Choking the Oceans With Plastic by Charles J. Moore Article Analysis

The topic of Climate Change and reducing the number of plastics that are being used in the world is a quite controversial topic amongst people.  This includes Politics, scientists, and activists.  When it comes to the subject of plastic, many have a say in what to do and how to prevent it from hurting our environment.  In the Discussion of Charles J. Moore’s article Choking the Oceans With Plastic a controversial issue has been the amount of plastic that is entering our oceans.  On the one hand, many people argue that we need to worry more about the production of carbon dioxide.  On the other hand, Moore contends that we should worry more about the silent issue of plastic.  My view is that we should address the matter of plastic.  Plastic is slowly ruining our world as we know. 

First, The use of plastics all over the world is beginning to get excessive.  At the core of this argument is the amount of plastic that is entering our oceans every day.  According to Charles J. Moore, oceanography and Boat captain who first discovered the pacific garbage patch conducted his research and agrees when he writes “Plastics are now one of the most common pollutants of the ocean waters worldwide.  Pushed by winds, tides, and currents, plastic particles form with other debris into large swirling glutinous accumulation zones, known to oceanographers as gyres, which comprise as much as 40 percent of the planet’s ocean surface- roughly 25 percent of the entire earth”( Moore 328).  In making this comment, Moore urges us to realize that all of these plastics are coming together and covering up our oceans in an abstain amount.  Concurring with Moore would be an easy yes because with our ocean water being covered up our global temperatures would rise significantly. 

Continuing, since the plastic is there for so long and has nowhere to go.  Moore Complicates the matter further when he writes, “we know that plastics biodegrade exceptionally slowly, breaking into tiny fragments in a centuries-long process.  We know that plastic debris entangles and slowly kills millions of sea creatures; that hundreds of species mistake plastics for their natural food, ingesting toxicants that cause liver and stomach abnormalities in fish and birds, often choking them to death”(Moore 328).  Moore's point is that when plastics are put into our oceans there’s no place for them to go and because they take so long to break down fish eat them and because plastic is toxic they die.  Conceding with what Moore said, these animals cannot keep dying.  Humans eat fish that have microplastics in them and having no idea of this we intern digest microplastics happening daily.  Moore continues and says, “We suspect that more animals are killed by vagrant plastic waste than by even climate change”(Moore 329). Moore is establishing that the plastic problem is more important than the climate change problem we are facing today.  I however disagree with what Moore is saying in this statement because yes fish lives are important, but human lives on land are much more important and affected by climate change even more. 

As a result of this, Plastics that are entering our oceans can be stopped through engineering.  Most of the plastic comes from cities and towns that live near coastlines and such.  Moore elaborates on this by saying, “... Especially in California, the focus has been on so-called structural control, such as covering gutters and catch basins with screens.  This has reduced the amount of flowing debris down rivers to the sea.  Activists around the world are lobbying for bans on the most polluting plastics- bottles, bags…”(Moore 331).  Moore’s essence of this argument is that if we can come up with more ideas to stop plastic from racing to our oceans, we can then start to reduce the number of plastics that we use in our daily lives.  The main source of our plastic problem relies on us.  We tend to not care about it because we think that it always ends up getting recycled somehow and don’t realize that it just goes into the ocean.  Moore continues to state “But, in the end, the real challenge is to combat an economic model that thrives on wasteful products and packaging, and leaves the associated problem of clean-up costs.  Changing the way we produce and consume plastics is a challenge far greater than reining in our production of carbon dioxide”(330).  Moore brings up a great point by saying that we still haven’t been able to make a plan that uses plastics and reduces the amount of money so that the money can be used to clean up the plastic.  If we can come up with this type of model we can reduce the amount of plastic in our oceans and save money which can be put onto another problem that we are facing in the plastic industry. 

On the topic of clean up, with all the Plastic out in the ocean, there aren’t too many crews that try and get rid of the plastic from the five garbage patches that are scattered all across our world.  Don’t get me wrong what the clean-up crews do and activists are amazing and extremely helpful to our world, it just doesn’t seem to be enough.  Moore puts it perfectly when he says, “Clean up schemes are legion, but have never been put into practice in the Garbage patches”(329).  Moore's point is that more Clean up schemes need to be put into action at the garbage patches because he has seen how big they are and has evidence that they are deteriorating our oceans.  These schemes have worked on coastal areas and shore areas but have not been focusing on the real problem of the Garbage patches.  Without the proper clean-up solution, the problem out in the ocean will continue to get worse and worse. 

The aquaculture industry, You may be asking yourself, what is the aquaculture industry? This is the farming of aquatic animals such as fish and other species for food.  This relates to the topic of plastic and trash because the industry uses nylon, polyester, polyethylene nets, and sanctuaries to hold the fish and organisms.  Moore reminds us that “The problem is compounded by the aquaculture industry which uses enormous amounts of plastic in its floats, nets, lines, and tubes” (Moore 330).  In other words, Moore is saying that the aquaculture industry is at fault for a great deal of plastic that is in our oceans.  Going off of what Moore said, this relates to the idea of plastic because if we can reduce the number of aquaculture nets or come up with a better solution to replace the nets we could reduce the amount of plastic significantly. 

Moreover, there are also more options to reduce plastic entering our oceans that can be solved on land.  So many cities and states are noticing that plastic is now becoming a real issue in the world and trying to cut down its use.  According to Ben Adler, a republican politics and media writer explains in his article Banning Plastic Bags Is Great for the World, Right Not so fast that the use of plastic also has its effects in cities as well as our water.  Adler states “The adverse impacts of plastic or plastic bags are undeniable: When they’re not piling up landfills, they're blocking storm drains, littering streets, getting stuck in trees, and contaminating oceans, where fish, seabirds, and other marine animals eat them or get tangled up in them”(Adler 321). The essence of Alders’s argument is that plastics such as bags are deteriorating our cities as well as our oceans.  Adler’s and Moore’s arguments are essentially the same. Plastic, in general, is terrible for the environment, which leads people to think of alternatives.  Paper for example has been recently studied that it could be better for the environment. However, this is not the case.  “Still, many environmentalists argue that plastic is worse than paper”( Adler 323).  Adler is insisting that even though there are alternatives to plastic, they still do not compare to the effects plastic has.  Yes, using paper bags may reduce the amount of plastic entering our oceans, but the paper takes a lot more work to make which results in more trees being cut down and more fossil fuels being produced.  Overall, there still hasn’t been a true conclusion on what is better for our environment and oceans. 

Nonetheless, I think that Moore and Adler are mistaken when they overlook the fact that recycling does exist, and it does work.  If we turn our attention to recycling as well as cleaning up our problems, we can reduce the use of plastic significantly over time and the amount that litters our earth.  This means that we will be using less plastic and getting rid of more plastic in our oceans.  If we can come up with new technology that allows us to take the plastic in our oceans and use that to create our plastic goods, we could have a solution.  Moore and Ben are just specifically looking at stopping plastic from contaminating our environment, which I disagree with. 

Finally, As we begin to conclude as to why this all matters, it’s because our lives are dependent on it.  As you look around, there’s so much trash and plastic in this world.  With that being said, most of it goes into our oceans to never return to land again.  Plastic rids our planet and if we do not do something about it soon our human race will be endangered.  The plastic outbreak must be stopped.