Dienstag, 19. Februar 2013

The great Pacific Garbage Pad and Equal Money Capitalism


Problem:

In our Oceans several so called Garbage Patches have formed. The most pronounced are the North Atlantic Garbage Patch, the Indian Ocean Garbage Patch and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. What is a garbage Patch and why is it a problem?



Basically Garbage Patches are large Vortexes in which floating plastic waste is sucked and cycles trapped by the ocean currents. Obviously neither the Oceans nor the Currents are to blame for the accumulation of waste in these areas. It is estimated that around 20 % of the plastic stems from sea-based human emitters such as ships or oil-rigs, while 80% is emitted from land-based human systems/emitters.

 
To find out more about the genesis of these patches we have to look back more than 150 years where the first plastics were discovered and since became a primary resource/material for our Economic System. For Self-education on this I suggest watching the Documentary “Addicted to Plastic”, a great film which covers also most of what is discussed here. One can lit(t)er-Ally say that plastics has become our “drug of abuse/addiction”, the Way it was/is used to promote and facilitate the fast paced consumerism lifestyle with lots of cheap and disposable feel-good products. Plastics are resistant and durable, dependent on the specific compound and circumstances they last several hundred years in the environment. This means that, besides a small amount that has been incinerated, all the plastic produced from the beginning is still in circulation on the planet – and it gets more and more on a daily basis. We are just now becoming aware of the potential timebomb we have been and are accumulating within the unaware use of plastics – in the name of Money.


Suggested to watch:

Addicted to Plastic
This Film should see all of the world!!


At this Point we can already spot a the major “Problems” that can as well be realized as starting points for preventive and corrective measures, namely:


- The sheer mass of plastic products and packaging and its  unquestioned and unaware usage.
  • A dysfunctional Relationship to the “waste” plastic, meaning the waste management systems did and (almost everywhere) do not function effectively, treating plastic as a valuable resource that is manmade from the earth, while realizing that due to its nature and properties: plastic is not part of the natural environment.
  • Just because its so widespread and seemingly “inert” plastic is seen as harmless, effecting no consequences
In fact plastic is not harmless as we can see when having a look at the consequences it creates for animals and ecosystems. Bigger parts and particles of plastic pose a threat to animals like Sea-Birds, Turtles and seals that can get caught in old nets, plastic strips or similar pieces. As one can see in the Picture below they will also eat the plastic. A study carried out by US and Canadian Scientists found that dead Sea-Birds now have 9 times more plastic in their bellies then 40 years ago. On the impacts of plastic a quote from the Article on “wildlifeextra.com”:

"The science on this issue is still being refined - there is much we don't know about the impacts of plastic ingestion on birds in general and Northern Fulmars in particular. We do know that the plastic in the stomach displaces the space for food that the birds need and that plastic can lacerate the stomach lining. Some of the birds we looked at had their gizzards completely full with plastic. We also know that plastic in the sea absorbs an astounding level of contaminants in a very short time and that these contaminants may leach out in a bird that swallows it," said Avery-Gomm.


What we also know with certainty is that plastic does not belong on the natural food table and in the stomach of animals. Most of the plastic in the patches is in form of small/very small pieces - with time they break down to even smaller particles - that float in the water layer beyond the surface. When plankton tries to consume this particles they usually choke on them and die off. So called “Nurdles” make up a big percentage of the marine debris. Nurdles are small pellets of plastic that can be easily transported and handled in large quantities and from which the actual plastic and plastic-products are made. According to Wikipedia a Orange County Study in 2001 found that 98% of the collected beach debris consisted of Nurdles. This poses the questions: How did they get there? Where/How did they spill – What did happen? Who didn´t handle with care? etc.

What all of this small plastic debris has in common is that they accumulate (hydrophobic/oily) contaminants, for example PCB. The accumulation-factor in this case is 1 million. That means that there is 1 million times more PCB per weight in the plastic Nurdles than in the surrounding water. Through the consumption of fish and smaller organisms the plastic enters the food-chain. What happens once the Contaminants are present in the Food-chain is that they accumulate.

Bioaccumulation is the process of accumulation on one “tropic level” of the ecosystem, meaning for example the accumulation of PCB in one animal species. This depends for example on the rate the fish consume Nurdles instead of actual food, what again depends on how the Nurdles/food-ratio is in the feeding-ground. The more plastic is in the water = the more contaminants enter the food-chain. The concentration of contaminants also plays a role and one can say the the higher the concentration in the plastic, the more will accumulate in the organisms consuming it. 

 

Biomagnification describes the Process of accumulation along the food-chain, meaning that generally the bigger the animals the more contaminants per bodyweight they accumulate in their bodies.

Now, even if one do not care and is ignorant about the consequences that this has for animals themselves one can see that that our plastic-waste and contaminants are a boomerang, coming right back to us, because at the top of the food-chain: sits the Human.





After so much Problems, lets look at the solutions:

Solutions:
Frist it is for us to realize that basically we have really fucked up in terms of what we have done and still are doing to the Ecosystems and the Planet as a whole. We have created consequences that will stay for a while, even if we stop immediatly, and that will/may have further consequences that we are just now really starting to get aware of, like this plastic-timebomb – Thus it is to in fact stop our addiction to plastic as a main ingredient for our consumerist frenzy. Now - how do we do this? Clear is that we can not allow ourselves to stay on our old ways of how we have done and treathed „things“ – So - we need a systematic and complete change. A new system that is based on Life as the only real value. Equal Money Captitalism is the proposal of such a system. Following are two excerpts of the Economist Journey to Life that i will expand on. Here you can Educate yourself on how such a system functions.

Informed Decision-Making

"Within Capitalism, the assumption is made that the consumer always has full knowledge available about the products they can buy - and thus, that they are always able to make informed decisions about the purchases they make - and that this mechanism, therefore - makes it so that only the best quality products are bought and stimulated to be produced, while inferior products will phase out. Obviously - this is currently not the case. The only point that is shared (and not even that comprehensively) is the ingredients. Labelling within Equal Money Capitalism will include not only ingredients, but also how the price was established - who contributed to the production process, what share of the profit goes to these participants - what are the externalities involved in terms of the harm that was caused towards the environment in the form of pollution and what resources were involved to produce the product, etc".
Economist Journey to Life – Equal Money Capitalism – The WayForward


In a System based on life a inferior product is a product that harms or poses a threat to life – and it is interesting because this already so, just because we do not consider the animals, nature, the environment as ourselves as equal life, because we see them in separation of ourselves we can justify that harm and abuse being done, in the name of money, what means that that our system currently is not based on life but on Greed. Labeling is a cool tool to expose the real cost of “things” and at whose cost these “things” are created. We have to re-evaluate all products and processes involved in the production of goods in terms of their
consequences for Life on earth. The current knowledge is flawed and can not be trusted so easily, as – in most of the cases – the very founders of Research/Studies are the very profiteers of that research/studies. For the first time we will be able to establish real science that takes all life into consideration and so enables informed decision-making:
 

“So studies like ecology, physics, sociology, education, psychology will form the basis of economics and not the other way around - where today, economics determines science in terms of what is being researched as that which is the most profitable”
Day 184: The Relationship between Ecology and Economics in Equal Money Capitalism

So in concrete terms this means that we look through all the products/applications we use plastic for at them sort out what we can do differently. Do we need to have candy and detergents tabs double packed in plastic? Or is this design based on psychology trickery to sell better – Competition will be eliminated and with it will go a lot of the diversity in plastics and and multi-material-packaging that cause problems when the product/package becomes “waste” and enters the recycling. There are bioplastics and some bigger companies already have proven that they can create sustainable and applicable products from it. With a sound foundation for economics like proposed here, a lot of things will change – because it becomes possible to change them.

And finally a good dose of common sense will help us see our “Blind Spot” namely that plastic is made from Oil and Oil is running out. That means that the way plastic is used currently is not sustainable whatsoever and will stop, one way or another. Thus for the applications where we still will be using the plastics of today, a recycling-system where we threat plastic as a valuable resource would be a good idea.


Rewards:
Our primary Reward will be that the Oceans are clean and that we do not further accept or allow to contaminate and poison our environment and so in the End ourselves – This will have a positive effect on various levels of our existence, beginning with the own physical bodies, we will be more healthy and can really enjoy a dish of seafood without fearing that it is a rather toxic cocktail. It will affect our overall mood and Self as humans when we will see clean beaches and rivers where we can spend our free time and we will know that we have changed a corrupt/abusive System to one that is best for all life – Nature it self will flourish as we can not even conceive at the moment, because for the first time we would tend to and support your environment, and so not only ourselves but also the generations to come will be rewarded with a harmonious place to life.
 
Art: Matti Freeman

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