plankton per-say eats it, their insides get a little funky. So if we follow the food chain oceanic game of “The Little Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly” it would look as follows: the plankton ate the plastic, and the crab ate the plankton, and the fish ate the crab, and then the person ate the fish. Why did the plankton eat the plastic? It’s not that we don’t know why, it is because there is so much of it in a micro sense in the ocean that zooplankton inevitably ingest it while eating. Now this is a problem for all of us for a number of reasons, the main points being that a) our ecosystems are changed because of the presence of plastics, and b) we ourselves could be harmed by eating/ having the presence of plastics in out marine life, big and small. Relating back to our research, this video helps visual the statistics of plastics being gathered in the ocean, and the affects it has on our ocean life. Also, look at the plankton, it’s pretty cool to watch them eat.

How do marine plastics affect us anyway? (Group 2’s research)

 

This video was posted on Youtube by a nonprofit organization called Seas at Risks, which aims to influence public policy regarding the protection of the marine environment. Although this video is quite comical, featuring cartoon characters singing about plastics ending up in the marine environment, it is also informative because it illustrates the apathetic perspective of many humans regarding the marine plastics issue. Many people know about the marine plastic problem, but not many care enough about the problem to do anything to combat it, probably because they don’t see the effect it will have on them directly. My group has decided to focus our Science Forward research on how marine plastics impact humans, in order to prove that plastics in the oceans is an issue people should care about because it actually does have an effect on individuals.

One study my group came across in their research was a paper describing an experiment conducted by Chelsea Rochman, who is part of the Department of Anatomy, Physiology, and cell biology at the University of California. In this experiment, two groups of fish were examined. In one group, pellets containing plastics were placed in the water the fish were swimming in. In the other group, no plastic pellets were placed. After two months, it was determined that the fish that may have ingested plastic showed an increase in harmful substances like PCBs. A statistical analysis was conducted and although the presence of PCBs in the fish that may have eaten plastic was not found to be statistically significant, that doesn’t mean that the plastic couldn’t have caused this increase. The results of the statistical analysis could be attributed to small sample size or less plastic ingested than would be ingested in the open ocean. Plastic consumption can very well be harming fish that humans will ultimately eat.

Taking this study into account along with our other research, our group has recognized that thinking about how marine plastics will affect humans is a topic that allows for a personal connection. Marine plastics affect humans and although our research is far from over, we are starting to see the negative effects plastics have.

 

 

The Plastics Highway to Trinidad and Tobago

A CUNY colleague of mine shared this short video shared on the Facebook page of the Papa Bois Conservation organization in Trinidad and Tobago. It’s short and simple, but describes how plastic waste from far away places washes up on the shores of this Caribbean Island. Note that the sources of many of these items can be determined by the markings and information found on the bottles and other debris. The fact that the information survives the journey across the seas from Guyana to Trinidad speaks to the durability of the plastics, and why they have become such a distinctive and ubiquitous feature of the Anthropocene.

https://www.facebook.com/PapaBoisConservation/videos/vb.125242457570720/895730293855262/?type=2&theater

ITF announcements: why you should attend office hours & ocean garbage patches on Comedy Central

Some announcements and suggestions from Alexis, your friendly ITF:

Become an author on this site! If you haven’t already done so, please take the time to fill out this Google form so that you can be added to this site as an author. It won’t take long and it’s essential to your coursework in Science Forward! Access the form here: http://goo.gl/forms/WtnN9uuYJz.

Canceled: ITF office hours for Thursday, Oct. 8. Please email me to make an appointment for next week’s office hours on Monday or Thursday afternoons: acarrozza@gradcenter.cuny.edu

Why not visit Prof. Branco during office hours? Students tend to avoid office hours because it’s not clear what they should do or ask during office hours. The University of Michigan put together a great list of reasons for attending office hours along with some practical tips: Top 5 Reasons to Use Office Hours & Tips for Using the Time Effectively

“I was swept into some kind of floating trash vortex in the middle of the ocean.” Given the current course topic of ocean garbage patches, check out this clip from the television show Review on Comedy Central in which one man reviews life, one task at a time. Watch Forrest Macneil (played by the hilarious Andy Daly) encounter a garbage patch when asked to review “spending alone time in a rowboat.”