Join the Movement to Stop Plastic Pollution!
Plastic Kills Wildlife!
Way too many sea turtles, sharks, whales, dolphins, porpoises, seals, seabirds and other marine species die each year from the ingestion or entanglement in plastic debris.
Video: A dead Harbor porpoise entangled in plastic.
Plastic pollution is a significant problem along the Jersey Shore.
Unlike paper, glass or even organic waste like a banana peel, plastic pollution persists in the environment for centuries, harming wildlife through entanglement and ingestion, and contaminating ecosystems, food chains, and even human health.
Here's a more detailed breakdown of the issues:
Environmental Impacts:
Persistence and Accumulation:
Plastics are incredibly durable, meaning they don't biodegrade like organic materials.Instead, they break down into smaller and smaller pieces called microplastics, which persist in the environment for potentially hundreds of years.
Wildlife Harm:
Marine animals are particularly vulnerable to plastic pollution. They can become entangled in plastic debris, mistake it for food, or ingest microplastics, leading to injury, starvation, and even death.
Climate Change:
The production of plastics, which uses fossil fuels (either oil or natural gas to make), contributes to greenhouse gas emissions, exacerbating climate change.
Microplastics:
Tiny plastic particles (microplastics) are now found in a wide range of environments, including oceans, lakes, rivers, soil, and even tap water, raising concerns about their potential impact on human health. Microplastics are suspended all through the ocean, at every depth, and buried in the seafloor too.
Health Impacts: Plastic production involves chemicals like phthalates, bisphenols, and PFAS, which are known to cause developmental, reproductive, neurological, and immune disorders in humans. Microplastics can also accumulate in the body, potentially leading to long-term health problems including Organ Damage (microplastics have been found in various organs, including the lungs, liver, and blood, raising concerns about potential organ damage), Cardiovascular Issues (microplastics have been found in blood vessels and have been linked to an increased risk of heart attack, stroke, and death, and Reproductive Problems (microplastics can disrupt the reproductive system, leading to infertility and other reproductive issues).
Food Chain Contamination:
Microplastics can accumulate in the food chain, potentially leading to human exposure through contaminated seafood and other food sources.
An informative sign at Sunset Beach, Cape May, NJ
A young dolphin found dead on a beach and surrounded by plastic bottles, bags and other trash.
HOW DOES PLASTIC POLLUTION IMPACT COASTAL WILDLIFE
Plastic pollution poses a serious threat to coastal wildlife, causing injury, starvation, and death through ingestion, entanglement, and habitat destruction.
Sea Turtles:
Sea turtles and other wildlife often mistake plastic debris, including plastic bags, for food like jellyfish, leading to ingestion and subsequent health problems or death from starvation as the animal will have a full stomach of plastics which can prevent the animal from consuming real food, leading to starvation and death.
Marine Mammals
Whales, dolphins and seals ingest microplastics when feeding, primarily through consuming contaminated prey like krill and fish, rather than directly from the water. For example, a study published in Nature Communications found that baleen whales ingest microplastics primarily through their prey, with a krill-eating blue whale potentially ingesting up to 10 million pieces of microplastic per day.
Seabirds
Plastic pollution significantly harms seabirds through ingestion, entanglement, and habitat degradation, leading to starvation, injury, and reduced reproductive success, with some studies suggesting that by 2050, 99% of seabird species may ingest plastic.
Fish
Plastic pollution significantly harms fish through ingestion (leading to starvation and internal damage), entanglement (causing injury and death), and the accumulation of microplastics in the food chain, impacting their health and potentially humans who consume them.
A CLOSER LOOK:
Microplastics are killing minke whales by carrying viruses!
Studies have shown that viruses can attach to microplastics, and these plastic particles can act as carriers, potentially prolonging viral infectivity and increasing the risk of transmission in aquatic environments.
There's an ongoing "Unusual Mortality Event" (UME) for minke whales along the Atlantic coast of the United States, meaning a significant die-off of the population that demands further study by NOAA scientists.
While vessel strikes and entanglement in commercial fishing gear are significant threats to the cause of death for minke whales, infectious diseases are also playing a deadly role in their demise. Recent preliminary findings from necropsies (animal autopsies) have shown evidence of infectious diseases in some minke whales.
For example, a minke whale necropsy in Massachusetts in May 2024 revealed evidence of a bacterial disease, brucellosis, which was later confirmed as the cause of death.
A minke whale that washed up in the Hamptons in September 2024 appeared to have died of an infectious disease prior to reaching the shore, and a minke whale stranded on a Jersey Shore beach in December 2024 had diseases and fluid in organs.
WHY ARE PLASTIC STRAWS BAD?
Plastic straws, like other single-use plastics, are not biodegradable and persist in the environment for hundreds of years, accumulating in landfills and waterways.
Marine animals often mistake plastic straws for food, leading to ingestion, suffocation, or death.
As plastic straws break down, they release microplastics into the environment, which can contaminate the food chain and harm ecosystems.
Plastic straws are often not recyclable due to their small size and the difficulty in separating them from other waste, further contributing to the plastic waste problem.
Does Recycling Plastic Work?
NO!
Plastic recycling is not very effective, and it's not close to solving the problem of plastic pollution.
Why it's not effective:
Low recycling rates: On average, only 5% to 6% of plastic waste in the United States is recycled, and only 9% globally. New Jersey's recycling rate for post-consumer plastics is between 6% and 9%. This mean that less than 10 percent of all plastic generated every year is recycled. The world produces over 400 million metric tons of plastic each year, according to Statista. This is roughly the weight of all humans on the planet. AND due to people’s increasing use of plastic and the global rise of human population, by 2050, annual production is expected to rise to approximately 590 million metric tons.
Plastic recycling rates are low due to several factors including the complex composition of different plastic types, making sorting and processing difficult, the relatively low market value of recycled plastic compared to virgin plastic, contamination from food residue, lack of adequate collection infrastructure, and the high cost of recycling compared to producing new plastic products; essentially, it's often cheaper and easier to make new plastic than to recycle existing plastic.
Recycled plastic is generally more expensive than new plastic because the process of collecting, sorting, cleaning, and processing used plastic adds significant costs compared to the relatively cheap production of new plastic from raw materials like petrolium, making it less economically viable for many manufacturers to use recycled plastic on a large scale.
Key reasons why recycled plastic is more expensive:
Complex recycling process:
Sorting different types of plastic, removing contaminants, and cleaning the material before reprocessing requires labor-intensive steps, increasing costs.
Lower quality:
Recycled plastic may have lower quality due to degradation from previous use, limiting its applications and potentially requiring more virgin plastic to be blended in.
Availability and demand fluctuations:
The supply of recycled plastic can be inconsistent, leading to price fluctuations and making it harder for manufacturers to rely on it consistently.
Cheap virgin plastic:
New plastic production from fossil fuels is currently very cheap, making it hard for recycled plastic to compete in the market.
Despite efforts spreading across America to reduce the use of plastic and the crisis of ocean pollution growing, the plastics industry is rapidly scaling up new production and promoting a familiar solution: recycling. But it’s estimated that no more than 10% of plastic produced has ever been recycled. The documentary “Plastic Wars,” from FRONTLINE and NPR, reveals how plastic makers for decades have publicly promoted recycling, despite privately expressing doubts that widespread plastic recycling would ever be economically viable.
MICROPLASTICS
Microplastics are tiny plastic particles that are less than five millimeters long.
They are difficult to clean up and can break down into even smaller pieces called nanoplastics.
Microplastics and nanoplastics can harm wildlife in many ways, including:
Ingestion
Microplastics can be mistaken for food and eaten by a wide range of wildlife, including fish, shellfish, and marine mammals.
Internal damage
Microplastics can block the digestive tract, damage internal organs, and cause sickness and death.
Chemical exposure
Microplastics can release chemicals into the water, and can also act as a source of toxic agents, viruses and diseases.
Developmental issues
Microplastics can delay development, cause reproductive problems, and weaken immune systems.
Food chain transfer
Microplastics can move up the food chain when larger animals eat smaller animals that have ingested microplastics, including to people.
Microplastics are tiny plastic particles that are less than five millimeters long.They are difficult to clean up and can break down into even smaller pieces called nanoplastics.
For example, washing one fleece jacket of 680 grams loses almost a million fibers at a time.
When the micro fibers are released into the water column, currents carry the microplastics and micro-beads into our coastal and marine waters. These tiny plastic particles can be harmful to fish, as they can become trapped in gills or digested to leave a fish feeling full even though there’s no nutrients in the digestive tract, causing a fish to starve to death. Drinking water supplies around the world and fish in our food chain have also been found to contain microplastics.
Microplastics are not just released by the breakdown of plastic.
Microplastics can be released into the environment when washing synthetic clothing in a washing machine, as the mechanical stress of the wash cycle causes tiny fibers to shed from the fabric, which then enter the water supply as microplastics; this is considered one of the major sources of microplastic pollution in the environment.
Key points about microplastic release from washing:
Synthetic fabrics:
Clothes made from synthetic materials like polyester, nylon, and acrylic are the primary culprits for releasing microplastics during washing.
Washing process:
The agitation and friction within the washing machine causes the fibers to break off and become microplastics.
Wastewater treatment limitations:
Many wastewater treatment plants are not designed to effectively filter out microplastics, allowing them to reach waterways and oceans.
WHAT CAN YOU DO ABOUT PLASTIC POLLUTION?
14 Ways to Eliminate the Plastic Pollution Plague!
Plastic is part of our everyday life and for many people it seems inherently difficult to imagine a world without it. But we must find a way to start living in a society with less plastic and less dependency on plastic.
Below are some ideas on how to kick the plastic addiction!
We need to support California’s Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act (SB 54).
California is on track to implement its nation-leading law to cut single-use plastic and packaging waste. For decades, product manufacturers have increasingly used cheap plastic as their material of choice while misleading the public about the reusability of these products as consumption has soared to record highs. The Act requires producers to cut single-use plastic waste and ensure the packaging on products they sell is recyclable or compostable.
Key points about SB 54:
Focus on single-use packaging:
The law targets single-use plastic packaging and foodware, including cups, lids, straws, and containers.
Producer responsibility:
Producers of packaging are required to design packaging to be recyclable or compostable and must fund the collection and recycling programs to meet specific recycling rate targets.
Funding for impacted communities:
A portion of the funds generated by the program will be directed towards supporting communities disproportionately affected by plastic pollution.
Recycling rate goals:
The law aims to achieve a significant increase in recycling rates for single-use packaging, with specific targets set for the future.
All of the above regulations would take much of the burden off of the consumer and back to the company that created our plastic pollution plague problem - the plastic industry & other corporations that generate massive plastic waste.
2. Make manufactures of plastics take responsibility for their product!
The ultimate solution to our global plastic problem is for companies to take responsibility for the plastics they produce.
Let’s face it, it’s not ethical (and it really shouldn’t be legal) for a company to produce a product — especially a disposable, single-use product — and to sell it within a city, community or town that doesn't have the true capacity or ability to deal with the proper disposal of that item so it doesn’t pollute or cause human health issues!! But that’s exactly what is happening in many coastal cities, towns and communities. Soda companies, candy companies, fast-food snack companies, personal care companies, and other industries are making a profit by selling something they know by now is truly harmful to both the natural and social environments.
Makers of plastic packaging should be required to find innovative ways to design packaging that can be more fully recovered for recycling or reuse. Companies of plastic products should at least help cover the costs required to keep plastic out of our environment. Wouldn’t it be nice to see a beach cleanup sponsored by a plastic polluting company instead of a town or nonprofit.
What Can You Do? Tell plastic manufactures to take responsibility for their products, or better yet don’t purchase their polluting products. What you purchase has power! If enough people boycott a product, companies tend to change their ways or face becoming quickly irrelevant in the marketplace.
What can government leaders do today? Impose a non-recycled plastic packaging waste tax to be paid by manufacturing companies. The tax would go into effect if any plastic package was made with less than 100 percent recycled plastic. Processors of plastic packaging will be encouraged to make more rational decisions regarding packaging designs to use more recycled plastic or less packaging; and to help eliminate those that process nonrecyclable goods. This tax will help to mobilize companies to implement the concept of a circular economy and to help increase plastic recycling or create innovative non-plastic designs for packaging.
3. New Jersey Needs a Bottle Bill
One of the best ways to promote recycling is with a "bottle bill.” The term “bottle bill” is actually another way of saying “container deposit law.” A container deposit law requires a minimum refundable deposit on beer, soft drink and other beverage containers in order to ensure a high rate of recycling or reuse.
The benefits of a bottle bill system are many and include:
A high rate of recycling for beverage containers: 58 - 95%
It helps to produce clean recycled materials for manufacturing
It creates jobs and new businesses that can’t be outsourced overseas
It helps to shift end of life costs for used beverage containers to producers responsible for the waste.
4. Make Recycling Easier, Better and More Cost Effective!
Recycling in New Jersey and in the United States has suffered in recent years as China and other countries around the world have refused or limited the foreign waste they accept. But instead of complaining, we should focus on creating new markets and items, such as building materials and furniture, and even plastic recycling bins, to be sold. If you support recycling, then you should purchase most of your items made from recycled products. This will help reduce waste and the financial stress on many New Jersey’s cities and towns, which now spend lots of money to pay tipping fees to put what should be recycled into a landfill.
We also need to make recycling easier and more user friendly. Information should be available everywhere on where a person can find a recycling bin to discard their trash. Make sure recycling, trash and composting bins are placed in the most convenient locations.
Make it easy for a person to understand all acceptable materials and what items to recycle. This should be standard around the State of New Jersey.
5. STOP USING PLASTIC BOTTLES
Despite being one of the few types of plastic items that can be recycled efficiently, we need to discontinue purchasing plastic bottles. Instead, purchase a sustainable, reusable bottle.
Plastic bottle found in a tidal wetland in Port Monmouth, NJ
If you must purchase a plastic bottle, recycle it after use. Plastic bottles are one of the few pieces of plastic materials that are the easiest to recycle, except for the bottle caps.
Ban plastic bottles within your household, school or workplace.
Find a reusable, sustainable, eco-friendly alternative for many household items such as shampoo and beverage containers.
WE KNOW IT ISN’T EASY, BUT PLEASE GIVE IT A TRY!
6. STOP USING PLASTIC BAGS
Many plastic bags are just used once, maybe twice if you line your trash cans with them. Yet, it takes anywhere from 400 to 1,000 years for plastic bags to degrade. And even then the nasty chemicals used to make that plastic bag are not truly gone from the environment.
Our goal should be to use a reusable bag, preferably made out of organic material (avoid those bags made from nylon or polyester because they're also made from plastic) or a reusable container. Make sure to wash them often to keep clean if possible.
Good News New Jersey! On Wednesday, November 4, 2020, Governor Phil Murphy signed S864, which prohibits the use of single-use plastic and paper bags in all stores and food service businesses statewide.
7. STOP USING PLASTIC STRAWS
This one is really easy to do. It’s as simple as asking not to get a straw with your beverage.
But don’t stop there! If possible, please work with your government leaders to ban plastic straws in your town or city, or at least work with the owner(s) of your favorite restaurant/bar to ban plastic straws, if it hasn't been done already.
We use over 500 million straws every day in America, and most of those pesky plastic straws end up in our estuaries and coastal waters, polluting the water and killing coastal life. We want to encourage people to stop using plastic straws for good. If we don’t act now, by the year 2050 there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish.
8. STOP THE RELEASE OF MICRO-PLASTICS
Plastic is everywhere, sometimes even on your face or in your mouth. Trillions of little microplastic particles circulate through the world’s oceans, from the Antarctic to the Arctic, both near to the surface and in the deep sea.
Much of the plastic that’s polluting our coastal waters is known as microplastics, small plastic pieces less than five millimeters long resulting from the breakdown of consumer products, such as plastic bottles and containers, and industrial waste.
Make sure to use less plastic and try to wear and wash organic or natural clothes and items.
9. REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE YOUR TRASH
It’s true! Everything you need to know, you learned as a child, including how to manage your waste. Reduce, reuse and recycle - reduce waste, reuse stuff as much as possible and finally, if you can’t reuse it anymore, recycle.
Absolutely, you can help the coastal environment by simply practicing the three R's of waste management that you learned in school:
For example:
Buy products with less packaging
Do without disposables.
Stop junk mail and paper billing
Save and reuse packing materials
Buy and donate used clothing
Purchase reusable products
Shop for recycled products
Take advantage of your local recycling center
Recycle old electronics
Turn old materials into art. Follow the example of famous eco-artist, and recycling master - Lisa Bagwell
Check out One Green Planet’s 10 Home Items You Can Reuse Over and Over Again and also check out Mother Nature Network’s 50 ways to reuse your garbage.
More information about reduce, reuse and recycling in the United States can be found from the US EPA
10. Instead of a Plastic Costume, Make your Own Homemade Halloween Costume.
Create a bold eco-friendly statement this Halloween or for an upcoming costume party with a homemade costume using recycled, upcycled and environmentally-friendly materials! According to the National Retail Federation, Americans spent over $9 billon on Halloween goods in 2018, with an individual spending an average of $86.79.
Curb your consumerism this year for shiny new plastic costumes and stop contributing to an ever-growing post-holiday waste pile. Make your own costume out of things you have lying around the house or out of things you can find at your local thrift shop.
Need help, there are many awesome websites (seriously, just type in homemade costume in any search engine) to help you repurpose materials that would normally be discarded. Have fun with friends and family to create an amazing costume that best defines who you are.
In addition, here is a comprehensive guide on 7 ways to celebrate Halloween with your dog on, Your Dog Advisor website. It is completely free and you can find it here: https://yourdogadvisor.com/celebrate-halloween-with-dog/
11. STOP CHEWING PLASTIC GUM!
Stop chewing plastic! Gum was originally made from tree sap called chicle, a natural rubber. But soon after World War II, corporations realized that synthetic rubber (polyethylene and polyvinyl acetate) was cheaper and easier to get, and began to replace the natural rubber (chicle) in most gums.
Nowadays, people are chewing on a mix of plastic and synthetic rubber, and other nasty ingredients, such as aspartame and BHT (Butylated hydroxytoluene), both known carcinogens. You may also be chewing on toxic plastic — polyvinyl acetate is manufactured using vinyl acetate, a chemical shown to cause tumors in lab rats.
Modern day synthetic chewing gum is actually one of the most health threatening “foods” available to the public and awful for the environment in manufacturing and disposal. Instead, chew on organic or natural gum that comes in paper boxes, and skip the plastic gum and its plastic packaging.
12. EAT REAL or WHOLE FOODS
When is the last time you had a real meal (not fast food) with family or friends? If you are like most people in our current society, it was a long, long time ago. Sadly, many people don’t sit down to eat meals of real or whole foods (like vegetables, fruits, whole grains, nuts, and legumes) with family and friends. Instead snacking alone on highly processed food appears to be replacing meals for a significant part of the population. The fact that many people are opting to grab something on the go instead of sitting down to enjoy a meal of real food with family or friends is detrimental to both a person’s health, society, and to the environment.
In America the most popular snack choice is chips – either potato or tortilla. Many chips contain dangerous trans-fats, and are loaded with refined sodium, and sometimes even sugar. For health reasons, we should eat whole, organic, and nutritious foods—fruit, veggies, whole grains, nuts, legumes, eggs, meat and fish (if you eat them)—and avoid processed junk foods.
From an environmental standpoint, all of these processed snack bags, plastic packaging, and plastic bottles are polluting our natural world. One of the best things you can do to prevent pollution is to eat a slow, sit-down meal at either a restaurant that cooks healthy local and/or organic foods, or better yet, learn to cook and become familiar with ingredients and where you food really comes from.
13. STOP USING PLASTIC SNACK BAGS!
Not only are chips inside a snack bag often bad for your health, but the shiny lining in snack bags is often aluminum or a special mixed plastic. Since recycling factories cannot separate the plastic outer layer from the aluminum inner layer, these mixed-material bags generally cannot be recycled.
Fortunately, the solution to the problem is easy. Either stop snacking or use your own reusable snack bag or container.
14. Don’t Overfill a Trash Can!
Thar-She-Blows! Waste management can be very challenging during windy weather. Make sure to always dispose of your trash in a container that is not full or even better yet in one that has a lid or a cover. Make sure that all your trash fits in a garbage can and that the lid is closed tight. If a garbage can is overfilled or if the lid is up, the wind may blow litter down the street and into the water.
It would be really nice if all coastal communities had trash cans with lids or covers so litter would not overflow, fly around or blow out of cans on breezy days. If you live in a coastal community, please make sure all your public trash cans have lids or covers.
