Algalita Founder Captain Charles Moore, the man known for sparking “The Great Plastics Awakening” 20 years ago, strengthens the case for revolutionary change in a recent article published in the official journal of the Chinese Society of Oceanography: Acts Oceanologica Sinica. Titled “Invasion of the biosphere by synthetic polymers: What our current knowledge may mean for our future,” Moore’s article illuminates how plastic waste has become more than we humans, or the ecosystems that support us, can process. Peering through a speculative lens focused by the latest peer reviewed literature, Moore shows that there is no hope of cleaning vagrant plastics that quickly age and break into micro and nano-sized bits from the environment. The only hope is that mankind can learn to respect and fear plastic enough for each and every one of us to treat it with great care. But also, and this is critical, that we use what we’ve learned about plastic pollution to create political pressure that forces the rapidly expanding plastics industry to redesign products and create take-back infrastructure that makes plastic products benign. Plastic pollution has passed the point where we can return to a planet undamaged by synthetic polymers, and the alarming consequences are unfolding on a massive scale worldwide.
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