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Fort Myers Beach, Florida
This picture was taken after a Category 4 Hurricane in Fort Myers, Florida. It's important to note that while there is debri on the ground, there is no man made litter. The sand is made of only sand, dirt, and seaweed. The beach was once a place filled with only the litter of the sea. However, as time progresses, we will see how society dirties the beaches with technological advancements, specifically the use of plastic bags.
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The Invention of the Plastic Bag
In 1960, Sten Gustaf Thulin invented the world’s first one piece polyethylene bag to be used for shopping. This one invention would spark the domino effect of many changes to the world but most importantly, our attention to ocean health. The use of plastic bags in 1960 was at its minimum because people were mostly satisfied with their use of paper bags and didn’t see much of a need to make the switch.
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Daytona Beach, Florida
14 billion pounds of plastic waste had been thrown into the oceans. Increasing the amount of pollution in the water significantly compared to years before.In this picture, we can’t even see how much plastic pollution has accumulated in the waters. However, taking account of the data it's clear that after a short period of time of the plastic bag being invented, there's an exponential increase in litter in the oceans.
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Big Grocery Stores make the Switch to Plastic
By 1975, plastic bags had become a great topic of discussion in America especially between business and storefront owners. In 1976, Mobil Chemical began making their own plastic bags, which were at first turned down by many store owners. By 1980, Safeway and Kroger, switched to plastic bags because it was a cheaper option for the store to purchase and an easier option to store in mass bulk. This was the beginning of an era in which almost every store in America would switch to plastic. -
Florida's manmade Ocean Pollution Reaches a Historic high
In 1990, Florida recorded 704,780 items of manmade pollution were collected over the span of beaches, estuaries, mangrove islands, and more. 50% of this pollution included plastics according to the Report on 1990 Florida Beach Cleanup of 1990. This ridiculously high number was not only in Florida. Because of this data, many people began to once again fight back against the plastic bag. Text link -
Plastic Bags are Common Among the Ocean
Prior to 1990, it was very rare to find manmade pollution entangled onto underwater equipment for data or any underwater equipment for that matter. By 1990, however, 2% of all CPRs experienced entanglement with plastic bags specifically. CPRs are a metal torpedo that hangs off the back of a ship and 10-30 feet underwater. This is a significant increase in pollution let alone specifically plastic bags on CPRs. Link text
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