Save The Plastic Bag

THE FAMOUS TURTLE PICTURE

This photograph of a turtle eating a plastic bag is published thousands of times on the Internet. This particular turtle is the poster child of the anti-plastic bag movement.

We have been unable to find many other photographs of turtles eating plastic bags. To check for yourself, search for "turtle plastic bag" on Google Images. You won't find many.

TRICK PHOTOGRAPHY

Anti-plastic bag activists show the same five photographs over and over again in support of their claim that plastic bags kill huge numbers of marine mammals and seabirds. An unsuspecting public assumes that they are examples of thousands or millions of similar incidents. The public is being misled.

A London Times article has exposed as a myth the claim that large numbers of marine mammals and seabirds are dying from ingesting plastic bags.

In a report by the US National Ocean Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the authors state (at page 9): "There are very few, if any, published records of small plastics as the direct cause of mortality in sea turtles"

What is really killing turtles? Not plastic bags. Click here for an index of all sea turtles admitted to the Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center from 1996 to 2012. Plastic bags and plastics are not even mentioned.

Click here to read about the approximately 4,600 turtles that are are killed every year in US fisheries by fishing nets and hooks.

Click here for a study entitled: “Estimates of marine mammal, sea turtle, and seabird mortality in the California drift gillnet fishery for swordfish and thresher shark, 1996-2002.” Large numbers of turtles, marine mammals, and seabirds are killed by fishing activities.

MARINE ANIMALS AND MAMMALS

Anti-plastic bag activists show a photograph of a sea lion eating a plastic bag.

They also use a photograph of the contents of the stomach of a whale, including one or more plastic bags.

In April 2010, a gray whale that died after getting stranded on a West Seattle beach had a large amount of garbage in its stomach. Most of the whale's stomach contents was algae — typical of the bottom-feeding mammals. But Cascadia Research Collective, whose experts were among those who performed the necropsy, said "a surprising amount of human debris" was found, including "more than 20 plastic bags, small towels, surgical gloves, sweat pants, plastic pieces, duct tape, and a golf ball." On top of all that, the whale "also had cuts on the head possibly from a boat propeller," the group said in a statement. It added, though, that "these did not appear fresh or deep enough to have been involved in the death of the animal." Cascadia emphasized that no evidence suggested the trash was responsible for the whale's death, but added: "It did clearly indicate that the whale had been attempting to feed in industrial waters and therefore exposed to debris and contaminants present on the bottom in these areas." Click here for the story.

There is a photograph of an otter caught in a plastic bag - which is tragic. No one can deny that.

We cannot find another photograph showing that a whale or other marine mammal ate a plastic bag.

SEABIRDS

We have seen one image of a bird eating a plastic bag. It is part of a video by the Ban the Bag Plastic Pollution Coaliton.

Anti-plastic bag activists use photographs of two birds that may have been entangled in a plastic bag. Click here and here for the photographs. We can’t tell whether the bird in the first photograph is entangled in a bag or not.

We are not aware of any other photographs or videos.

MISSING EVIDENCE

Plastic grocery bags were introduced thirty years ago. If plastic bags are such a huge problem for marine mammals and seabirds as the anti-plastic bag activists maintain, then there would be thousands of photographs by now.

The City of Manhattan Beach, California has been perpetuating the myth about marine mammals and seabirds. At a public hearing on plastic bags in the City Council on July 1, 2008, SaveThePlasticBag.com pointed out that there is no evidence of a major problem and that the photo of the turtle with the blue plastic film or bag in its mouth was being published over and over again.

Following the hearing, Heal the Bay backtracked and restated its position according to a published media report. The report states:

The president of Heal the Bay, Mark Gold, rebutted [SaveThePlasticBag.com's] argument that plastic bags do not kill a large number of marine life, pointing out that the bags break down in the ocean through photodegradation and wave and wind activity.

“The bags are all broken into smaller bits and mix together in a sort of soup,” explained Sarah Abramson, the coastal resources director of Heal the Bay. “When we conduct an autopsy on an animal, it’s difficult to figure out what plastic killed it, but going off of the statistics we have from the amount of high amount of plastic bags found during beach clean-ups and the large number that wind up in catch basins, it’s fair to say a good percentage of the plastic debris marine life are consuming is from plastic bags.”

In other words, they are making a huge assumption. They don't have the evidence. As we can see from the London Times article, the hype about marine mammals and seabirds is not a basis for banning plastic bags.

BAN FISHING?