Page 28 - ARUBA TODAY

A28 SCIENCE
Monday 23 april 2018
Science Says: Amount of straws, plastic pollution is huge

4 percent of the plastic
trash by piece, but far less
by weight.
Straws on average weigh
so little — about one sixty-
seventh of an ounce or .42
grams — that all those bil-
lions of straws add up to
only about 2,000 tons of the
nearly 9 million tons of plas-
tic waste that yearly hits the
waters.
"Bans can play a role," says
oceanographer Kara Lav-
endar Law, a co-author
with Jambeck of the 2015
Science study. "We are not
going to solve the problem
by banning straws."
Scientists say that unless
you are disabled or a small
child, plastic straws are
generally unnecessary and
a ban is start and good
symbol. These items that
people use for a few min-
utes but "are sticking round
for our lifetime and longer,"
Lippiatt says.
Marcus Eriksen, an envi-
ronmental scientist who
co-founded the advocacy
group 5 Gyres, says work-
ing on bans of straws and
plastic bags would bring
In this Thursday, Feb. 12, 2015 file photo, Jenna Jambeck, an environment engineering professor at the University of Georgia, holds noticeable change. He
a plastic baggie with trash collected last fall from a clean up at Panama Beach, Fla., at the American Association for the Advance-
ment of Science conference in San Jose, Calif. calls plastic bags, cups and
Associated Press straws that break down
in smaller but still harmful
pieces the "smog of micro-
By SETH BORENSTEIN lion plastic straws are on the million metric tons) of plas- such as Seattle and Miami plastics."
WASHINGTON (AP) — Cities entire world's coastlines. tic pollution are produced Beach, British Prime Minister "Our cities are horizontal
and nations are looking at But that huge number sud- around Earth and about Theresa May in April called smokestacks pumping out
banning plastic straws and denly seems small when a quarter of that ends up on the nations of the British this smog into the seas,"
stirrers in hopes of address- you look at all the plas- around the water. commonwealth to consid- Eriksen says. "One goal for
ing the world's plastic pollu- tic trash bobbing around "For every pound of tuna er banning plastic straws, advocacy organizations is
tion problem. The problem oceans. University of Geor- we're taking out of the coffee stirrers and plastic to make that single-use cul-
is so large, though, that sci- gia environmental engi- ocean, we're putting two swabs with cotton on the ture taboo, the same way
entists say that's not nearly neering professor Jenna pounds of plastic in the end. smoking in public is taboo."
enough. Jambeck calculates that ocean," says ocean scien- McDonald's will test paper Steve Russell, vice president
Australian scientists Denise nearly 9 million tons (8 mil- tist Sherry Lippiatt, Califor- straws in some U.K. loca- of plastics for the American
Hardesty and Chris Wilcox lion metric tons) end up nia regional coordinator for tions next month and keep Chemistry Council, said
estimate, using trash col- in the world's oceans and National Oceanic and At- all straws behind the coun- people can reduce waste
lected on U.S. coastlines coastlines each year, as mospheric Administration's ter, so customers have to by not taking straws, but "in
during cleanups over five of 2010, according to her marine debris program. ask for them. "Together with many cases these plastics
years, that there are near- 2015 study in the journal Seabirds can ingest as our customers we can do provide sanitary conditions
ly 7.5 million plastic straws Science . much as 8 percent of their our bit for the environment for food, beverages and
lying around America's That's just in and near body weight in plastic, and use fewer straws," says personal care."
shorelines. They figure that oceans. Each year more which for humans "is equiv- Paul Pomroy, who runs the The key to solving marine
means 437 million to 8.3 bil- than 35 million tons (31.9 alent to the average wom- fast-food company's U.K. litter, Russell says, is "in in-
an having the weight of business. vesting in systems to cap-
two babies in her stomach," The issue of straws and ma- ture land-based waste and
says Hardesty of Australia's rine animals got more heat- investing in infrastructure to
Commonwealth Scientific ed after a 2015 viral video convert used plastics into
and Industrial Research Or- showing rescuers removing valuable products." Even
ganisation. a straw from a sea turtle's though Jambeck spends
Organizers of Earth Day, nose in graphic and bloody her life measuring and
which is Sunday, have pro- detail. working on the growing
claimed ending plastics But a ban may be a bit of problem of waste pollution,
pollution this year's theme. a straw man in the discus- she's optimistic. "We can do
And following in the foot- sions about plastics pollu- this," Jambeck says. "I have
steps of several U.S. cities tion. Straws make up about faith in humans."q