ART 12B Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Bioplastic, Lanternfish, Smog
Art 12B 5.29.2018: Lecture Sixteen
Antibiotics in the Ocean:
Preventing Plastic Pollution (Guest Speaker Katie Ellen from Algalita)
⚫ Algalita: non-profit organization of eight people who are the foremost plastic pollution experts.
Their founder Charles Moore started the Great Plastics Awakening.
➢ Sail throughout the Pacific investigating plastic pollution.
➢ Work with students in middle/high schools and colleges in thirteen different countries. They do
field research and give leadership opportunities with them.
⚫ 90% of plastic comes from land. The pollution on Seal Beach are from the San Gabriel River where
Seal Beach is at the mouth of.
⚫ Plastic: made of fossil fuels, different chemicals and dyes (for marketing) are used to make the
material as we know it today.
➢ Crude oil→Ethylene (monomer)→synthetic polymer like polyethylene.
➢ Plastis do’t reak do. The sytheti polyer just eoes saller pieces.
➢ The products are formed from small plastic pellets shipped to the manufactuers that then melt
them down to form their containers. They often end up in the environment.
➢ In 2011, millions of pellets fell off a boat near Hong Kong, like a solid oil spill. The companies
are not held accountable like oil companies though, because plastics are not considered
hazardous materials yet.
➢ We a fid 4 pellets i litters of our eah’s sad.
⚫ Plastics in consumer products
➢ Plasti is’t oly i otaiers. It is in micro beads, microfibers in clothing, and so many more
items.
➢ 8 million metric tons of plastic waste goes into the ocean every year as of a 2011 study. This
study looked at 195 countries the top countries being Southeast Asian countries because the
orporatios are aare a lot of these ouities do’t hae ays to deal ith these
materials through a waste management infrastructure.
➢ The United States was in 20th Place.
➢ Some plastic grades float and others do not which is why the plastic isn’t oly o the oea
surface.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Preventing plastic pollution (guest speaker katie ellen from algalita) Algalita: non-profit organization of eight people who are the foremost plastic pollution experts. Their founder charles moore started the great plastics awakening. Sail throughout the pacific investigating plastic pollution. Work with students in middle/high schools and colleges in thirteen different countries. They do field research and give leadership opportunities with them. The pollution on seal beach are from the san gabriel river where. Plastic: made of fossil fuels, different chemicals and dyes (for marketing) are used to make the material as we know it today. The products are formed from small plastic pellets shipped to the manufactuers that then melt them down to form their containers. In 2011, millions of pellets fell off a boat near hong kong, like a solid oil spill. The companies are not held accountable like oil companies though, because plastics are not considered hazardous materials yet.
