The Plastic Problem - A PBS NewsHour Documentary

[00:00:01] Speaker 1: The oceans are swimming in it. Rivers are choked with it. Coastlines are collecting it. Landfills are clogged with it. Our trash bags are filled with it. And it's even floating in the air we breathe. [00:00:15] Speaker 2: Imagine spreading out 9 billion metric tons evenly. We could cover an area the size of Argentina or California six times over. [00:00:24] Speaker 1: It's plastic, the material we can't seem to live without that also lasts longer than a lifetime. Plastic can take hundreds of years to break down, and even then, only into microparticles. It's hurting animals. It's in our food chain. Plastic is everywhere. For more than a year, my PBS NewsHour colleagues and I traveled far and wide, reporting on what experts call one of the largest environmental threats to our planet. In this special report, we go farther. [00:01:05] Speaker 3: Plastic pollution is becoming a worldwide crisis. And dig deeper. [00:01:09] Speaker 1: So how is that really helping the problem? To figure out if and how we can fix our plastic problem. But I think we can keep on living and moving forward the way that we have. I spent time with the Popa family in Toronto, Canada, who are in the middle of a plastic purge. Mom, Vicki, made a New Year's resolution to consume less and reuse more. She's now working to get the entire family on board. [00:01:32] Speaker 4: Plastic gets into the ocean, and then fish is eaten, and then they get sick. [00:01:37] Speaker 5: We're sort of telling our family and friends as well that we want to live this lifestyle. We're trying to reduce our impact on the planet. We're trying not to accept packaging and plastic and bring it into our household. And they do actually listen. And so I noticed a change. [00:01:55] Speaker 1: But thousands of miles away from the Popa family, on one of the most remote islands in the world, the plastic problem is only getting worse. This is Easter Island, or Rapa Nui as locals call it. Sitting in the middle of the South Pacific, its closest neighbor is more than a thousand miles away. All along the rocky coastline, chunks of plastic are easy to spot. Not so easy to spot? The microplastic hiding in the sand, as my NewsHour colleague Jeffrey Brown found. [00:02:25] Speaker 3: This is microplastic. This is a rug. This is a plastic. [00:02:28] Speaker 1: For cleanup crews here, it's a never-ending battle. Maybe if clean all day, it's not possible. [00:02:36] Speaker 6: Leaning all day is not enough. It's not enough. Because the center for the plastic is not here. It's there. It's terrific. [00:02:45] Speaker 1: The trash is mostly coming from what's called the South Pacific Garbage Patch, an enormous swirling vortex of marine debris, swept up in ocean currents, and collected into a trash mass one-and-a-half times the size of Texas. That patch was discovered in 2017, 20 years after scientists discovered the Great Pacific Patch, two swirling masses of debris, three times the size of France. On the shores of Easter Island, Ana Maria Gutierrez does what she can to organize beach cleans. [00:03:17] Speaker 7: Ana Maria Gutierrez: It's depressing, because you find all kinds of plastics, from buoys to shoes, even car parts, everything. It's like a dump, but in the ocean. It just arrives. But the worst is that because the waves hit the coast, the bigger plastics get smaller and smaller, and it's very difficult to remove them, because you have to move very big rocks along the coast, and the trash just gets inserted in them, and it's becoming part of nature. [00:03:44] Speaker 8: Ana Maria Gutierrez: The world is trashing the ocean, and that trash, we're receiving it in our coast, in Rapa Nui. It's like someone putting a gun in your head and telling you, you must receive that. [00:04:05] Speaker 1: Ana Maria Gutierrez: Pedro Edmonds Paua is the longtime mayor of Hangaroa, Easter Island's one town. He says, over the years, the plastic problem has only gotten worse. [00:04:16] Speaker 8: Pedro Edmonds Paua is coming from everywhere. It's too much. Every year is more and more. [00:04:23] Speaker 1: Ana Maria Gutierrez: And those tides of plastic aren't just a blight on the landscape. They're hurting wildlife around the world. According to one study, if current production trends continue, by the year 2050, there will be more plastic than fish in our oceans. Ana Maria Gutierrez: In Costa Rica, my colleague John Yang learned how plastic affects an already endangered species. [00:04:45] Speaker 9: John Yang: This is the stuff you have just picked up on the beach here. [00:04:47] Speaker 10: Ana Maria Gutierrez: I literally just found this here. This is a really clean beach. Ana Maria Gutierrez: Plastic gets into the marine environment. It breaks down into tiny little pieces called microplastics. And anything that eats in the ocean will inadvertently eat plastic. And that's killing turtles. Up in Florida, they have got a hospital now where, when a turtle comes in, they no longer say, does the turtle have a plastic in its belly? They now say how much plastic is in the turtle. [00:05:09] Speaker 11: Ana Maria Gutierrez: Oh, my God. [00:05:11] Speaker 1: Ana Maria Gutierrez: In 2015, a marine biologist's video went viral, documenting the painful process as she removed a plastic straw stuck in a sea turtle's nose. [00:05:21] Speaker 10: Ana Maria Gutierrez: Oh, man. Ana Maria Gutierrez: What happens is the turtle comes up to breathe and inhales the straw, and then they get lodged in their faces. And this is becoming more and more common. It's not a one-off anymore. [00:05:33] Speaker 1: Ana Maria Gutierrez: In the Philippines, a whale washed ashore in 2019 with nearly 90 pounds of plastic in its stomach. Ana Maria Gutierrez: Seals are getting caught in fishing nets made out of plastic. Ana Maria Gutierrez: They're called ghost nets, abandoned by the fishing industry, and an estimated 640,000 tons of them are floating in the ocean. That's 10 percent of all known ocean plastic. Ana Maria Gutierrez: And it's not just turtles and seals that are at risk. Ana Maria Gutierrez: Scientists say nearly every seabird now eats plastic trash, mistaking it for fish. Ana Maria Gutierrez: Even here, the Mariana Trench, in the deepest part of the ocean, plastic has found its way more than six-and-a-half miles down. Ana Maria Gutierrez: Oceans get a lot of attention, but experts say the problem is much bigger than that, including here, the largest freshwater system in the world. Ana Maria Gutierrez: On the shores of Lake Ontario, one of the five great lakes, we combed the water's edge for plastic with ecologist Chelsea Rockman. [00:06:29] Speaker 12: Chelsea Rockman: Here's some plastic, here's some plastic, here's some plastic. And then you don't have to look very hard to find it. [00:06:37] Speaker 1: Ana Maria Gutierrez: On some beaches, we found big chunks of plastic. Along another part of the shore, microplastics. [00:06:43] Speaker 13: Chelsea Rockman: The thing that sticks out to me the most here are all of these kind of perfectly spherical little pellets. Yeah, what are those? [00:06:50] Speaker 12: I noticed those, too. They're different colors, right? Chelsea Rockman: Yeah, they're different colors. [00:06:53] Speaker 13: These are pre-production pellets. There's a lot of plastic production facilities just north of here and in Toronto in general. And so what we see here is basically spillage. These things are lightweight. They make a ton of them. When they're moving them around on the shipping dock or in the facility or transporting them, they blow away easily. They can end up spilling on the dock. They go down the drain and they end up here. Okay. So this is all rinsed out now. [00:07:21] Speaker 1: Chelsea Rockman uses a sieve to collect samples of the microplastics, then takes them to her lab to study their makeup. [00:07:27] Speaker 13: Chelsea Rockman: What happens is, over time, the sun degrades the bigger things into smaller and smaller pieces. So this is like one stage in the breaking down. And then, if we look in here, you can see some bits of fragments that aren't perfect pellets, you know, that are further down in the process. And they just break down smaller and smaller and smaller until you have a greater quantity of smaller pieces of plastic. Chelsea Rockman: But the point is, they never go away. Chelsea Rockman: Yeah. Chelsea Rockman: Like, you know, never is a strong word. But the rate at which they break down is incredibly slow. So every piece of plastic that's ever been produced, unless there's something we don't understand yet, is likely still here today in some form. [00:08:03] Speaker 1: Chelsea Rockman: Rockman began her career studying the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. But a move to teach at the University of Toronto put the Great Lakes in her backyard. [00:08:12] Speaker 13: Chelsea Rockman: So when you think about the ocean, it's this dilute body of water. The oceans are vast. The lakes, while this is vast, are quite small in comparison. Cities surrounding it are bringing trash into the lake, and it's concentrating in there and not diluting into a different location, at least not at any pace, you know, we can understand. Chelsea Rockman: So does that mean that the plastic in a lake is more damaging to the environment? Chelsea Rockman: We sample fish from the ocean. We might find plastic in one in four fish, one in ten fish. Here, my students sample fish from this lake. They find it in every single fish that they sample. Chelsea Rockman: Every single fish? Every single fish that we sample from Lake Ontario has at least one piece of microplastic in its stomach. Which, to me, shocks me, right? And I've been researching this for more than ten years. [00:08:53] Speaker 1: Chelsea Rockman: And that means fish aren't the only ones eating plastic. If humans are eating fish, are we ingesting plastic too? Chelsea Rockman: Part of Rockman's research is trying to answer that by looking inside the fish. Chelsea Rockman: We know there's plastic in the water. Chelsea Rockman: Yes. Chelsea Rockman: We know that the fish eat the plastic. Chelsea Rockman: Yes. Chelsea Rockman: We have no idea if when we eat the fish, we're also eating plastic. Chelsea Rockman: And how much do we know about what effect it has on us when we eat it? [00:09:18] Speaker 13: Chelsea Rockman: So on humans, we know very little. Chelsea Rockman: There are some researchers starting to get into this field. Chelsea Rockman: That's something we're trying to understand in our lab is how does plastic move through a food web? Chelsea Rockman: Is it just staying in the gut content of animals and I'm only exposed when I eat the gut? Chelsea Rockman: Like an oyster or mussel? Chelsea Rockman: Or is it transferring out of the gut into other parts of the body and actually moving up the food chain the way like a chemical contaminant does? Chelsea Rockman: So we're still trying to kind of understand that part. [00:09:42] Speaker 12: Chelsea Rockman: So can I ask you, knowing what you know now, do you still eat fish? Chelsea Rockman: I do eat fish. [00:09:50] Speaker 13: Chelsea Rockman: I do because we still don't know a ton of information about the health effects. Chelsea Rockman: The other reason I still eat fish is because, yes, they eat plastic, but like I know it's in my drinking water and I know it's in the air, like in the dust. Chelsea Rockman: So if I eat a piece of fish, it's not that different. [00:10:09] Speaker 1: Chelsea Rockman: So plastic is in the fish. Chelsea Rockman: It's at the bottom of the ocean. Chelsea Rockman: It's even on your plate. Chelsea Rockman: Where isn't it? Chelsea Rockman: Look, more than 9 billion metric tons of plastic have been produced since 1950. Chelsea Rockman: That's the weight equivalent of 27,000 Empire State Buildings or more than a billion elephants. Chelsea Rockman: So when and how did our addiction to plastic first begin? [00:10:30] Speaker 14: Chelsea Rockman: What can be made with plastics? Chelsea Rockman: Cosmetic containers and cockpit houses. [00:10:35] Speaker 1: Chelsea Rockman: Plastic was a new material that transformed the consumer landscape. Chelsea Rockman: When large-scale production began after World War II, the potential for growth seemed unlimited. [00:10:45] Speaker 14: Chelsea Rockman: This paratrooper floating down to welcome Mother Earth is depending on plastics to get him there safely. [00:10:50] Speaker 1: Chelsea Chelsea Rockman: The durable material did and does make some aspects of life safer. Chelsea Rockman: They take better care of little cuts and scratches. Chelsea Chelsea Rockman: Not to mention more convenient. Chelsea Chelsea Rockman: And ultimately, over decades of use, a disposable way of living evolved. Chelsea Chelsea Rockman: Its future was so limitless that by 1967, Dustin Hoffman received this career advice in the film "The Graduate." [00:11:15] Speaker 6: Chelsea Rockman: I just want to say one word to you. Just one word. Chelsea Rockman: Yes, sir. Chelsea Rockman: Are you listening? Chelsea Rockman: Yes, I am. Chelsea Rockman: Plastics. Chelsea Rockman: Exactly how do you mean? Chelsea Rockman: There's a great future in plastics. Think about it. [00:11:35] Speaker 1: Chelsea Rockman: Plastic has revolutionized the medical field. Chelsea Rockman: Disposable syringes help reduce disease transmission. Chelsea Rockman: Prosthetic limbs make life easier and more comfortable for amputees. Chelsea Rockman: In grocery stores, plastic helps reduce food waste by keeping foods fresher. Chelsea Rockman: And don't forget, mobile phones have many plastic parts. Chelsea Rockman: Over time, the global appetite for plastic has only grown. [00:11:58] Speaker 2: Chelsea Rockman: It's very cheap to produce. It's very, very useful, very versatile. So we just make a lot of it. Chelsea Rockman: OK. [00:12:07] Speaker 1: Chelsea Rockman: Roland Geyer at the University of California, Santa Barbara, is an industrial ecologist who quantified the problem. He says of all the plastic, an estimated 60 percent still exists on Earth today. [00:12:19] Speaker 2: Chelsea Rockman: Of the nine billion metric tons that humankind ever produced, maybe 20 to 30 percent is still in use. Chelsea Rockman: And the rest, so that's about six, six and a half billion metric tons, has become waste. [00:12:34] Speaker 12: Chelsea Rockman: And it ended up in landfills. [00:12:36] Speaker 2: Chelsea Rockman: Ended up either in landfills, in the environment. Chelsea Rockman: A tiny fraction was recycled. Chelsea Rockman: And then an equally small fraction was incinerated. [00:12:46] Speaker 1: Chelsea Rockman: In 1950, world production of plastic was a mere two million tons a year. Chelsea Rockman: Since then, annual production of plastic has increased by nearly 200 times, jumping to 350 million tons a year. [00:13:01] Speaker 2: Chelsea Rockman: Now we produce more plastic than most man-made materials. Chelsea Rockman: Every year we make six times more plastic than aluminum. Chelsea Rockman: We make 20 times more plastic than copper. Chelsea Rockman: And even metals corrode and erode, so they would eventually go back to the natural environment. Chelsea Rockman: Plastic just stays plastic. [00:13:25] Speaker 1: Chelsea Rockman: So all the reasons we like it and value it and want to use it, those are all the reasons that make it more difficult to get rid of. [00:13:31] Speaker 2: Chelsea Rockman: I think you hit the nail on the head, yeah. Chelsea Rockman: Some of these wonderful properties, that it's so durable, becomes a problem when we are trying to get rid of it. Chelsea Rockman: Then suddenly we don't like the fact that it's so durable. [00:13:46] Speaker 1: Chelsea Rockman: As our dependence on this durable new material has grown, so have the piles of stuff in our landfills. Chelsea Rockman: But it hasn't always been like this. Chelsea Rockman: Americans were at one time very good at saving and reusing materials. Chelsea Rockman: In colonial times, the motto was waste not, want not. Chelsea Rockman: During the Great Depression, use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without. Chelsea Rockman: In the throes of World War II, the U.S. government ran campaigns to get citizens to save and reuse everything, Chelsea Rockman: from scrap metal, to rubber, gasoline, paper, and even animal fat. [00:14:22] Speaker 14: Chelsea Rockman: People who buy in large quantities and truck it away in their cars. [00:14:27] Speaker 1: Chelsea Rockman: And then came the economic boom years, coinciding with the rise of plastic. [00:14:32] Speaker 15: Chelsea Rockman: It's the crystal clear plastic that lets you see everything you wrap. [00:14:35] Speaker 1: Chelsea Rockman: And disposable lifestyles became fashionable. [00:14:38] Speaker 15: Chelsea Rockman: Plings like magic. [00:14:40] Speaker 1: Chelsea Rockman: It was even featured in "Life" magazine in 1955, with the celebratory headline, "Throw Away Living." Chelsea Rockman: Daddy, you forgot. Every litter bit hurts. Chelsea Rockman: Also in the 1950s, the formation of the "Keep America Beautiful" coalition. Chelsea Rockman: Using public service announcements starring a Susie Spotless character, the coalition aimed to get people thinking about their responsibility to stop pollution. [00:15:05] Speaker 4: Chelsea Rockman: Please, please, don't be our litter, because every litter bit hurts. [00:15:09] Speaker 1: Chelsea Rockman: Decades later, in 1971, it was a "Keep America Beautiful" ad that shook the American conscience. [00:15:18] Speaker 14: People start pollution. People can stop it. [00:15:22] Speaker 1: Chelsea Rockman: The "Keep America Beautiful" coalition was founded and funded in large part by the beverage and packaging industries, the same companies producing much of America's plastic. Chelsea Rockman: Since that campaign, we, the American people, have been sorting, weeding out, and sorting some more, all with a certain sense of responsibility. [00:15:45] Speaker 12: Chelsea Rockman: Every day, an estimated 750 tons of material flow through this process. And every step along the way, just like this one, is designed to remove one more material. [00:15:58] Speaker 1: Chelsea Rockman: For an ultra-durable material like plastic, the goal of this system was to get us to use less by reusing what we'd already made. Chelsea Rockman: But that requires people buy into and participate in the system. [00:16:10] Speaker 2: Chelsea Rockman: The global recycling rate, we estimate, is 9 percent. So it's very, very poor. And it hasn't even improved all that much. The current recycling rate in the U.S. is barely 10 percent. Chelsea Rockman: But even in Europe, it's like 30 percent. I would say that the way we recycle plastic at the moment is not part of the solution. I would even go as far as saying it's part of the problem. [00:16:34] Speaker 1: Chelsea Rockman: Recycling is part of the problem. Chelsea Rockman: Yeah. [00:16:37] Speaker 2: Chelsea Rockman: Why is that? Chelsea Rockman: So even recycled material, you can't cycle it forever. Eventually, you have to dispose of it. So the only way to reduce disposal is make less plastic. And that's the only benefit of recycling. [00:16:50] Speaker 1: Chelsea Rockman: One reason: the sheer volume of waste created around the world. Chelsea Rockman: Americans alone create four and a half pounds of trash per person per day. Chelsea Rockman: As a country, we generate a third of all waste in the world. Chelsea Rockman: In a best-case scenario, we'd recycle as much of that as possible. Chelsea Rockman: My colleague, Paul Solomon, met a woman in Massachusetts who is a recycling superstar. [00:17:18] Speaker 11: Chelsea Rockman: This is two weeks' worth of trash. [00:17:22] Speaker 1: Chelsea Rockman: That's two weeks. [00:17:23] Speaker 11: Chelsea Rockman: And plastics. These are flower sleeves. I try always to tell them I don't need a flower sleeve when you buy flowers. Chelsea Rockman: Uh-huh. Chelsea Rockman: But sometimes I'm not quick enough. Chelsea Rockman: Like compost tea bags. So this is the string. And because it has a staple, so it shouldn't go into the compost. Chelsea Rockman: Really? Chelsea Rockman: The tea bags. Yes, I'm very anal about this. Chelsea Rockman: So are you kind of a recycling fanatic? Chelsea Rockman: I wish there was a word like OCD for recycling. [00:17:52] Speaker 1: Chelsea Rockman: Not everyone is as vigilant as Meera Singh. [00:17:56] Speaker 16: People today don't understand what happens to their trash or their recyclables. They put it out at the curb. A truck comes along, throws it in the back, and it disappears. And they don't have to ever think about it again. Chelsea Rockman: Two hundred and sixty tons again today? Chelsea Rockman: Yesterday, the day before. Chelsea Rockman: Wow, man. [00:18:13] Speaker 1: Chelsea Rockman: Ben Harvey runs a recycling plant just outside of Boston. [00:18:17] Speaker 16: Chelsea Rockman: When we collect it, we have got to think about where are we going to go to dispose of that material. Is it going to go to a landfill? Is it going to go to waste of energy? [00:18:25] Speaker 1: Chelsea Rockman: The process is more complicated than simply dropping a bottle into the right bin. Chelsea Rockman: There are seven types of plastic, and not every type can be reused. [00:18:35] Speaker 16: Chelsea Rockman: The plastics that we see come through here, even though they've got the little recycling logo on the bottom of it, that doesn't mean that there's a market for that material that we've got -- we can recycle that. [00:18:47] Speaker 1: Chelsea Rockman: For a long time, Harvey sent Boston's plastic to China. Until 2018, it had the corner on the market. And that's where many recycling facilities in the U.S. sent their plastic to. Chelsea Rockman: Greg Cooper leads recycling efforts for the state of Massachusetts. [00:19:02] Speaker 17: Greg Cooper: About 20, 30 years ago, when we were starting to ramp up our recycling programs across the country, I think China saw an opportunity to utilize some of the materials, the raw materials and the commodities that we were producing through recycling. [00:19:16] Speaker 1: Chelsea Rockman: But environmental protection and a reputation makeover put an end to that. In March of 2018, China stopped buying plastic recyclables completely in an operation dubbed National Sword, refusing to be the world's dumping ground. [00:19:31] Speaker 18: Greg Cooper: Right now, we're not moving any material to China. Very difficult to move into China right now. [00:19:36] Speaker 1: Chelsea Rockman: So all that material started stacking up in Mark Gilardi's Save That Stuff warehouse. [00:19:42] Speaker 18: Greg Cooper: Inventory's a little high. It does come in waves because we do have to sell multiple loads at a time. So when we get a shipment, we'll ship out three or four loads. So we're trying to do price adjustments. And that's why it's really hurting our bottom line. We can't do the adjustments quick enough to keep up with the changing markets. [00:19:59] Speaker 1: Chelsea Rockman: With prices for plastic tanking and global markets shifting, as much as half of America's plastic waste was and is stuck in the U.S. Stockpiled in warehouses, disposed of in landfills or incinerated. Chelsea Rockman: And the plastic that was still being shipped overseas started flowing to new countries, this time in Southeast Asia. Malaysia quickly took up the mantle as the world's leading importer of plastic scrap. Here in Ipoh, that meant mountains of plastic piled up at the edge of the jungle, as plastic waste inundated recycling plants. [00:20:34] Speaker 19: Chelsea Rockman: We are standing here next to a pile of about 1,500 tons. [00:20:41] Speaker 1: Chelsea Rockman: This Malaysian site is run by Pavel Cech with a government license. Here, the plastic waste goes into a kiln to help in the production of cement. [00:20:49] Speaker 19: Chelsea Rockman: The first waste started coming here mid last year. And that was the time of the boom of the imports. [00:20:57] Speaker 1: Chelsea Rockman: Since then, the piles of plastic waste have shrunk. Chelsea Rockman: But the proportion of plastic waste coming from Western nations hasn't. [00:21:05] Speaker 19: Chelsea Rockman: Here you have post-consumer cake or pancake from Germany. Chelsea Rockman: Can you make anything out of that? Chelsea Rockman: Yeah, USDA organic. So here you have some organic American vegetable packaging. Chelsea Rockman: Here we have a Pepsi bottle with no local printing. [00:21:36] Speaker 1: Chelsea Rockman: Cech sees real value in the global trade in recyclable commodities, but not in plastic scrap. [00:21:43] Speaker 19: Chelsea Rockman: Mixed waste, non-recyclable waste definitely should not be traded. It has to be a product. It has to be raw material. Chelsea Rockman: But it must not be a mixed non-recyclable liability of one country to be passed on to another country. Because then you see the greed. Then you see that for money people are ready to do bad things. [00:22:06] Speaker 1: Chelsea Rockman: Cech's site is legal. Chelsea Rockman: But illegal sites like this one we secretly filmed have been popping up all over the country as the opportunity to turn a profit grows. One way to get rid of the plastic waste? Chelsea Rockman: Yeah. Chelsea Rockman: Burn it. Chelsea Rockman: That illegal activity spurred citizen activists to take action. Chelsea Rockman: They used drones to find the worst offenders, then lobbied the government for change. Chelsea Rockman: As the influx of plastic waste grew, the prime minister took notice. [00:22:33] Speaker 6: Chelsea Rockman: We cannot accept that kind of idea that waste from rich countries should be sent to poor countries. Chelsea Rockman: We don't need your waste because our own waste is enough to give us problems. [00:22:47] Speaker 1: Chelsea Rockman: Before long, in October of 2018, Malaysia, like China before it, banned new imports of plastic waste. Chelsea Rockman: Malaysian officials turned away arriving shipping containers filled with plastic from Western nations that were being smuggled in, destined for illegal sites. Chelsea Rockman: In front of a crowd of media, the Malaysian environment minister showed off what was inside. [00:23:10] Speaker 20: Chelsea Rockman: Whoever sent their waste to Malaysia, whether it's e-waste, whether it's plastic waste or whatever waste, we will send it back. Chelsea Rockman: And we will fight back. Chelsea Rockman: Even though we are a small country, we cannot be bullied by developed countries. [00:23:25] Speaker 1: Chelsea Rockman: The crackdown had the unintended effect of pushing illegal sites into more unpopulated areas, away from the eyes of law enforcement. Chelsea Rockman: And now, plastic waste smugglers are taking their business away from the cities and deeper into the jungle. Chelsea Rockman: The burning sends a toxic brew into the air. Chelsea Rockman: Sunny Neo is an activist working to stop the illegal activity. Chelsea Rockman: He uses a particle counter to take air-quality readings. Chelsea Rockman: Anything over 35.4 is considered unhealthy. Chelsea Rockman: Here, the reading settled at 1:23. [00:23:58] Speaker 21: Sunny Neo: But these people have -- are doing in complete defiance of the government and polluting the environment, doing harmful to -- things that are harmful to our society. [00:24:10] Speaker 1: Chelsea Rockman: We found that harm across the country. Chelsea Rockman: Outside the northern city of Sungai Pitani, yellow tape and a government notice to shut down. Chelsea Rockman: The facility was still operating five months later. Chelsea Rockman: Farther south in Port Klang, an illegal facility now abandoned but still filled with foreign waste, including plastic from America. Chelsea Rockman: Plastic has become a hot potato. Chelsea Rockman: In Indonesia, they're shipping containers full of waste back to Australia. Chelsea Rockman: In Thailand, activists are taking to the streets to protest the trash trade, the trade that's polluted their once-pristine beaches, Chelsea Rockman: largely with what's known as single-use plastic, the stuff that's used once, then tossed. [00:24:55] Speaker 2: Chelsea Rockman: 40 percent of all plastic is that kind of single-use packaging. [00:24:59] Speaker 1: Chelsea Rockman: 40 percent of all plastic. [00:25:02] Speaker 2: Chelsea Rockman: 40 percent, yeah. Chelsea Rockman: So if we did away with single-use packaging, I think we could solve 40 percent of the problem. [00:25:08] Speaker 1: Chelsea Rockman: That would make a huge dent. [00:25:09] Speaker 2: Chelsea Rockman: That would make a huge difference. Chelsea Rockman: And I think it's really doable. [00:25:14] Speaker 1: Chelsea Rockman: So bans on single-use plastic are popping up around the globe. Chelsea Rockman: From the tiny island of Dominica, in the Caribbean, where they've banned all single-use plastic containers, including styrofoam. Chelsea Rockman: To Scotland, where one of the targets is the cotton swab. Chelsea Rockman: To Rwanda, where one of the world's first plastic bag bans has transformed the landscape. Chelsea Rockman: That willingness to crack down on plastic use is not as widespread in the United States. Chelsea Rockman: A PBS NewsHour Marist poll found that only 25 percent of Americans would fully support a ban on single-use plastics. Chelsea Rockman: And 19 percent somewhat support the idea. Chelsea Rockman: In some places, the backlash on bans has been loud. Chelsea Rockman: The pressure from public outcry has led some cities and states to reverse course and ban any bans on bags and straws. Chelsea Rockman: In Oklahoma, the state government passed legislation preventing local governments from banning or taxing plastic bags. Chelsea Rockman: The targeting of the tiny straw even drew the attention of President Trump. [00:26:13] Speaker 22: Chelsea Rockman: So, you have a little straw. Chelsea Rockman: But what about the plates, the wrappers and everything else that are much bigger, and they're made of the same material? Chelsea Rockman: So, the straws are interesting. Chelsea Rockman: Everybody focuses on the straws. Chelsea Rockman: There's a lot of other things to focus. [00:26:28] Speaker 1: Chelsea Rockman: In all, more than a dozen states have implemented these preemption laws to keep local leaders from passing any bans on plastic. Chelsea Rockman: Already hundreds of states, counties and cities have some kind of plastic ban or tax in place. Chelsea Rockman: Seattle is one of those cities. Chelsea Rockman: It set its sights on single-use utensils, bags and straws in July of 2018, becoming the first major American city to implement an outright ban. Chelsea Rockman: Why straws? [00:26:58] Speaker 23: Chelsea Rockman: Not all plastics are created equal. [00:27:00] Speaker 1: Chelsea Rockman: As Becca Fong of Seattle Public Utilities explains, even the best recycling system isn't perfect. [00:27:06] Speaker 23: Chelsea Rockman: But it's geared to capture certain types of plastics of certain sizes. Chelsea Rockman: And if it doesn't fit into those categories, it's not really recoverable. Chelsea Rockman: So, speaking of certain sizes, something like this, a tiny little plastic straw. Chelsea Rockman: Where does something like that straw fit? Chelsea Rockman: The fact that it made it here is pretty impressive, but the vast majority of small items are going to fall through the machinery and not be able to be recovered to be recycled. [00:27:30] Speaker 1: Chelsea Rockman: More important than the ban itself is the way in which it makes people think about the way they use plastic. [00:27:36] Speaker 23: Chelsea Rockman: It is that piece of material that is so small and so nuanced and actually kind of an extra for a lot of people that it actually makes people stop and think, do I really need to have this straw? Chelsea Rockman: And that's probably the bigger impact. [00:27:50] Speaker 15: Chelsea Rockman: A straw that I use today in Seattle can end up in the Pacific Ocean and last there for thousands of years. Chelsea Rockman: Or it can return back to your plate in 10 years as microplastics embedded in some fish. [00:28:02] Speaker 1: Chelsea Rockman: Mami Hara runs Seattle Public Utilities. Chelsea Rockman: Before her team could implement and enforce the ban, they had to get local businesses on board. [00:28:10] Speaker 15: Mami Hara: For a lot of businesses, it hasn't been a hard sell. Mami Hara: For those who are concerned about the price point, we try to work with them to find viable alternatives that don't impact their purse too much. [00:28:21] Speaker 3: Mami Hara: We'll buy about a million straws this year, and the cost of straws has tripled. [00:28:29] Speaker 1: Mami Hara: Bob Donegan is the president of Ivers, an 80-year-old Seattle seafood institution. [00:28:35] Speaker 3: Bob Donegan: We don't routinely put a straw in a drink. We ask everybody, would you like a straw? And they can always have one. And these are the new compostable straws. They are made from plants. Mami Hara: But the compostable straws aren't a perfect solution. Bob Donegan: I challenge you to suck a milkshake through that straw and see if you can make it. [00:29:03] Speaker 1: Mami Hara: That's not easy. Bob Donegan: It's pretty hard. Mami Hara: Yeah. Mami Hara: So he's spending more money and ordering bigger straws. Since the ban, costs have gone up. But Donegan says he's budgeted around them by buying supplies early and in bulk. So there's no use, he says, in complaining. [00:29:18] Speaker 3: Bob Donegan: Put on your big boy pants and get used to it. Everything the government does isn't fair. But our customers expect it of us. And we want to do what our customers want. [00:29:29] Speaker 9: Bob Donegan: Not only are we saying that the environment is important to us, this is a way for us to put our money where our mouth is. [00:29:36] Speaker 1: Mami Hara: Wes Benson at Taco Time, another area food chain, is taking Seattle's straw and utensil ban one step further. Today, nearly every single item they give customers, from utensils and cups to plates and bowls, is fully compostable, meaning they're made of natural materials and can be turned into compost after being tossed. [00:29:55] Speaker 9: Bob Donegan: One of the nice things about being 100 percent compostable is you can make it a part of your story. We're a local company, the environment is important to us, and we're willing to pay five times as much for our packaging. [00:30:08] Speaker 1: Mami Hara: What's important to remember about compost, the waste has to actually make it to a compost facility in order to break down into soil. Most compost facilities in the U.S. only take yard trimmings. But here in Seattle, they have a system in place that includes food waste. This is where Seattle processes its compost on an industrial scale, a family business run by Jason Lentz, an hour north of the city. How much of a problem do plastics present? [00:30:39] Speaker 24: You know, it's not insurmountable. At the same time, it's definitely a problem. [00:30:47] Speaker 1: Even here, bits of plastic need to be sorted out. Lentz has been in this business since 2008. So without the city asking this of you or showing that there was a demand for this, you guys likely wouldn't be doing this? [00:31:02] Speaker 25: That's correct. Seattle is a big pusher of organics diversion for composting. And yeah, so that's why we're in this business now. [00:31:12] Speaker 12: Where are we going next? [00:31:13] Speaker 1: Lentz's company now churns out hundreds of thousands of tons of compost a year. [00:31:19] Speaker 24: I think there's a spot over here. This is the final product. [00:31:23] Speaker 1: And sells it to everyone, from soil companies to local governments to home gardeners. Seattle's efforts even extend to the ballpark. Behind the scenes of Major League Baseball Seattle Mariners, we got a look at the stacks of compostable items they now require food vendors to use. In 2017, the park managed to recycle or compost 96 percent of all waste. Trevor Gooby runs operations at the ballpark. [00:31:51] Speaker 26: It definitely is more work to sort through the trash that we have after the game and to do these type of things. Again, we feel it's really important for our business and it's important because our fans are asking us to do it. [00:32:04] Speaker 1: So while some cities and businesses in the U.S. are doing their part to cut back on plastic, here the entire country is being asked to pitch in. Canada, the world's second largest nation, is trying to put into place the world's toughest plastic ban. [00:32:19] Speaker 27: As early as 2021, Canada will ban harmful single-use plastics from coast to coast to coast. It will be up to businesses to take responsibility for the plastics they're manufacturing and putting out into the world. [00:32:36] Speaker 1: At Unboxed Market on Toronto's historic Dundas Street, single-use plastic is already a thing of the past. The zero-waste grocery store is the brainchild of Michelle Gentner and her partner, Luis Martins. [00:32:49] Speaker 28: I'm from rural southern Ontario and he's from southern Portugal. It was very much a need to recognize access to food and quality ingredients and things that are always fresh. And when you grow up near or on farms, you have constant contact with those items. So you can touch your potatoes, you can touch your corn, you can see it, you can smell it. And with everything that's happening in the environment right now, that excess packaging and plastics and single-use wrappers and everything just seemed daunting. And so we wanted to avoid it as much as humanly possible. [00:33:23] Speaker 1: Shoppers here bring their own containers to transport everything home. [00:33:28] Speaker 28: Somebody in the winter had a glove and they put eggs in each of the fingers of the glove so that they wouldn't bang together. However you like. They put eggs into a glove. Into the glove. Yeah, it was amazing. So milk. No. [00:33:39] Speaker 1: You go through so much milk in my house. Yes. [00:33:41] Speaker 28: How do I get milk here? Milk is a fun thing for a lot of people. It's on top as well. So if you didn't bring a container, you can grab one that we have. Same process always. Yep. Any size. Yep. So just open that. And then there's a little spout underneath here. So just line your jar up. Yep. And then just pull up slowly on the handle. [00:34:01] Speaker 12: Oh. And fresh milk. All right. [00:34:04] Speaker 1: But even here, to help keep some food fresh, they rely on plastic. [00:34:09] Speaker 12: Now can I ask you about one thing? Yeah. Obviously, these are made of plastic. Yes. So you've got plastic in the store, right? We do. [00:34:16] Speaker 28: We do. It's deliberately single-use plastics that we're trying to avoid. These will be used, have been used countless times, will continue to be used countless times. It's not the same as a throwaway wrapper around a straw or a chip bag or those individual single-use products. This is meant to be a sustainable long-term product. Okay. [00:34:39] Speaker 1: Unlike in the U.S., people here seem to be more on board with cutting back on single-use plastic. Polling shows 81 percent of Canadians support the idea of a ban, and a majority would also be willing to pay more to help reduce waste. When the scale of the problem is so big, though, this is what we hear again and again from people who are trying to make a difference. Yeah. How do you even think about it day in and day out? [00:35:02] Speaker 28: It's all I think about. It's all I think about all day. I think that there is an overwhelming, this is a lot, we can't do it. But what I say to customers who come for the first time and they're trying to think of a way to transition in their own environment, don't look at your whole house. Look at one room. Look at one section of your room. Broccoli? Yeah. Can you help me put in the fridge, Alex? [00:35:26] Speaker 1: Vicki Popa shops at Unbox Market every week in her quest to banish single-use plastic. [00:35:31] Speaker 5: I think we don't have a choice to not do something. I think we know the problem's there and we may not be able to reverse what's been done. But I don't think we can keep on living and moving forward the way that we have. Do I think we're making a difference? In some ways, yes. As a family, we are making a difference. I think the biggest impact we could have is to pass it on to our kids. [00:35:54] Speaker 1: Six-year-old Bella has been paying attention. Is plastic a big problem in the ocean? [00:35:59] Speaker 4: Yes. Why is it a problem? Because the animals eat it and then they get sick. Do you think that most people know about this? No. No? Why don't they know about it? Because they don't really think about the planet. Why should we think about the planet? So it could stay healthy and then all the animals could be healthy and then all the animals could be in the ocean. [00:36:27] Speaker 1: Canadians might support a plastic ban, but what about companies? Under the government's proposal, companies would be responsible for the plastic long after they make it and sell it. Unilever is a global company with dozens of recognizable household brands. Dove Shampoo, Lipton Tea, Vaseline, and many are packaged and sold in some form of plastic. Unilever not only signed the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment, an initiative from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation targeting plastic pollution at its source. It also just pledged to cut in half the amount of non-recycled plastic it uses by 2025. Its annual plastic packaging output is nearly 700,000 metric tons. [00:37:09] Speaker 29: We are not going to do away with plastic. It is in too much of too many things that we have in this world, well beyond any packaging that I put in the marketplace. [00:37:21] Speaker 1: John Coyne works on sustainability issues at Unilever Canada. [00:37:25] Speaker 29: JOHN COYNE: What I think we need to try to do is try to apply ourselves to the waste issue. How do we take recycling rates from 11 percent to a much higher number? [00:37:35] Speaker 1: JOHN COYNE: By saying it's more of a plastic waste problem instead of a plastic problem, aren't you really just shifting a lot of the burden more to the people who are using the plastic instead of the people like Unilever who are making it? [00:37:46] Speaker 29: JOHN COYNE: No, I don't think so because -- and some people have made the argument that somehow consumers are responsible with this. No, I don't accept that. If we have ownership over that material that we can recover, we are in a better position as businesses to re-utilize that material. [00:38:03] Speaker 1: JOHN COYNE: Recovering and reusing the plastic is more important, Coyn says, than efforts to ban it. [00:38:08] Speaker 29: JOHN COYNE: The volume of material that we are recovering from the marketplace is still so low that I don't know whether or not a ban on any single-use plastics is going to have a material impact on that. [00:38:21] Speaker 1: JOHN COYNE: How would it not? Doesn't that mean that a significant amount just isn't going out into the environment in the first place? [00:38:26] Speaker 29: JOHN COYNE: I don't know what proportion of the overall plastics that is. [00:38:29] Speaker 1: JOHN COYNE: Well, it's about 40 percent by global estimates. [00:38:31] Speaker 29: JOHN COYNE: I don't think it's that high at all. JOHN COYNE: I don't think -- it depends how you -- well, it depends how you define single-use plastics. JOHN COYNE: How do you define single-use plastics? JOHN COYNE: Single-use plastics are things like plastic bags and straws, which are the two most common examples, which are only available for use one time. JOHN COYNE: Mm-hmm. JOHN COYNE: But there are those who will argue that a plastic bag is not a single-use product. JOHN COYNE: Yes, you bring it home from the grocery store, but you may use it three or four times in the home. [00:38:58] Speaker 1: JOHN COYNE: But industrial ecologist Roland Geyer says reusing and recycling won't fix the problem, especially when 91 percent of the world's plastic currently goes unrecycled. [00:39:08] Speaker 2: JOHN COYNE: The only plastic that does not need to be disposed of is plastic that was never made. [00:39:15] Speaker 1: JOHN COYNE: That fact poses a big problem for the world's biggest plastic producers. JOHN COYNE: One of those is Coca-Cola. JOHN COYNE: Since the very first Coke was poured 133 years ago, the iconic global brand has used lots of different kinds of packaging. JOHN COYNE: Everything from glass and metal to aluminum and plastic. JOHN COYNE: Inside Coca-Cola's archives in Atlanta are shelves and shelves of its historic designs. JOHN COYNE: PET plastic bottles didn't arrive on the scene until 1978. JOHN COYNE: Today, the Coca-Cola company sells over 120 billion plastic bottles a year. JOHN COYNE: Laid out end-to-end, those bottles could wrap around the circumference of the Earth 700 times. [00:39:59] Speaker 30: JOHN COYNE: It's a very big problem that has to be solved. JOHN COYNE: This cannot be done alone. [00:40:03] Speaker 1: JOHN COYNE: Bea Perez is Coca-Cola's senior vice president for sustainability. [00:40:07] Speaker 30: JOHN COYNE: If the planet is not stable, if communities aren't thriving, then no one is going to win, and business is not going to be successful. [00:40:13] Speaker 1: JOHN COYNE: Like Unilever, Coca-Cola scientists. JOHN COYNE: The new plastics economy global commitment and disclosed its plastic production. JOHN COYNE: Three million metric tons a year. JOHN COYNE: How did that number resonate? JOHN COYNE: Did you think, OK, this is way more than we thought? JOHN COYNE: How do we bring this down? [00:40:28] Speaker 30: JOHN COYNE: Well, we want to continue to be more efficient. JOHN COYNE: So how do you bring it down? JOHN COYNE: But how do you make sure that you're actually reusing it so you're not creating new? JOHN COYNE: So part of this is to help to eliminate virgin plastics. JOHN COYNE: You're not creating new materials you're putting into the marketplace. JOHN COYNE: You're using the ones that are out there again and again and again and giving that value to the material. JOHN COYNE: A lot of people will look at that and say three million tons is quite a lot. [00:40:49] Speaker 1: JOHN COYNE: Do you have a target in mind for where you want that number to be by 2030 or sooner? JOHN COYNE: That's not part of the target. [00:40:54] Speaker 30: JOHN COYNE: The target is about the collection. JOHN COYNE: So we want to make sure that whatever's put out there we're collecting back and reusing. [00:41:00] Speaker 1: JOHN COYNE: To help do that, Coca-Cola launched their World Without Waste program. JOHN COYNE: The goal is to collect and recycle the equivalent of every bottle or can it sells globally by 2030. [00:41:11] Speaker 31: JOHN COYNE: We don't fundamentally see our packaging as waste. JOHN COYNE: That's a value that we're not realizing. JOHN COYNE: We want to see that package come back so that we can turn it into a new package. [00:41:21] Speaker 1: JOHN COYNE: Ben Jordan heads up Coca-Cola's environmental policy. [00:41:24] Speaker 31: BEN JORDAN: Two billion times a day consumers enjoy our product around the world. BEN JORDAN: Usually out of a package. BEN JORDAN: And when they're finished with their product, they have a choice to make. BEN JORDAN: What are they going to do with that package? BEN JORDAN: Many developing countries around the world you see informal scavenging systems where waste pickers will find that package. BEN JORDAN: Even if it's littered by a consumer, they'll find it and get it back into recycling because it's worth their time. BEN JORDAN: That inherent value in that material is worth their time. BEN JORDAN: They're places in the world where there's not that inherent value in the material and you need a little bit more. BEN JORDAN: Now, is that a formal waste management system, a curbside recycling program like we have in the U.S. or other parts of the developing world? BEN JORDAN: Or maybe there's something even on top of that that needs to be put in place to motivate consumers to do the right thing with their packaging. [00:42:20] Speaker 1: BEN JORDAN: Changing the packaging itself to make it more recyclable is another goal of the company. By 2025, Coca-Cola wants all its packaging to be 100 percent recyclable. And by 2030, the company wants 50 percent of new packaging to use recycled material. In 2018, that number was at 30 percent. BEN JORDAN: Some will say it's easy to make it an industry priority when the bottom line isn't too badly affected. BEN JORDAN: Can you commit that even if those things weren't there, that even if the bottom line shifts, if the numbers don't quite add up, does this still remain a priority for Coke? [00:42:54] Speaker 30: BEN JORDAN: Yes, this is a priority for Coke, absolutely. And so you either pay today or you pay tomorrow. You're going to pay by either losing your consumers who give up in your business because they say -- because we know if you look at all of the data coming with this next generation, millennials started it. I'd say this next generation Z is there in terms of purchase consideration. They're saying I'm not going to purchase brands that do not leave a positive impact or legacy in society. I don't want to feel badly about the products I'm consuming, so help me understand what you're doing to solve these problems. We know we're going to lose consumers if we don't do this. We're going to pay one way or another, so it's better to invest today, do the right things, and ensure that we also have a strong business because we're doing the right things. [00:43:39] Speaker 1: While Coke is making inroads with its plastic recycling, one British company is making actual roads using, what else? Recycled plastic. It's an innovative way to reuse plastic that already exists. Toby McCartney is the man behind McCreeber, a startup that mixes recycled plastic pellets into asphalt to make longer-lasting and cheaper roads. [00:44:03] Speaker 32: The downside to waste plastics is it lasts for so long. A bottle will last for maybe 500 years. What we're using is the ability of those plastics because they last so long, but in our roads, we want our roads to last so long before they need any maintenance. [00:44:18] Speaker 1: McCreeber is paving the way toward better plastic use, but its efforts are just a drop in the bucket. Don't forget, 9 billion metric tons of plastic have been manufactured over the last 70 years. There's just too much out there to reuse it all. So, what else can be done? Right now, the only option for large-scale total disposal we have is incineration, literally burning the plastic. But that solution can create another problem, releasing toxic chemicals into the air. What is in here? [00:44:49] Speaker 33: So, these are bags of dirt that I collected from various sites around the Houston area. [00:44:58] Speaker 1: To bypass incineration, Morgan Vague had a hunch when she was a student at Reed College in Oregon. If plastic really is everywhere, maybe, in heavily polluted areas, bacteria have evolved to eat it. And maybe those bacteria could take a bite out of our plastic problem. So, she collected samples from some of the dirtiest places around her hometown of Houston, Texas, like sites of past oil spills and sites deemed contaminated by the EPA and brought them back to the lab. So, you identify the bacteria you want to take a closer look at. Mm-hmm. And then you put them in these test tubes. Yes. And the only food you give them, basically, is a piece of plastic. Exactly. [00:45:36] Speaker 33: And we're fortunate to find some that did a pretty good job. What would you name it? Have you thought about that? Pseudomonas morganensis is the tentative name. [00:45:44] Speaker 12: I like that you've already thought of that. Oh, yeah. Yeah. [00:45:48] Speaker 1: But name or no name, her plastic-eating bacteria is promising, even if it has a ways to go. [00:45:55] Speaker 33: They have this ability, but it's incredibly slow, too slow to be useful for us. So, what can we do, really, to make the plastic a little more appetizing to these little bugs? Pre-treatment's kind of like marinade on the steak, right? What can we do to make these a little more palatable? Make it so bacteria say, oh, hey, that looks good. I really want to eat on that and eat it up quickly. [00:46:17] Speaker 1: It is just one study in very early stages, but she's excited for where it could lead. [00:46:23] Speaker 33: I think we need more of these kind of grassroots efforts and kind of thinking outside the box or outside the plastic bottle and kind of saying what sort of solutions we can find. [00:46:33] Speaker 1: An inspiration for solutions to the plastic problem can come in many shapes and sizes. This is a sea bin, essentially a garbage filter that goes into the water. This one is part of a pilot project at Toronto's Outer Harbour Marina. But more sea bins are working hard all over the world. [00:46:52] Speaker 34: People see the garbage floating, but they don't realize that that water bottle that they use, they may have put it in the recycling bin, but somehow it accidentally ended up in the water. [00:47:02] Speaker 1: How does it work? The cylinder sucks in all the junk. A containment bag catches it. And inside this sludge is a lot of plastic. A coffee cup lid, a candy wrapper. Every day, the sea bin can trap up to nine pounds of floating trash. This is the one that you can eat. Lori Goff says the inspiration for her invention to tackle the plastic problem came from a cartoon. Captain Planet. [00:47:30] Speaker 35: The power is yours. Part of what Captain Planet says is take pollution down to zero and the power is yours. And this stuck with me. It's still here with me now. So there's just this little Captain Planet flying around telling me that I'm responsible to help make the world better, that I can't be waiting for someone else to do this. [00:47:52] Speaker 1: So Goff, an American living in the Netherlands, came up with an idea she calls un-plastic, an alternative wrapper that uses leftover wastewater from brewing beer. [00:48:03] Speaker 35: It's a super highly functional material that's transparent, it's compostable, it's edible, it's totally non-toxic, and it's completely plastic free. Brewery waste was just thrown away and now we can take it and make it into something that's extremely functional and totally helpful for us. It can protect our food, it can package things, and at the end of the day it will just go back to the earth. [00:48:30] Speaker 1: Innovation and inventions aside, everyday citizens are asking what they can do to make a dent in the plastic problem. Experts say start small and scale up. Vicki Popa started with a cup of coffee. So all reusable cups now. [00:48:44] Speaker 36: All reusable cups. A cloth. Coffee filter? Yes. And we get our coffees in a jar. Reusable snack bags. We've got silicone. What do you replace this way? We are replacing it with beeswax wraps. It covers the food so that it doesn't dry out. How on earth do you get rid of plastic in your bathroom? Yeah. And we're using a toothpaste in a jar. And it's a glass jar, right? And it's a glass jar. You can wash it out, reuse it. We've got hand soap. So now instead of the plastic pumps we've got a glass jar. So you've made little changes everywhere you can. Little changes, yes. [00:49:12] Speaker 1: How hard is it to make those changes? I need... I put my own grocery list to the test and did a shopping run at Unbox Market. Okay. Rolls, milk. [00:49:23] Speaker 12: We are shopping. [00:49:24] Speaker 1: Cereal, eggs, peppers, peas, pasta, lettuce, popcorn, dish soap, blueberries, and chocolate-covered almonds. At the checkout counter, the only piece of plastic? The reusable soap bottle. Compare that to this. Buying the same items from a national grocery chain meant also buying all this plastic. Nearly every single item came in some form of packaging and only some of it was recyclable. Efforts to educate people about plastic are growing. [00:49:56] Speaker 31: Every single filter that's in here is made of a plastic fiber you probably heard at. [00:50:01] Speaker 1: Here in Tybee Island, Georgia, high schoolers from nearby Savannah came to find out why plastic is such a problem and what they can do to help. After a brief lesson in how to clean a beach, they picked up their gear and headed out to hunt for cigarette butts and other small pieces of plastic. Thousands of miles away on Easter Island, residents have found another way of educating young people. Mahani Tayabi grew up on the island before leaving to build her career as an international pianist. Now back home, she's running a music school built from garbage. [00:50:47] Speaker 37: 2,500 tires are in the walls. 40,000 glass bottles. Glass and plastic bottles are in the walls. We have the solar panels which provide the electricity. [00:51:01] Speaker 1: Now the school trains more than 100 students in both classical and traditional music passed down from Rapa Nui ancestors. [00:51:12] Speaker 37: This garbage, in a way, has become, like, if you see the windows, like, the little bottles have become, like, little jewels. And it's in a way, you just feel good about that. You say, okay, I'm doing my little, little grain of sand to help this place become, this planet become, you know, a little bit better than the way we found it. [00:51:33] Speaker 1: From Easter Island to Tybee Island, one thing is clear. Everyone we spoke to over the last year agreed the willingness to find solutions exists. When we asked if the plastic problem can be solved, this is what we heard. [00:51:48] Speaker 29: This is not some rarefied scientific principle that people are going to struggle with to try to understand. This is a nuts and bolts infrastructure, jobs, investment, markets, regulatory challenge that can be solved. [00:52:03] Speaker 13: I think it needs to be fundamental change across the board that's going to be hard. And I think it has to include reducing the amount that we're producing, or at least the amount of waste. Having better waste management that builds more into a circular economy and cleanup. And I think we need people at every level of government, the citizens and the industry all working together in order to do it. [00:52:24] Speaker 10: If we can solve the plastic problem, I think that's going to make an enormous difference, not just to turtles, but to the entire marine ecosystem. And at the end of the day, we rely on the seas so much that if we damage the seas to the point where we kill the seas, we're not going to survive either. [00:52:41] Speaker 37: I think we have a chance, in a way, on this island that has the same environmental problems as the rest of the world. If we can find solutions here, there is a hope for the rest of the world. [00:52:53] Speaker 2: I feel that lots of people are at a point where they don't like what they see. There is real willingness to change behavior, to do things differently. And I think there are many, many ways we can do it that still allow us to have the good life. [00:53:07] Speaker 1: Do you think we can fix it? Yes. Experts say it will take everyone at every level. Governments, businesses and individual citizens working together to make a difference. But the question remains, will we take those big steps to bring about big change and ultimately fix the plastic problem? [00:53:29] Speaker ?: We will take those big steps to bring about big change. We will take those big steps to bring about big change. We will take those big steps. We will take those big steps. We will take those big steps. We will take those big steps. We will take those big steps. We will take those big steps. We will take those big steps. We will take those big steps. We will take those big steps. We will take those big steps. We will take those big steps. We will take those big steps. We will take those big steps. We will take those big steps. We will take those big steps. We will take those big steps. We will take those big steps. We will take those big steps. We will take those big steps. We will take those big steps. We will take those big steps. We will take those big steps.