NBC Bay Area: Plastic pollution causing a sea of trouble

Published on NBC Bay Area: November 26, 2024 

By 2050, the world is expected to generate more than enough plastic pollution to cover the entire island of Manhattan with a two-mile high mountain of plastic trash.  The rise in plastic waste, including microscopic plastic floating in our oceans, is pushing more than 160 nations to develop a global plan to dramatically reduce the world's growing piles of plastic.  The NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit dives into what’s at stake for vulnerable wildlife and your dinner plate.

Almost every day we see direct impacts of of plastic.

A single plastic bottle can take up to 450 years to decompose, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).

In fact, it’s estimated most of the plastic ever made around the world still exists.  The effects on wildlife have been devastating with plastic entangling and injuring birds, turtles, and even threatened and endangered whales.

About 11 million metric tons of plastic waste find their way into our oceans each year, according to a recent study from Pew – that’s enough trash to fill more than half a million dump trucks and the flow of plastic is expected to triple by 2040.

The effects on wildlife have been devastating. A report by the environmental advocacy group Oceana found nearly 1,800 marine mammals and sea turtles either swallowed or become entangled in plastic in U.S. waters between 2009 and early 2020. The most common types of plastic posing a threat to animals include bags, balloons, fishing lines, and food wrappers, according to Oceana.

On the coast of Sausalito, the Marine Mammal Center regularly rehabilitates injured animals, including those entangled in plastic nets and fishing lines. The center has admitted more than 20,000 patients over the past few decades.

"Almost every day we see direct impacts of of plastic, most commonly in the form of entanglement in sea lions and seals and some of the other patients that we see," said Dr. Cara Field, who serves as the center's medical director.

Hoard is one of the many sea lions Field has treated at the Marine Mammal Center. He was rescued in September after members of the public spotted him on the shore of San Carlos Beach in Monterey with plastic fishing line wrapped around his neck and body. The entanglement left him with serious injuries to his upper chest, neck, head, and mouth area.

"When they get stuck in it, it literally can be anywhere from just around their mouth, around their head, around their neck and can cause immediate drowning, if it gets to a point where they can't get out of a net."

Read the story here