False Advertising: The Misleading Ocean Plastic Movement and Real Ocean Cleanup Solutions

The rise of social media has greatly amplified various environmental activism causes over the years.  Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and various other social networks are now a 24/7 medium for discussing environmental causes, with numerous benefits and drawbacks.  On the positive side, social media helped spark some of the largest climate activism events, with millions of concerned citizens making their voices heard for profoundly important issues.  However, some online environmental movements are fraudulent causes littered with greenwashing, misleading information, and a lot of money that fails to actually help the environment.  The most common environmental scam movement has taken the noble cause of cleaning up plastic from the ocean and monetized it for a few individuals, while the ocean itself continues to be choked with plastic debris.

Addressing ocean pollution is a very positive cause and a rare issue that individuals across the world can agree on: cleaner oceans are better for everyone.  In the age of social media, companies and activists have rapidly jumped on this issue, creating programs that may have good intentions, but end up doing more harm than good.  Companies such as United By Blue and 4Ocean, have created clothing and accessories from ocean plastic with pledges that for every product purchased, one pound of plastic is pulled out of the ocean. Additionally, Mark Rober and Mr. Beast, two YouTube Creators with large global fanbases and wealthy financial backers, teamed up to create the #TeamSeas campaign to raise 30 million USD to remove 30 million pounds of trash.  At a quick glance, these examples masquerade as innovative solutions and noble charity work to clean up the oceans, but in fact these trendy, social media-savvy “solutions” to ocean pollution have amounted to almost nothing.  This article will break down what is wrong with both of these programs, and how to effectively address plastic pollution in the ocean.

Flaws in Common Ocean Cleanup Programs

The “Cash for Plastic Removal” Model is Incredibly Cost Ineffective

As previously mentioned, companies and influencer campaigns such as 4Ocean, United by Blue, and #TeamSeas have created business models where for every product purchased or dollar donated, one pound of plastic is removed from the ocean.  These cause marketing initiatives are inherently flawed and provide minimal environmental benefits.  The problem starts on the monetary side as “one product purchased”, such as a $5 bracelet or $20 t-shirt, or “$1 dollar donated” is an enormous price to pay for removing a single pound of plastic.  These business models and marketing slogans are a prominent example of greenwashing, as they are catchy and easy to understand for the average person but exaggerate the true environmental effectiveness of these programs. 

Looking at the numbers, every year over 33 billion pounds of plastic enter the ocean, which is roughly 90 million pounds of plastic per day.  The #TeamSeas initiative removed 30 million pounds of plastic at the high price of 30 million dollars, meaning this very expensive, time-consuming program cleaned up only 8 hours’ worth of global ocean plastic, and the work of #TeamSeas was basically negated by the end of the day. 

Overall, any business model where products purchased, or money donated goes to cleaning up a pound of ocean plastic has almost no significant environmental benefit and only benefits the bottom line of the company running these programs.  If money is going to be directed towards cleaning up ocean plastics, there are many other potential sustainability solutions with a substantially higher opportunity cost for making a positive environmental impact on the ocean.

Turning Plastic into Clothes and Other Materials Creates More Waste

Creating clothes and other products out of ocean plastic masquerades as an innovative solution but in reality, it is a short-term fix that fails to address the root problem.  Yes, turning ocean garbage into trendy fashion items does remove plastic from the ocean, but what happens when people are done using those clothes or other items?  In all likelihood, those clothes and items will once again find themselves in the trash and potentially in the ocean again.  To compound this problem, making clothes from ocean plastics is widely regarded as a more expensive alternative than traditional plastics due to infrastructure challenges, with one estimate placing the cost of ocean plastics as 50% higher than traditional plastics.  Overall, turning ocean garbage into clothes is a costly way to create products that will most likely end up in the ocean again, leaving the ocean plastic problem unresolved.

These Efforts Fail to Adequately Address Arguably the Biggest Problem: Microplastics

Microplastics are, as their name suggests, incredibly small, but they have devastating consequences for the ocean.  While these tiny pieces of plastic are no larger than 5 millimeters in size (less than 1/5 of an inch), various scientific studies have estimated the number of microplastics in the ocean to be in the TRILLIONS.  One study went as far to approximate that 51 trillion microplastics are floating across the world’s ocean.  These miniscule particles are easily inhaled by fish, turtles, bivalves, whales, and almost every organism in the seven seas.  Studies have shown that over time, as sea creatures continue to unknowingly ingest microplastics, these animals suffer physical damage such as inflammation and damaged organs from plastics jabbing their internal organs.  These microplastics can also leach harmful chemicals into animals’ bloodstreams, which have a litany of negative health impacts.  This is particularly dangerous as these chemicals can accumulate in animals and can travel all the way up the food chain to affect humans.

Since microplastics are so small, they are extremely hard to remove from the ocean via traditional cleanup methods.  Additionally, with many cleanup efforts singularly focused on removing pounds of plastic from the ocean, these incredibly light weight microplastics are consistently overlooked, as they continue to wreak havoc on ecosystems.

Effective ocean cleanup strategies

While picking up plastic for money is an ineffective solution for addressing oceanic pollution, there are several other solutions that can actually make a sustainable difference.  Below are some oft-cited solutions for curbing ocean plastic solution.

·      National or International Plastic Policy Action: As addressed earlier, ocean cleanup projects fail to stop plastic from entering the ocean, as the debris is only removed after the fact.  National or international scale policies by countries to limit plastic, or monetarily penalize those who fail to abide these rules, can substantially limit the amount of plastic that enters the ocean.

·      Improve Stormwater Management: Implementing stormwater and storm drain filtration along with river mouth trash collection can reduce the amount large amount of plastic that enters the ocean from rivers as a result of stormwater floods.   Filtration systems are specifically valuable in limiting the amount of dangerous microplastics that enter the ocean.  Concentrating plastic removal efforts at the river mouth, where plastic tends to bottleneck makes it easier to before the plastic can disperse across the ocean.

·      Continue to Develop Innovative Technology: A complex problem such as ocean plastic accumulation requires pioneering solutions beyond simply picking up garbage.  There are many technological breakthroughs that scientists are looking to scale up that can turn the tides on the ocean plastic problem.  Recent technological inventions such as magnetic coils that can target microplastics, enzymes that can eat plastic, and machines that convert plastic into fuel and other materials, all have immense potential.  While not quiet immediate solutions, it is important for humans to continue working to develop scientific breakthroughs that can drastically alter the fortunes of this conundrum.

Conclusion

Ocean plastic pollution is a critical problem facing the globe, and it is critical that the world’s monetary and natural resources are allocated towards highly effective solutions. While it is easy to get caught up in the flashy slogans and greenwashing of many ocean plastic cleanup programs, there are real technological and policy based solutions currently in practice that may not be as social media trendy, but in fact help tackle this global problem. So next time a “pay for pound of plastic removal” or “buy this product to remove ocean plastic” post appears on social media, keep scrolling and search for other ways to support real, meaningful solutions cleaning up the oceans.

Bibliography

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Spangler, Todd. “YouTubers MrBeast, Mark Rober Reteam for ‘teamseas’ Charity Fundraiser to Clean up Trash from Marine Environments.” Variety, 29 Oct. 2021, variety.com/2021/digital/news/mrbeast-mark-rober-teamseas-1235100310/.

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