Eva May: Laysan Albatrosses and Detrimental Plastic Consumption

April 13, 2015 eaa8@duke.edu

It is known and acknowledged that plastic garbage, both on land and in the sea, creates a pollution problem for ocean inhabitants, who face the invasion of plastic upon their habitats. Plastic bottles, for example, take almost 500 years to dissolve in the ocean, so they have long-lasting effects on the marine environment. As shown by recent population and diet studies, this issue has a particularly harmful effect on Laysan Albatrosses. Albatrosses are fairly large seabirds that, despite their fairly wide range in the Northern Pacific, are classified as ‘vulnerable’ to endangerment. These birds scour the ocean for their food, and they often accidentally consume plastic or other debris floating in the ocean. Even worse, scientists have recently found an increase in Laysan albatross chick mortality due to parents feeding their offspring plastic debris collected from the ocean surface. Because chicks are young and still developing, they cannot rid their bodies of the plastic like adults sometimes can, allowing it to build up in their stomachs until it becomes lethal. Protecting these birds should and can be accomplished by strengthening laws that affect the amount of plastic that ends up in their habitat.

The breeding grounds of Laysan Albatrosses are a great distance away from direct human contact. Despite this, they still consume a significant amount of human debris, exhibiting the extent to which human society can impact the environment. The foraging habits of Laysan Albatrosses and other animals allows them to be harmed by human actions from far away. Plastic harms chicks, eventually killing many of them, in multiple ways. Its sharp edges can sometimes cut their stomachs, and it can also build up in their stomachs, creating a constant full sensation and thus leading to starvation. Additionally, it can cause blockages within their digestive systems. Though the debris itself does not directly cause death in the birds, the effects of consuming it often do. A 2009 study of two Laysan albatross colonies with different feeding ranges during breeding season found that both colonies contained albatrosses that consumed plastic, suggesting that their core foraging areas contained a considerable amount of plastic debris. This conclusion has detrimental consequences for albatross chicks, which receive the majority of their food from their parents during early life.

Reports as early as 1969 have cited plastic ingestion by Laysan albatrosses, but it is only in recent decades that this has come to the attention of scientists as a significant health problem for these birds. Because these birds do not know they are ingesting harmful plastics and therefore cannot adjust their foraging habits to avoid this, regulating our plastic waste could help save these birds from endangerment. Though this issue is not as prominently salient as others, it is gaining recognition and support, as the harmful effects of it can be seen firsthand via photographs and reports. Additionally, a documentary concerning the death of Laysan albatrosses via plastic consumption was released in 2013, putting more of a spotlight on the issue than before.

Aiding the removal of plastic debris from albatross feeding territories is not an impossible task. The simplest solution is an overall reduction in plastic consumption in U.S. states sharing a coast with the Northern Pacific. However, this is a difficult thing to regulate, and likely would not be incredibly efficient in a political setting, as it is more of a personal, at-home task. It has also been suggested that voluntary recycling of plastic items, such as plastic bags, is not effective enough of a strategy, as voluntary bag recycling rates currently stand at around 5% nationwide. Instead, coastal states could follow the lead of California, with its Rigid Plastic Packaging Container Program. In place for over 10 years now, this program was designed specifically to reduce plastic waste by increasing plastic recycling and use of recycled plastic. Producers of plastic have incentive to follow the regulatory guidelines laid out by the program, as they face penalties if they don’t. Additionally, California enacted legislation in 2014 that outlawed the use of single-use plastic bags at large retailers, which is set to take effect in a couple of months. The majority of Hawaiian counties also have enacted bans on using non-biodegradable plastic bags and paper bags not containing a significant amount of recycled material.

Clearly, it is possible to put rules and regulations in place in order to decrease the amount of plastic that ends up in and near the oceans, but what regulations currently exist are either too recent to assess or have not made enough of an impact. To further decrease the risk of plastic finding its way to Laysan Albatross habitats, fines could be enacted for beach littering, as many of the plastic bags, cups, etc that are thrown onto the beach end up washing into the ocean where they can harm marine and coastal animals. In order to ensure that these fines are carried out to the best of the government’s ability, enacting them on the local level would be wise. This would create small areas for governments to regulate, instead of, for example, expecting state governments to have the resources to regulate statewide littering of beaches.

Additionally, current U.S. laws make it illegal to dump plastic waste into oceans that floats from 3 nautical miles offshore and outward. However, the inherent problem with this regulation is that it isn’t always properly enforced, as dumping activities are usually secretive and done at night, making enforcement difficult. Furthermore, the punishments for dumping plastic are often not more than a simple fine. While fines can be effective when placed on individuals, they are arguably less so when placed on large companies that can easily afford to pay them multiple times. In order to ensure that harmful plastic waste is not dumped in the oceans at all, regulations concerning this practice should be strengthened, so that they are more properly enforced and so that the punishment gives companies and individuals true incentive not to dump floating debris into the ocean.

Nate comment:

I thought your article did a great job of “putting a face” behind the issue of plastic waste disposal. Everyone knows that plastic bags are harmful to the environment, but by detailing the horrible health effects plastic bags can have on a specific species, in this case the Laysan Albatross, makes it much harder to ignore the issue. If the Laysan Albatross is considered a vulnerable to endangered species, legislators should seek to use the broad powers of the Endangered Species Act to influence regulation surrounding plastic waste disposal. I wonder, however, where the best (least harmful) place to dispose of plastic material is. Landfills with plastic waste have long been critiqued for the myriad of environmental issues they raise. To make matters worse, recycling plastics is an expensive and extremely energy intensive operation. As you alluded to in your post, reducing our reliance on plastics is really the only answer to such a complex issue. The reality is that plastic will always play an important role modern society, but there are many areas in which our consumption of plastic is just gluttonous and lazy. For example, promoting the use of long lasting shopping bags (I’ve seen these in supermarkets like Whole Foods) would stop consumers from using such a large quantity of plastic every time they purchase food.

Henry comment:

Eva, I agree with Nate’s comment that you do a great job of “putting a face” on this issue. Oftentimes it is easy to think of endangered species as something that’s unimportant and far away, and therefore there is nothing we can do to help the situation. In this case most peoples’ everyday actions can have a direct effect on the future of these bird populations. I also think you raise an important point about how difficult it is to regulate pollution of plastic into waterways that eventually make it to albatross habitats. Therefore, rather than focusing on the regulation of point sources of pollution we should focus on ways to decrease consumption upstream, so to speak. I think if the government were to provide subsidies for recycling trash bags at grocery stores or something of that nature, consumers could be encouraged to participate in mitigation. Also increasing the cost that people can get from recycling cans and plastics at recycling centers could also help. Lastly, I think having all-in-one recycling as opposed to sortable recycling in cities would help because one of the biggest roadblocks to recycling is strictly human laziness. These would all be fairly cheap policies that could simultaneously be quite effective.

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[1] Voluntary Plastic Bag Reductions Don’t Work (accessed March 25, 2015); available from http://www.surfrider.org/coastal-blog/entry/voluntary-plastic-bag-reductions-dont-work

[1] California’s Rigid Plastic Packaging Container (RPPC) Program (accessed March 26, 2015); available from http://www.calrecycle.ca.gov/plastics/rppc/

[1] State Plastic and Paper Bag Legislation (accessed March 25, 2015); available from http://www.calrecycle.ca.gov/plastics/rppc/

[1] Dumping Wastes into the Ocean (accessed March 14, 2015); available from https://people.uwec.edu/piercech/Waste/ocean.htm

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