ISSUE 15 ARCHIVE - PLASTIC. AN INTERVIEW WITH JOHN MCINTYRE

Juliet Savigear

John is a former BBC news correspondent whose bosses decided to feed him to the sharks. He survived and decided he preferred the sharks in the ocean, so much so he now makes his living filming the beasties and all things ocean. Mcintyre writes and edits, and continues to produce television for the BBC on both sides of the camera. After his involvement with the award winning film ‘The End Of The Line’ as principal underwater camera, he’s now heavily involved in another major conservation cinematic release. It’s for a UK based charity called plastic oceans, which aims to use all the skills of the media world to hammer home the message that plastic pollution is putting the world’s oceans in peril. The film ‘Away’ is so named because in the words of Sir David Attenborough, “when it comes to plastic, there is no such thing as away.” It’s due for release In 2013.

I dutifully take my bags with me to the supermarket. I hate the fact that I get a whole pile of the things when I receive
 an online shopping order, which then go on to breed in my kitchen cupboards. I know that plastic and plastic bags are
no good for the environment, but it is 
part of modern human life. Numerous animals and birds are killed by this human waste around the world. I’ve watched the mockumentary narrated by Jeremy Irons ‘The amazing journey of plastic bags’ (watch this on YouTube) and I’ve heard about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. So when asked to hand out branded bags at the diveshow last year, I said ‘No’, but then felt that what I knew only touched the surface and that really, most people didn’t truly understand why they shouldn’t just grab a plastic bag, often to carry just one single item that would be just as easy to carry by itself. So I thought I’d ask John McIntyre, (who works with The Plastic Oceans Foundation) a few questions, and here’s what he had to say:

JS: So, we’ve heard that plastic bags are bad for the environment, but, in a nutshell, what harm are they actually doing?

JM:: Man’s addiction, even love affair with plastic, has been going on for well over a century. We use it every day. We can’t live without it. One startling bit of information to kick off with is that every single piece of plastic that has ever been made is still in existence.

It NEVER goes AWAY.

Can you believe that 500 billion plastic bags are used on our planet every year? That’s one million used every minute, with an average working life of 15 minutes. Since plastic is non- biodegradable, it never goes away. It permeates every corner of the globe, endangering wildlife on land and at sea.

JS: How does this affect the marine environment in particular?

JM:: It’s alarming to think that a plastic bottle, bag or wrapping can eventually end up in our oceans. Worse still, over time
it breaks down because of
wave action and the effects of sunlight. Toxins hitch a ride on these particles of plastic and infiltrate the food chain from top to bottom. It’s reckoned plastic particles outnumber plankton in some parts of the world’s oceans. Imagine the consequences. Small marine life eats the plastic and toxins, the bigger stuff eats them, and so on.

Eventually our own plastic waste comes back to us – we’re actually eating our own waste.

JS: What is the Plastic Oceans Foundation? And what are they trying to do about the situation?

JM:: Plastic Oceans is a foundation with charity status started by Jo Ruxton, a former BBC producer, who’s worked on the likes of Blue Planet and Pacific Abyss. So the charity was set up with charismatic former international banker Howard Lack as CEO, to raise funds to campaign to raise awareness of the issue. One of the biggest challenges we face is to take a difficult subject and make it interesting, so we’re making a cinematic film with a team of top camera crews and producers to bring the message to the big screen. It will be dramatic, shocking, engaging, educational and compelling. People need to know how serious this problem is. Only then can we all pull together to tackle this crisis. There will also be an education programme running alongside to ensure school kids learn about plastic pollution. This is being run by diving instructor David Jones, who’s based in Portsmouth.

JS: What persuaded you to get involved with Plastic Oceans in the first place? What is your role?

JM:: Everyone on the team has witnessed the dire consequences of plastic pollution; the crippling effect on wildlife – seals being strangled by plastic cords, turtles swallowing plastic bags, birds with their stomachs full of plastic. As the principal underwater camera on the award winning cinema release ‘The End of
the Line’, I understand how a powerful film can help make a difference. As a journalist, I also hope to bring story telling skills
to the team. But mostly, I believe in the lead producer Jo Ruxton, who overcame cancer to take on the challenge of making this film. She believes it’s as important an issue as climate change and the team are behind her every inch
 of the way in making it happen.

JS: Is there anything that you have learnt whilst working with them that has particularly shocked you?

JM: For me the most shocking realisation is the impact plastic pollution is having on the biggest animals on the planet – whales. These stunning animals have roamed the oceans for millions of years. Now they not only have to contend with being butchered by the Japanese, they face an even more insidious problem because their diet is laced with plastic. So many animals are being found with vast quantities of plastic inside their stomachs and in their body mass that they can no longer reach their optimum size. We have filmed in the very locations that blue whales, the biggest animals ever to live, and found slicks of plastic pollution in their path. They have no choice. They’re going to eat it.

JS: I’ve heard that there are toxins in the plastic that come out when it breaks down. What is the effect of these toxins to both man and animal?

JM:: For starters, toxins are not good for animals – full stop.
By definition that includes us. Scientists call the bad stuff connected to plastic Persistent Organic Pollutants, or POPs for short. No prizes for guessing these are harmful and the list of possible effects on man are pretty alarming – everything from cancer and diabetes to genital defects and rheumatoid arthritis. Only now are scientists starting to realise that POPs can have fairly profound consequences in children; lower IQs, behavioural issues, memory problems and serious medical issues which are still being assessed.

JS: Should we (mankind) be more worried about the world plastic problem in comparison to all the other environmental problems that we are facing today? Seems we’re doomed.

JM:: Let’s say it’s on a par
with climate change, ocean acidification and over-fishing. The big difference is we’re not yet hearing about it to the same extent. It’s not a sexy issue and so the media is only now starting to get to grips with the magnitude of the problem. It’s not helped by scare mongering stories about
a so-called ‘garbage patch the size of Texas’ in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. There simply isn’t a giant floating island of plastic. The real problem lurks just below the surface in the form of tiny particles of plastic being carried in powerful currents, slowly
but surely around the globe.

JS: Does it help to use ‘bio- degradable’ plastic bags?

JM:: If it’s made of plastic, quite simply it isn’t bio-degradable. There are attempts to persuade us otherwise but if it’s really made of plastic it won’t go AWAY. As Sir David Attenborough, a strong supporter of Plastic Oceans, puts it, ‘When it comes to plastic, there is no such thing as away.’ That’s why we’re determined to get the message out there that AWAY is the new four-letter word in marine conservation. But using bags for life is at least a start. And there are places where plastic bags have been banned altogether.

JS: Is there any hope for the future when we cannot control what’s going on in so much of the world... waste-wise?

JM:: It’s one of the toughest challenges we face, especially in these hard economic times. But as the foundation is discovering, there are revolutionary new methods being developed to deal with plastic waste in particular, such as turning it into fuel. We can’t do much about what’s already in the ocean but the alarm bells are starting to ring and nations are realising that if we don’t do anything we are in danger of losing our most precious resource, the oceans.

JS: Is there one key fact that you think might help persuade Joe Public to say ‘no’ to that plastic bag they are being handed at the supermarket?

JM:: This is the toughest of
them all. We could shout about how bad plastic bags are for
the environment but it’s about changing lifestyles. Personally,
I hope the film convinces people that we all have a responsibility to reduce plastic waste. It’s not just about plastic bags. I personally would ask them how they would feel if they knew that the plastic bag they’ve just brought back from the supermarket would eventually find its way to a remote part of the planet and
into the mouth of a polar bear, the stomach of a turtle of over the head of a bird, choking it to death. That’s the reality. Not fiction.

JS: If we were to make three changes to our daily behaviour with regards to plastic waste, what would the three key things be that might help to make a difference?

JM:: Did you know that only clear plastic can be recycled into clear plastic bottles for reuse? So avoid buying coloured plastics. Did you know that according to water filtration company Brita, Americans throw away 35 billion plastic water bottles every year. Did you know that man has produced more plastic in the past decade than in the previous 100 years? It’s scary, isn’t it.

JS: Is there anything else that you think we should all really know?

JM:: In the UK alone, we get through 13 billion plastic bags
a year. Eighty per cent of marine pollution is made up of plastic.
If readers of this take away one thing, it is that there is no such thing as AWAY when it comes
to plastic pollution. Have a look at this picture of the polar bear (p20) with a plastic bag dripping from its mouth. This bear lives in the Arctic Circle. How on earth do you think it got there? The answer is that it could have come from any one of us. It could have been YOUR bag. Think about it.

The film ‘Away’ is due for release in early 2013.

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