Plastics in Paradise

In March of 2018, I was exploring deep in the remote Asian waters of the Pacific Ocean. I cautiously piloted the Cenderawasih, my 65-foot (20-m) traditional catamaran, through the western channel of the remote Wayag Islands. Only a few small settlements with rusty tin roofs populated the craggy shores of Waigeo. Miles and miles of deep blue Pacific Ocean separated us from the next nearest humans.

My hand on the massive iron-wood tiller, I steered my boat deeper into the narrow entrance. Karst islets on either side jutted up from the water like the back plates of some massive Leviathan. Finally, in the protected heart of the islands, I found a quiet lagoon fringed to the south by a stretch of fine, snowy white sand. Here I threw an anchor off the bow, backed the craft to the beach, and tied a stern line to a pine tree on the shore. As I killed the engine, I took in the breathtaking primitive scenery.

But then I saw them—unnatural invaders boondocking in this peaceful paradise. Plastic wrappers, old nylon rope, Styrofoam, discarded sandals, and a load of other rubbish had been pulled into the bowels of Wayag from the strong currents that zip back and forth each day. The trash could not escape the quiet lagoons. Some of the factory-made flotsam became hopelessly stranded on the beaches while some dumbly ebbed and flowed, bunched together forming multicolored colonies on the water’s foamy surface.

Mike Wild has sailed into the plastic pollution problem while exploring the Pacific Islands.

Sadly, in the years that we spent in this part of the world, I witnessed this scene over and over while exploring remote and uninhabited islands: God’s amazing watery creation sullied by man’s careless management.

We’ve seen the pictures of entangled dolphins and birds, of sick turtles, manta rays, and whale sharks. Plastic pollution has become an undeniable global menace in the world’s oceans, impacting not only our scenery but also our food sources and potentially even our own health and our children’s futures.

We know the Creator loves his creation. The Psalms are full of verses showing how God cares and provides for the things he made (see Psalm 104). To tell his disciples how their heavenly Father cares for them, Jesus revealed that God knows what happens to each tiny sparrow. From Job 38:16, I am led to envision the Lord walking in the recesses of the deep sea, enjoying the wonderful things he made. But we also see from Scripture and from personal experience that all of creation is groaning while it waits for its deliverance from decay (Romans 8:20–22). Because of Adam’s disobedience long ago, the world was cursed and plunged into corruption.

As followers of Christ, we join creation in waiting for the Lord to make all things new. While still “on our watch,” we know that we should strive to be good stewards of the earth that God has entrusted to us. But in today’s climate of radical, corrupt environmentalism mixed with the sensational atmosphere of social media and fake news, Christians can be confused about what is fact and what is exaggeration when it comes to reports of plastic in the oceans. In obedience to our Creator’s command, we must look at the information carefully to understand what impact plastic waste is having on these watery reservoirs that comprise 70% of the earth’s surface.

The Positives of Plastic

Since its creation in 1907, plastic has been improved and modified in nearly countless ways to assist and enhance our lives, benefitting humanity and creation as a whole. Plastic is lightweight, strong, and durable. With it, we make an ever-increasing number of products, from airbags and bike helmets to electronic components and artistic tools. Plastic helps us build bridges, construct houses, and save lives in emergency rooms. It makes life safer and more convenient while also benefitting the environment. With it, we produce lighter vehicles and machines, making them more fuel efficient with less emissions. And by creating synthetic goods to replace natural wood and bone, we avoid depleting our forest resources, and we no longer legally hunt elephants and rhinos for their ivory.

Arguably every person in the world uses plastic daily. Even remote tribes living in the isolated interior mountain region of Papua, Indonesia, own plastic items that have been traded from distant towns, and the fierce islanders living in the forbidden Andaman Islands, though having no contact with the outside world, most certainly use plastic debris that washes along their shores. Plastic has truly become one of the world’s most versatile commodities, but this product that helps us in so many ways is also harming the Creator’s beautiful world.

Our Part in the Plastic Problem

A recent article on the Coastal Care website says, “Our tremendous attraction to plastic, coupled with an undeniable behavioral propensity of increasingly over-consuming, discarding, littering and thus polluting, has become a combination of lethal nature.”1 But just how lethal has it become? According to the journal Science Advances, over 8 billion tons of plastic have been produced since 1950. More than half of that went to landfills, and only about 9% was recycled. Experts suppose that much of that unrecycled plastic now pollutes the ocean.2

Having lived in Asia Pacific for the last 17 years, I have seen people who have no problem polluting the earth. In fact, some people see the ocean as their trash can. In this context, I have witnessed how quickly plastic waste can destroy habitats and wildlife while making living conditions wretched for people. Once I observed a man come down to the ocean’s edge with a wheelbarrow full of trash and dump it right at the waterline, adding to the rancid hill of trash already wet and glistening in the morning sun. I have been on a boat, miles out from beautiful seaports and spotted innumerable plastic wrappers and rice bags floating serenely three feet under the crystal blue surface. I have seen small rivers clogged with a cover of plastic trash one- or two-feet thick. I have observed sea anemones and coral covered with plastic bags. And I have witnessed children rooting through piles of plastic and filth, looking for some treasure to carry to their house across the street.

The United States has a pollution problem as well. Research from a study in 2010 states, “With the [world’s] largest population, China produced the largest quantity of plastic, at nearly 60 million tons. This was followed by the United States at 38 million [tons].”3 And much of that plastic ends up as waste. I can remember riding down a Florida highway in the 1980s and seeing garbage along the roadsides from people throwing their trash out the windows. And once as a teenager I rescued a grumpy gar fish from a plastic six-pack holder cinched around his long body.

Thankfully, today there are stricter rules about dumping trash on the highway, and plastic six-pack holders aren’t as common. Even so, walking along a shore or sidewalk today, I still see a lot of manmade debris. But what if we are not litter bugs? Is it possible for our fast food wrapper or plastic straw to end up in the sea? Definitely!

Have you ever thrown your wrapper or plastic bottle toward a trash can with good intentions but missed the mark and left it lying on the ground? Some plastic blows out of trash cans, garbage trucks, and landfills, ending up in gutters, streams, and sometimes eventually the ocean. Other plastic in the oceans comes from commercial fisherman and plastic trash that is purposely dumped.

Breaking Down the Plasic Problem

The millions of tons of plastic pollution that ends up in the ocean every year is like a suffocating plague affecting the smallest to largest organisms on earth. Plastic in the oceans break down due to sun exposure and water motion. Some plastics take an estimated 500 to 1,000 years to break down. Others break down much faster. While this might seem better because we don’t see as much of it on the surface, plastic is actually having quite devastating effects on marine life. Large pieces of plastic eventually break down into smaller pieces of plastic called microplastics, which are ingested by many species of invertebrates, fish, marine mammals, marine reptiles, and birds. On remote Midway Island, halfway between Asia and North America, albatross are eating as much plastic as they are fish and are dying in droves. When filmmakers recorded their decomposed bodies on the beach, all that was left were feathers and bones encasing a pile of colored plastic.4

Even the world’s deepest ocean trench is not left unsullied. At over 36,000 feet, the Mariana Trench is littered with plastic trash. After finding plastic microfiber in the gut of a new species of amphipod from the trench, scientists named the creature Eurythenes plasticus.

The scientists who made this discovery said, “While plastic contamination in animals is not a new occurrence, unfortunately, the presence of plastic pollutants in a newly discovered species, in an area of our planet that we have yet to fully explore, makes this news particularly unsettling.”5

And it’s not only marine animals that ingest plastic. As plastic pollution in the ocean passes through the food chain, toxins get into the flesh and edible parts of seafood, which eventually ends up on our dinner plates. Scientists are still investigating the full effects of humans consuming plastic, but studies already suggest that plastic causes cancer, hormonal imbalance, and birth defects.

Microplastics: An Unseen Concern

Many plastics never completely degrade but continue breaking down into smaller pieces. The waves, wind, and sun on the open sea break plastics into tiny particles called microplastics. Some of these microplastics are less than one-fifth of an inch across, such as those shown here on a penny. Trillions of these microplastics litter the world’s beaches and waterways, injuring wildlife and contaminating the food chain. Many of them come from the microbeads used in hygiene products such as toothpaste and shower gel.

Minding the Mandate

If you are like me, when you read statistics talking about toxic seafood and billions of tons of trash, your eyes blur over. Feeling helpless to do anything about it, you go on living your life, trying not to feel guilty about eating with single-use utensils or bringing your groceries home in plastic bags.

But how should Christians approach this topic? Unfortunately, many of us view the plastic waste problem as the propaganda of liberal activists who value nature and animal rights over human lives. Some people seem to think, “Who really cares about birds that no one sees or a minuscule creature that lives at the bottom of a pitch-black ocean trench?” Others feel compassion for animals that needlessly suffer and die, but they don’t know what to do about it.

Other Christians think, “This world will be destroyed one day anyway, so why should we care to clean up the place?” But such attitudes disregard the very first mandate God issued in Genesis 1.

Of all who walk the earth, the followers of Christ should be leading in example when it comes to stewarding our God-given home.

We read in Genesis 1:26 that God made us to rule over the fish of the sea, birds of the air, and the livestock; over all the earth; and over all the creatures that move along the ground. This mandate did not come from radical leftist environmentalists with a secular agenda. It came straight from the Creator to us—humans—the pinnacle of all he made. His command should be taken most seriously by those who claim the authority of Scripture and the Christian worldview. Of all who walk the earth, the followers of Christ should be leading in example when it comes to stewarding our God-given home.

Did you know that the ocean produces over 50% of the world’s oxygen and regulates the earth’s climate? The ocean gives us not only seafood but also many ingredients found in everyday foods and products, such as the thickener carrageenan (a compound from red algae) used in nut butters and toothpaste. Many medical products also come from the ocean, including ingredients that help fight cancer, arthritis, Alzheimer’s disease, and heart disease.

So even if you are living miles from the ocean or don’t eat seafood, not caring for the oceans is like cutting off the hand that feeds you. Because healthy oceans are crucial to all life on earth, we must look after the health and well-being of our families and communities by protecting what has been entrusted to us. Christians must rule the planet in a respectful way that reflects God’s rule as sovereign Lord. This involves being educated about and responsible with plastic.

Loving the Environment, Loving Our Neighbor

The unbelieving world notices when Christians disregard or balk at environmental stewardship.

For the last two years, while working at an eco-resort, I had the privilege to rub shoulders with experts in marine biology, conservation, animal behavior, and sustainable management and restoration. Our conversations would often come to the devastating problem of plastic pollution in our oceans. They were intrigued to find a Christian interested in protecting the planet since they viewed Christians as wanting to pour all their efforts into helping people rather than the environment.

My response was that a Christian can meet the physical needs of our fellow humans by taking care of the oceans. Since all people are dependent on environmental resources for life, protecting the environment is protecting people—loving our neighbor as Christ commanded.

The bottom line is that, as earth’s managers, Christians must understand the impact plastic waste is having during our watch. We must seek to honor God in every area of our lives, including by looking carefully at the information about plastic pollution, monitoring how much plastic waste we produce, and responsibly disposing of our plastic. We must also seek innovative ways to recycle what exists and to restore damage to the environment.

Until the day God creates a new heaven and earth, we should live in holistic obedience to Scripture. To love our Creator is to obey him and to love our neighbors is to serve them. Our obedience to rule over creation well honors God and can even open doors for us to share the good news of Jesus Christ with a confused and hopeless world.

Embark on an expedition with Mike Wild’s family in Deep-Sea Canoe, a Wild Brother’s adventure film on Answers.tv.