Annotated Table of Contents for Thicker Than Water

Annotated Table of Contents Thicker Than Water The Quest for Solutions to the Plastic Crisis

By Erica Cirino

Part I: The Missing Plastic

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Plastic pollution has overwhelmingly been described by corporations, journalists, policymakers, organizations, and the public as a “marine debris” or “beach litter” problem. In this way, plastic pollution is an issue that could easily be misperceived as one that solely afflicts beaches, oceans, and marine animals. (This, despite the fact that plastic is a material created by humans and used primarily on land.) Uncovering truths amid such misconceptions requires, quite literally, a dive below the surface of common understanding. And so, mirroring the collective experience of many people who encounter the issue of plastic pollution, Thicker Than Water begins by bringing readers to the middle of the world’s most notoriously plastic-polluted place, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Chapter 1: Welcome to the Gyre

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• Dispelling the myths of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch • Sailors and scientists’ journey into the Great Pacific Garbage Patch to collect data on plastic pollution • The sailboat’s crew observes that “patch” is less of a patch and more of a soup of varioussized plastic items and particles, and this reality is even more urgent and serious.

• Lost and discarded “ghost” fishing gear and plastic pollution is deadly to marine wildlife.

• Pollution inflicts both physical and psychological trauma on animals.

• Plastics are made of fossil fuels.

• Linking modern fossil fuel exploitation to an extended history of human exploitation of whales for fuel and elephants for material items • Plastics’ development is part of a move from human use of more natural to more synthetic materials over time.

• Early plastics: Parkesine, Celluloid, Bakelite

• World War II, advertising age, and intensive development of plastics and fossil fuel industries • Mass-production, mass-consumption, and plastic pollution • Plastic is permanent.

• Plastic does not break down, or benignly degrade, due to its molecular structure and chemical additives.

• Plastic breaks up into an endless, and endlessly shrinking, number of particles that remain plastic.

• Shedding of plastic particles is accelerated in the extreme conditions of the oceans, resulting in the release of an uncountable number of plastic particles.

Chapter 2: Below the Surface

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• Plastic easily enters the environment, and travels between land and waters, and up food webs.

• Living beings, including fish, ingest plastic.

• Ubiquity of plastic pollution coincides with the rise of materialism, mass consumerism.

• Plastic cannot be “thrown away” — it is only sent somewhere else on Earth to drive pollution and cannot be solved with recycling.

• Research on plastic pollution is evolving rapidly, and the extent of plastic pollution’s reach and impacts are growing.

• Researchers from all backgrounds, particularly Indigenous peoples and communities, have played a significant role in collecting evidence of plastic pollution.

• For decades, research on plastic pollution in the oceans has focused on the surface.

• Increasingly, those studying plastic pollution are searching for the smallest-sized plastic particles, “nanoplastics,” which have been the least studied and are potentially the most ubiquitous—and harmful.

• Use of manta trawls, vertical trawls, and a Niskin bottle help researchers collect plastic particles from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Chapter 3: The Ocean’s Canaries

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• Researchers collect plastic particles (microplastics and nanoplastics) from the waters of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch • Goal is to collect and determine which plastic items the particles have shed from.

• Plastic particles contain additive chemicals (plasticizers) and can absorb chemicals from the surrounding environment, many of which are already known to be toxic.

• Plastic particles can leach chemicals into the environment and living bodies.

• There are few if any animals that do not have plastic particles in their bodies, especially in the oceans.

• Finding microplastics in the stomach of a flying fish in the stomach of a mahi-mahi, to be caught and eaten by the research crew on the sailboat.

• Industrial fishing is a major driver of plastic pollution.

• While fish are becoming increasingly polluted, people who rely on fish for a significant especially in the Global South are increasingly exposed to toxic plastic particles.

• Many marine animals are attracted to eating plastic particles, other animals consume plastics involuntarily—even though it makes them sick and can be lethal.

• Losing sea life to plastic pollution is profoundly changing the oceans, and the entire planet with catastrophic effects.

Marine animals are the sentinels of the plastic pollution crisis — humans should pay • attention.

Chapter 4: From Ship to Shore

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• For the first time, researchers look below the surface for plastic particles in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch • Plastic particles do not just collect on the surface of the oceans, but disperses itself throughout the water column to the seafloor.

Finding plastic below the surface of the ocean threatens the lives of marine animals that • make a nightly migration to the sea surface and who play a key role in cycling nutrients throughout the marine food web.

• There is likely much more plastic in the ocean than estimated, all breaking up into tiny plastic particles.

• There is plastic at the deepest point in the ocean, six-and-a-half miles down, in Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench

Part II: Little Poison Pills

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Back on land, readers get an up-close look at plastic pollution research in laboratories and the field in the U.S. and Europe. Samples of plastic particles from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch are analyzed, and researchers find significant amounts of plastic pollution and plastic particles in freshwater systems—and in soils, air, space, plants, animals, plankton, and our living bodies.

Chapter 5: Pick Up the Pieces

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• Plastic particles collected in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch are analyzed in a laboratory.

• Researchers use visual analysis and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy to paint a fuller picture of the origins of plastic pollution collected in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch • Plastic poses both physical and chemical dangers to living beings.

• Evidence of plastic’s chemical dangers is growing.

• Common plastic additives are already known to be toxic; many chemicals are known to interfere with living beings’ endocrine (hormone) systems and can raise cancer risk.

• The vector effect of plastic delivering a whole cocktail of chemicals into living bodies is a serious concern for health researchers.

Chapter 6: Troubled Waters

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• Intentionally added microplastics called “microbeads” are intentionally added to some “rinsible” consumer items like health and beauty products and cause pollution.

• Most modern water treatment facilities were not designed to capture microplastics.

• Sewage sludge used to fertilize agriculture fields is often highly polluted with microbeads and other microplastics.

• Natural alternatives to microbeads exist.

Microfibers, plastic fibers that shed off synthetic plastic clothing—the vast majority of • clothing produced today—to pollute freshwaters in significant quantities.

• Microfibers detach from synthetic clothing in huge quantities and are rapidly discharged into wastewater effluent, often directly into the environment.

• The fast fashion industry is a major driver of plastic pollution and environmental pollution generally.

• Researchers working collaboratively find that waters and sediments of freshwater bodies are highly polluted by plastics, threatening whole ecosystems and human health.

• Chemical tracing with Time-of-Flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectroscopy (ToF-SIMS) and XRay Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) reveal that plastic particles found in lakes absorb toxic chemicals from surrounding industries that can harm living beings.

• PFAS is a class of chemicals of major concern due to their ability to interfere with our bodies’ healthy functioning that is pervasive in the environment and drinking waters.

Plastic pollution is harming the interconnected ecologies of the Great Lakes and other • freshwater systems.

• Small freshwater plankton, daphnia, which are a key part of many freshwater food webs, are harmed by plastic pollution.

Plastic pollution allows some invasive species to colonize water bodies more intensively.

• • Freshwater sources above and below ground are threatened by plastic pollution and other human-caused pressures.

Chapter 7: The Plastic Within Us

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• Scientists find that humans are breathing in plastic particles, in addition to eating and drinking them, and absorbing them into their skin.

• Using a breathing human mannequin, researchers find that indoor air is replete with microplastics, especially polyester which sheds from furniture, carpeting, and clothing.

• Outdoor air is also contaminated by plastic particles, and wind and storms carry plastic particles far and wide.

People who work in the plastics and textile industries often suffer respiratory problems that • could be linked to microplastics in the air of their work environments.

• Synthetic vehicle tires shed plastic particles as well as metal fragments and toxic chemicals.

• 6PPD-quinone, a key chemical in synthetic vehicle tires, are linked to a major, long-term dieoff of coho salmon in the U.S. Pacific Northwest

• Plastic particles are prevalent in human diets and threaten the human food supply.

• Microplastic particles have been found in fish and shellfish, packaged meats, processed foods, beer, sea salt, soft drinks, tap water, bottled water, and fruits and vegetables sold in supermarkets and food stalls.

• “Plasticulture,” the widespread use of plastics in conventional agriculture, is harming soil ecosystems and is exposing plants to plastic particles, which they absorb.

• Nanoplastics may alter plants’ genes, increasing their susceptibility to disease.

• Plastic particles have been found in human stool samples, clear evidence of human ingestion of plastics.

• Harmful viruses and bacteria colonize plastic particles and objects.

• Plastics cannot be easily sanitized due to their porous surfaces.

• Cholera, salmonella, and E. coli stick to plastics and threaten human health in Zanzibar.

• Many of the chemicals manufactured into plastic and absorbed by plastic are known to harm the health of living beings.

• Historically, little research on the health effects of plastics on humans has come to light, though this is now changing rapidly.

• Chemicals commonly found in and on plastic particles, such as BPA, have been detected in human lungs.

• Microplastic particles have been found in the placentas of people who gave birth using a “plastic-free protocol.”

• Evidence suggests circulation of plastics through human bloodstreams.

• Exposure to plastic pollution now starts before birth.

• Plastics’ complex chemical compositions have made research challenging due to a lack of all-encompassing research standards.

• Researchers develop standards establishing a continuum of characteristics for plastic particles that are like those used to study harmful soot (black carbon)

Part III: People and the Plastic Industry

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Having traced plastic pollution from sea to shore, readers confront the source of the problem: fossil fuel extraction and plastic production. Readers travel to the highly industrialized region of “Cancer Alley” in Louisiana to learn about how corporations’ profit from and further instill systemic racism and classism by disproportionately targeting Black, Indigenous, People of Color and poor, rural communities for their polluting industrial activities and infrastructure.

Readers meet activists working to address environmental and climate injustice in their communities, and working for wider systems change to end racism and injustice.

Chapter 8: Welcome

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• Welcome, Louisiana, is one of many predominantly African American communities that have been disproportionately targeted for industrial development and pollution: this is environmental racism.

• Governmental, political, and corporate systems and cultures enable and favor the unjust placement of industry in Black and other underserved so-called “fence line” communities including Indigenous peoples, people of color, poor people, rural communities, and the unhoused.

• Residents of communities affected by environmental injustice face health issues, reduced quality of life, increased risk of death, and risk of accidents and explosions.

• Formosa Plastics has targeted Welcome for the site of a major plastics complex.

• RISE St. James and other fence line activist groups are fighting for their lives.

• Plastics pollute before they are shipped or sold, starting with the extraction of fossil fuels and plastic production.

• Plastic’s production, shipping, use, and disposal drive the climate crisis which also disproportionately harms the most underserved communities.

• Intensive development of the fossil fuel industry in Louisiana in the 20s and 30s displaced many free Black communities that emerged following the end of slavery.

• Many industrial developments in Louisiana are built on former plantation lands, some enclosing or building over cemeteries holding Black Louisiana residents’ ancestors.

• Louisiana’s fossil-fuel friendly governing style continues to this day.

• Shell’s buy-out of Diamond, Louisiana, following lethal industrial accidents and pollution from its Norco refinery is an example of how industries are making communities uninhabitable.

• The historically Black community of Diamond had to advocate for its own health and safety.

• Diamond residents collected air samples used as evidence in court.

• Formosa is a “serial offender,” polluting every region in which it operates.

• Port Comfort, Texas, has experienced significant pollution from a Formosa Plastics-owned factory.

• Residents collected plastic pellets from waterways near the factory’s outfall pipes and used as evidence in a court case that would eventually result in a $50 million Clean Water Act settlement.

• In Yunlin County, Taiwan, residents living near a Formosa petrochemical and plastics plant experience elevated rates of cancer.

Chapter 9: Plastic and Our Warming World 125 • Plastic’s production, shipping, use, and disposal all significantly fuel the climate crisis.

• Ending plastic pollution means ending exploitation of fossil fuels and plastic production.

• Communities worst harmed by environmental racism must be rapidly and equitably served.

• Plastics emit greenhouse gases just by merely existing.

• Fossil fuel corporations have turned to plastics as a lifeline, as restrictions on burning fossil fuels rise.

• It is possible to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as we saw during the 2020 coronavirus lockdown when industries slowed and transportation ground to a halt.

• The effects of the climate crisis will greatly accelerate without urgent action.

• The Earth’s biogeochemical nature has been profoundly changed by plastics and synthetic fossil fuel derived chemicals.

• Naturally, Earth and its inhabitants are designed to waste as little as possible; for humans, plastics have changed our nature.

• Humanity has a rich history of plastic-free reuse, as recently as the early 1960s reuse systems such as milk or soda refill and delivery were widely used.

• Plastic was designed to be wasted: “The future of plastics is in the trash can.”

• Plastic recycling is ineffective as a solution and only perpetuates plastic’s toxic existence.

• Despite this, the plastic industry has long held onto the recycling narrative to provide a “solution” for their pollution, deflecting responsibility and putting the onus on consumers.

• The harmful and toxic effects of plastics were observed and recorded as early as the 1960s and 70s.

• It’s taken decades for accurate scientific information to reach the public due to the fossil fuel and plastic industries’ marketing tactics, PSAs, advertising, and other efforts to silence those speaking the truths about plastics.

• The fossil fuel and plastic industries’ business tactics have been compared to those used by Big Tobacco, which knew its products were harmful and still deceptively sold them.

• The media has sometimes also played a role in obfuscating the truths about plastics by regurgitating industry marketing rather than reporting facts.

Part IV: Solutions

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How do we solve the plastic crisis? What we know now is that there is not one solution to this urgent problem, there are many. While cleanups are not going to end plastic pollution, they are a way to help make local environments safer for people and other living beings. Cleanups can also help communities gather data on local pollution. When it comes to replacing plastics, many single-use solutions only perpetuate pollution and injustice and may create other problems.

Real solutions are ground in the principles of true circularity, such as refill and reuse, and require we value the materials and life around us—and think of nothing and no-one as disposable.

Chapter 10: Cleaning It Up

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• Local cleanup groups can improve local environments, but their biggest value lies in engaging and educating the public in systemic solutions to plastic pollution.

• It’s impossible to clean up all plastics and particles that have already been made.

• Once plastic is collected during cleanups, there is no good place to dispose of it.

• Plastic pollution can concentrate in hotspots when pushed by natural phenomena like water currents, like Kamilo Beach, Hawai’i, which lies in path of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch • Many artists have created works from plastic pollution to inform people about the issue.

• Cultural beliefs around trash make for complicated relationships between people and the plastic pollution around them.

• Cleanups are also useful for gathering data about the origins and journeys of plastic pollution.

• Researchers have tracked plastic pollution in Hawai’i coming from the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

• Policy can be influenced by trash audits, which can help communities call on corporations to take responsibility for their pollution.

• Trash-catching devices installed in oceans, rivers, and other waterways have limited efficacy at addressing plastic pollution.

• Demonstrate how cleaning up plastic pollution is an endless task unless industries turn off the tap of fossil fuels and plastics.

Plastic pollution on beaches raises the temperature of the sand and introduces toxic • chemicals into the environment.

• Increased sand temperatures are feminizing and reducing some sea turtle populations that could potentially lead to their extinction.

Indigenous peoples, including Indigenous Hawai’ian peoples, have an intrinsic cultural • connection to the Earth.

• Loss of nature and land to colonization, pollution, and development is a loss of cultural identity for Indigenous people.

• Indigenous people have pointed out that reconnecting, rebalancing, reharmonizing our human relationship to nature is essential for our survival.

• Waste exports from the U.S. and other nations in the Global North drive much plastic pollution in the Global South under the guise of “recycling.”

• Many of the nation’s importing plastic trash have no or little infrastructure to take it in, driving pollution and injustice.

Chapter 11: Closing the Loop

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• Single-use biodegradable bioplastics are not a solution to plastic pollution.

• There are major environmental and social justice impacts to producing these materials.

• Many biodegradable replacements for plastic are not as green as they seem and may contain toxic chemicals.

• The most unadulterated, natural materials like algae, fungi, and plants are better to use than plastics.

• Clothing, packaging, and other items typically made with plastics can be made instead with nontoxic, regenerative, natural materials.

• Plastic-free reusable, refillable containers, items, and systems are the best replacements for plastics.

• You only need one.

• Many businesses are now engaging in the reuse/refill space.

• Real solutions require less consumerism, not more.

• Circular systems and a rethinking of what and whom we value may profoundly shift our relationships to the Earth and each other.

• Consider the “doughnut” economic model that considers both the needs of the planet and people, prioritizing those who are the most underserved.

• Viewing materials as valuable can slow endless consumerism.

• This has given rise to the “Zero Waste” movement.

• Beware of elite environmentalism • There is a global history of successfully regulating toxic substances, like DDT. • However, major disagreements among fossil fuel- and plastic-producing nations are holding up real action to address the root causes of plastic pollution: fossil fuel exploitation and plastic production.

• Plastic policy to date has been enacted in rather piecemeal fashion around the world.

• Bans on certain plastic items can help reduce plastic pollution locally, but their limited efficacy underscores the need for a global, binding policy to end plastic pollution.

• Fossil fuel and plastic industry influence has profound effects on policy, delaying real action.

Chapter 12: Circular Thinking

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• Incineration, recycling, advanced or chemical recycling, and landfilling drive pollution and the climate crisis and are not solutions.

• Some plastics are more recyclable than others, but no plastic recycling is circular.

• Recycling may play a role during the transition to eliminating plastics from our lives.

• Challenges such as toxic additives, contaminants, and costs make plastic recycling extremely difficult and currently ineffective.

• Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) and deposit-return schemes can put the onus back on plastic producers to handle their products at the end of products’ usefulness.

• EU Plastics Directive has kickstarted more circular efforts to address plastic pollution across the European Union • The Break Free from Plastic Pollution Act would be the most comprehensive national plastic legislation, if passed, in the US • Industry trade groups work to preempt or block plastic legislation.

• This, even while companies that are members publicly say they are committed to addressing plastic pollution.

• As a society, do we value profits, or people?

Conclusion: Giants Do Fall

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• We have become plastic people.

• Humans have even polluted outer space with our plastic.

• Plastic has instilled a single-use, rabid consumptive culture, but people are increasingly recognizing a need for change.

• We must consider our values.

Plastic harms everyone, but some people are harmed worse than others.

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• The United Nations (UN) has declared the Formosa Plastics project planned for Welcome, Louisiana, a case of environmental racism.

• People on the frontlines of fossil fuel exploitation, plastic pollution, and climate change are fighting for their lives.