Edmonds, WA taking a lead
Councilman Strom Peterson is the owner of Resident Cheesemonger in downtown Edmonds.
Strom Peterson is a new councilmember eager to see his city make its mark in the State of Washington as community responding responsibly to the latest research in the environmental sciences. Plastic bags are high on Councilman Peterson’s list of issues to tackle. He invited us to the Edmonds City Council on the day we ride into town. At 7pm Anna and I stand before the city council presenting our gyre sample and string of plastics pulled from an albatross skeleton. In our brief powerpoint presentation we showed slides of the environmental impact, including a plastic bag hanging out of the back end of a green turtle. “This is the impact of our plastic waste on the world,” Anna explained.
What we know is that 44% of the world’s total seabird species have been found with plastic in or around their bodies, 22 species of cetaceans, all marine sea turtles and a fast-growing list of fish. That list of fish illuminates the human health issue. The Algalita Marine Research Foundation has found high levels of PCBs, pesticides and PAHs, from the incomplete burning of fossil fuels, absorbed and adsorbed onto particles of plastic. We also found those same plastic fragments inside the stomachs of 1/3 of the 600 fish we sampled last Spring. And during the JUNKraft expedition, we caught a Rainbow Runner, which you might find in restaurants and fish markets, with a stomach filled with plastic.
Do these plastic particles desorb into the tissues and organs of food we eat? This is what the Algalita Marine Research Foundation aims to find out. Current research shows that some organic pollutants do, like PCBs migrating from ingested plastic into the organs of albatross, and other pollutants migrating into the tissues of benthic worms. This is the human health component that we fear. Plastic waste is proving to be a transport mechanism for persistent organic pollutants to enter marine food webs.
Strom Peterson argued persuasively about the need to take action to circumvent the trashing of our oceans, and ultimately ourselves. Anna and I are grateful that he gave us a chance to share the facts with Edmonds. And a sample of cheese from his family cheese shop.