hey everyone my name is Amelia like she
said and I’m a junior here at Hawaii
Preparatory Academy but my home is all
the way on the East Coast in New
Hampshire and today I will be talking to
you about something I’m extremely
passionate about marine conservation
imagine yourself walking on a beautiful
white sand beach in the Caribbean just
enjoying the pristine shoreline I myself
was in this position about a year ago in
Costa Rica on my walk however I came
across something rather odd right in the
sand in front of me Lyonne old school
dial telephone I recalled my mother
telling me one of her favorite childhood
memories was calling up her friends on
the landline listening to the slight
clicking noise as she spun each number
around the dial my biggest question was
how did this get here this brings me to
the topic of this talk plastics it’s low
cost reusability and durability we once
thought of as a plus but if you think
about these three words carefully you
can see how they can be quite harmful
plastic is easy to produce and extremely
cheap it is meant to be reused and it
lasts a really really long time
let’s travel back about 70 years no one
predicted the toll that plastic would
take on the environment or that it would
end up in the marine ecosystem being
consumed by animals and killing marine
plants this graph produced by the World
Economic Forum shows that since 1964
plastic production has increased 20
times producing a staggering 311 million
tons in 2014 this is the equivalent of
about 100 million elephants there are
less than 1 million elephants in
existence today all of this plastic
waste eventually ends up in the ocean
through sewage pipes and waterways
culminating and 5 gyres or vortexes of
converging currents here it spins around
creating a sort of plastic soup in which
plastic pieces break down smaller and
smaller this plastic soup spans the
area of twice the size of the
continental United States let that sink
in oceanography Kurtis Abbess Meyer
describes this trash flow as a living
entity he said it walks around like a
big animal without a leash when this
animal comes close to shore and rears
its teeth it dumps its waste as a result
there are trillions of tiny pieces of
plastic floating in the ocean being
consumed by fish shrimp clams eventually
ending up on our plate and being
consumed and Entering idea our digestive
system and if we are what we eat I guess
we truly are a plastic Society another
result of marine plastics is the
endangerment of species plastic bags
often look like jellyfish main food
source for the turtle in Hawaii
AJ Mirren’s conducted a study in which
71 turtles were analyzed over an
eight-year period and while this might
not sound a lot don’t like a lot don’t
forget that turtles are endangered
he concluded that 83% of these turtles
had ingested lethal levels of plastic
almost dying of starvation because their
stomachs could not break down the
plastics so they would not eat
reflecting on the damage done by the
human consumption and production of
plastic I began to think of possible
solutions what can we do on the topic of
recycling I have found that of the
nearly 6 billion pounds of plastic
bottles purchased in 2014 only 1.5
billion of those were recycled about 25%
since it’s cheaper and easier to produce
virgin plastic than to wash chop and
milk bottles companies don’t have any
economic incentive to reduce production
upon investigation I also learned that
the only way the Hawaii $0.05 initiative
works is if the majority of consumers do
not return their bottles to be recycled
when you buy a plastic water bottle in
the supermarkets of Hawaii pay a five
cents fee you get this five cents back
when you return the bottles to be
recycled but if the company does not
make any profit they have no way of
shipping these plastic bottles offshore
to be recycled in plants in Korea Canada
and California while there are efforts
to remove or to reduce the existing
marine debris recycling is not the
answer we must refuse the use of plastic
in our society Hawaii has already been
making steps towards this with its
recent plastic bag ban in which non
biodegradable plastics as well as paper
bags containing less than 40 percent
recycled material are not allowed to
checkout and this will make a
significant difference as the average
American takes home about 1500 plastic
bags this needs to spread across the
country however there are also efforts
to remove debris from the ocean and the
beaches but the ocean is too immense to
completely remove all the existing
plastic micro plastics will always be
present the only rational thing we can
do is to stop using and producing
plastics humans are conditioned to
choose the simplest route like buying
plastic water bottles on the go and
taking plastic bags that check out but
we need to realize there are plenty of
alternatives that we can switch to these
include reusable bags or purchasing a
bus or a non plastic durable water
bottle a hydro flask costing about 50
dollars would be the equivalent of about
60 plastic water bottles and in
perspective the average American buys
170 plastic water bottles per year so it
seems like a big investment at first but
in the long run you actually end up
saving money this graphic is simple yet
profound let’s start with dispose the
very last option which is not even an
option this is to mindlessly throw away
our trash the materials in landfills can
never be broken down because there is no
oxygen to break down the materials and
we need to realize Hawaiian landfills
are full the rest of the world faces
this problem as well
the next option is to recover remember
that dial telephone I spoke up before
pick it up while it may feel satisfying
to see the see the trash recovered from
beach cleanups we need to realize that
this is just making a small dent in
perspective next option recycle as I
spoke up before there is not really any
economic incentive for big industries to
recycle the one benefit that comes out
of recycling however is seeing plastic
as a valuable object while when we take
time out of our day to put these
plastics in a separate bin and wash them
we see that they are an important
commodity but recycling does not make
any dent in our plastic production
levels next option is to reuse wash
those bags that you get at the
supermarket and reuse them use what you
have for other purposes around the house
next we have reduce don’t take that
plastic straw say no to the plastic bag
use look for packaging that has less
plastics in it finally we must refuse
for the purchase of plastics the only
thing that will drastically change our
garbage footprint is to stop buying
plastic bottles to stop buying to stop
taking plastic bags from the supermarket
I desperately want to see my beaches
your beaches are beaches free from
plastic debris so unless the world of
Disney’s wall-e
is pleasing to you please refrain from
the use of plastic in society thank you
[Applause]
said and I’m a junior here at Hawaii
Preparatory Academy but my home is all
the way on the East Coast in New
Hampshire and today I will be talking to
you about something I’m extremely
passionate about marine conservation
imagine yourself walking on a beautiful
white sand beach in the Caribbean just
enjoying the pristine shoreline I myself
was in this position about a year ago in
Costa Rica on my walk however I came
across something rather odd right in the
sand in front of me Lyonne old school
dial telephone I recalled my mother
telling me one of her favorite childhood
memories was calling up her friends on
the landline listening to the slight
clicking noise as she spun each number
around the dial my biggest question was
how did this get here this brings me to
the topic of this talk plastics it’s low
cost reusability and durability we once
thought of as a plus but if you think
about these three words carefully you
can see how they can be quite harmful
plastic is easy to produce and extremely
cheap it is meant to be reused and it
lasts a really really long time
let’s travel back about 70 years no one
predicted the toll that plastic would
take on the environment or that it would
end up in the marine ecosystem being
consumed by animals and killing marine
plants this graph produced by the World
Economic Forum shows that since 1964
plastic production has increased 20
times producing a staggering 311 million
tons in 2014 this is the equivalent of
about 100 million elephants there are
less than 1 million elephants in
existence today all of this plastic
waste eventually ends up in the ocean
through sewage pipes and waterways
culminating and 5 gyres or vortexes of
converging currents here it spins around
creating a sort of plastic soup in which
plastic pieces break down smaller and
smaller this plastic soup spans the
area of twice the size of the
continental United States let that sink
in oceanography Kurtis Abbess Meyer
describes this trash flow as a living
entity he said it walks around like a
big animal without a leash when this
animal comes close to shore and rears
its teeth it dumps its waste as a result
there are trillions of tiny pieces of
plastic floating in the ocean being
consumed by fish shrimp clams eventually
ending up on our plate and being
consumed and Entering idea our digestive
system and if we are what we eat I guess
we truly are a plastic Society another
result of marine plastics is the
endangerment of species plastic bags
often look like jellyfish main food
source for the turtle in Hawaii
AJ Mirren’s conducted a study in which
71 turtles were analyzed over an
eight-year period and while this might
not sound a lot don’t like a lot don’t
forget that turtles are endangered
he concluded that 83% of these turtles
had ingested lethal levels of plastic
almost dying of starvation because their
stomachs could not break down the
plastics so they would not eat
reflecting on the damage done by the
human consumption and production of
plastic I began to think of possible
solutions what can we do on the topic of
recycling I have found that of the
nearly 6 billion pounds of plastic
bottles purchased in 2014 only 1.5
billion of those were recycled about 25%
since it’s cheaper and easier to produce
virgin plastic than to wash chop and
milk bottles companies don’t have any
economic incentive to reduce production
upon investigation I also learned that
the only way the Hawaii $0.05 initiative
works is if the majority of consumers do
not return their bottles to be recycled
when you buy a plastic water bottle in
the supermarkets of Hawaii pay a five
cents fee you get this five cents back
when you return the bottles to be
recycled but if the company does not
make any profit they have no way of
shipping these plastic bottles offshore
to be recycled in plants in Korea Canada
and California while there are efforts
to remove or to reduce the existing
marine debris recycling is not the
answer we must refuse the use of plastic
in our society Hawaii has already been
making steps towards this with its
recent plastic bag ban in which non
biodegradable plastics as well as paper
bags containing less than 40 percent
recycled material are not allowed to
checkout and this will make a
significant difference as the average
American takes home about 1500 plastic
bags this needs to spread across the
country however there are also efforts
to remove debris from the ocean and the
beaches but the ocean is too immense to
completely remove all the existing
plastic micro plastics will always be
present the only rational thing we can
do is to stop using and producing
plastics humans are conditioned to
choose the simplest route like buying
plastic water bottles on the go and
taking plastic bags that check out but
we need to realize there are plenty of
alternatives that we can switch to these
include reusable bags or purchasing a
bus or a non plastic durable water
bottle a hydro flask costing about 50
dollars would be the equivalent of about
60 plastic water bottles and in
perspective the average American buys
170 plastic water bottles per year so it
seems like a big investment at first but
in the long run you actually end up
saving money this graphic is simple yet
profound let’s start with dispose the
very last option which is not even an
option this is to mindlessly throw away
our trash the materials in landfills can
never be broken down because there is no
oxygen to break down the materials and
we need to realize Hawaiian landfills
are full the rest of the world faces
this problem as well
the next option is to recover remember
that dial telephone I spoke up before
pick it up while it may feel satisfying
to see the see the trash recovered from
beach cleanups we need to realize that
this is just making a small dent in
perspective next option recycle as I
spoke up before there is not really any
economic incentive for big industries to
recycle the one benefit that comes out
of recycling however is seeing plastic
as a valuable object while when we take
time out of our day to put these
plastics in a separate bin and wash them
we see that they are an important
commodity but recycling does not make
any dent in our plastic production
levels next option is to reuse wash
those bags that you get at the
supermarket and reuse them use what you
have for other purposes around the house
next we have reduce don’t take that
plastic straw say no to the plastic bag
use look for packaging that has less
plastics in it finally we must refuse
for the purchase of plastics the only
thing that will drastically change our
garbage footprint is to stop buying
plastic bottles to stop buying to stop
taking plastic bags from the supermarket
I desperately want to see my beaches
your beaches are beaches free from
plastic debris so unless the world of
Disney’s wall-e
is pleasing to you please refrain from
the use of plastic in society thank you
[Applause]
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