[Music] PLASTIC OCEAN Plastic is wonderful because it's durable and plastic is terrible because it is durable. Almost every piece of plastic ever made is still on the planet in some form or another. Plastic production globally this year is expected to be more than 300 million tons. Half of which we'll use just once and then throw away. By 2050, when the population explodes to almost 10 billion people, it's expected that plastic production will triple. The problem with that is is that today only a fraction of the plastic that we produce is recycled. The rest ends up in our environment and it's coating our lands and our oceans like a disease. [Music] Garbage thrown away in the United States can make its way to Antarctica. Plastic in our coastal waters is pulled into the center of massive wind-driven turning circular GYRES. There are many other ocean currents also diverting the trash all around the surface of the ocean. In reality, it's just one ocean with no boundaries. [Music] Lord Howe Island is a world heritage site, and home to migratory seabirds like the Shearwater. Seabirds are incredibly helpful because they act like an army of scientists. They travel thousands of miles across the ocean. They pick up plastic off the surface of the ocean. They bring it back to their rookeries where they feed it to their chicks and that provides an incredible amount of scientific data in terms of where the plastic comes from, its distribution and how it breaks up on the ocean surface. Dr. Jennifer Lavers, she devoted her life to studying the plight of seabirds. Shearwaters are incredible birds, they migrate thousands of miles stopping only here to breed. [Music] Dr. Jennifer Lavers: Yeah, the stomach it's very, very full and if we look here there's some very dark pieces some very light white pieces, and if you see, you know, as I push on this, it's absolutely rigid, completely completely full of plastic all the way up, Assistant: Oh, look at that! Dr. Jennifer Lavis: Absolutely no doubt, that this bird died as a result of that plastic, that is literally a gut full of plastic It's quite alarming, isn't it? Assistant: It's awful. Dr. Jennifer Lavis: A range of plastic types and colors got everything from the blues and the reds. Assistant: The stomach's just filled with it big pieces, too Dr. Jennifer Lavis: Big sharp pieces Assistant: Oh wow, look at the size of that big black peice. Dr. Jennifer Lavis: That is an enormous piece of plastic Assistant: Unbelievable! Look at the size of that [Music] Assistant: Jen, I counted 234 pieces of plastics out of that one bird. Is that a record? Dr. Jennifer Lavis: Not even close, unfortunately, so for the species, the record is 276 pieces of plastic inside of one 90-day old chick, That plastic's weighed out, accounted for 15% of that bird's body mass, So that's a pretty scary statistic. If we translate that into human terms, it gets even worse that would be equivalent to you and I, having somewhere around six or eight kilos of plastic inside of your stomach. It's equivalent to about twelve pizzas, worth of food inside of your stomach. Dr. Jennifer Lavis: It's quite a bit of plastic for just one little bird. The parents were trying to do the right thing, there's a lot of squid beaks in here and there's a purple color, evidence of the squid ink. It's just a shame that every now and then they they got it wrong and got it wrong in a bad way. Really, it's quite an overwhelming thing. I do have some pretty rough days, have to go home, and really wrap my mind around where do we go from here. Peter Thomson: As a Pacific Islander, I know that the ocean is in deep trouble. The very authoritative prediction shows that by the year 2050, there will be as much plastic as there is fish in the ocean by weight. [Music] Peter Thomson: Every country uses plastic. We need to start rationalizing that we need to think about reusing of plastic, single-use plastic. It's got to be on its way out, and you know, plastic shopping bags are a good example of that your family does, not need to use them. Take a...a cloth bag with you when you go shopping and put your shopping in there. [Music] Peter Thomson: There's an equivalent of a large garbage truck every minute of every day backing up to the ocean and just dumping plastic into it. We really have to look at ourselves and say: "Do we deserve this beautiful ocean that was given to us?" [Music]
