The Plastic Poisoning of Henderson Island And The Wake Up Call That Will Not Come

     A recent report regarding Henderson Island, a remote, small, uninhabited island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, states that the tiny island is littered with over 38 million pieces of plastic, and that every day thousands of new pieces of plastic wash ashore. The researchers concluded that there are almost 18 tons of plastic garbage on the small island, a number that will only increase.

      The enormous threat from the plastic contamination of the oceans continues to be underestimated. Every day thousands of tons of plastics, styrofoam and other oil based contaminants enter into the oceans, mostly coming from land based sources. The overuse of these materials, many of which are used only one time even though they are virtually indestructible, and the inability of many nations to properly remove and dispose of plastics, means the plastic poisoning of the oceans will not stop. 

       Henderson Island might raise some eyebrows, but it will not be a wakeup call. The wakeup call might not come until cancer rates soar from humans eating plastic contaminated fish and other marine life. Or maybe the wake up call will come when seabirds, fish, turtles, dolphins, whales and other marine life populations crash. (Already many of these populations are dying off from plastics.)  But by then it will be too late.

      There needs to be the following: 1. A worldwide, daily, ongoing massive effort to clean up plastic trash from coastlines and other areas. (Not one day occasional high publicity cleanups.) 2. A worldwide, massive effort to ensure proper collection, removal and disposal of plastics, styrofoam and other oil based contaminants. 3. A change in the materials used for packaging and in the way items are packaged. 4. Single use styrofoam products must be immediately banned. 

        The thousands of tons of plastics, styrofoam and other oil based contaminants entering into the oceans daily have to go somewhere. Henderson Island is a small reminder that hazardous trash does not just disappear.