 Welcome to Healthy Planet, the show for people who care about their health and the health of our planet on the ThinkTech Live Streaming Network series. I'm your host, Dr. Grace O'Neill. Joining me in the studio today is Suzanne Frazier of the Beach Environmental Awareness Campaign Hawaii. Today we're going to talk about the harmful side effects of plastic. Suzanne Frazier is a co-founder of Beach Environmental Awareness Campaign Hawaii. This award-winning nonprofit brings awareness and solutions to plastic marine debris. So Suzanne, let's just get right into it. I saw in your biography that you've been in the movie Bagot. Tell me more about that. Aloha, Grace. Thank you so much for having me on your very first Healthy Planet show. It's an honor to be here. So Bagot, yes, that's a film about plastics and chemicals and how they're harmful to your health and the environment. So we helped the filmmakers learn about those issues and did some of the background shots of the film. And then they got redone with an actor in different parts. I really enjoyed that movie myself. One of my friends helped produce that movie. And so that's how I saw it. And I didn't realize I didn't know you back then. But when you have said in your biography that you're in the movie, then I just instantly recognized because that was one of the things I didn't realize I was doing every day. Easy one-time use plastics. I was using plastics to put my vegetables in them. And I know you at Beech, your organization, you really encourage people to use the multiple use items that are not made out of plastic to put their vegetables in. And I really think that's a great idea. Can you tell me more about what kind of things you offer for the community? Yes, well, Beech is an all-volunteer non-profit. I think we've got a slide about that. We bring awareness and solutions to plastic marine debris through environmental education, marine debris removal and research, and plastic reduction and litter prevention campaigns. And our aim is to inspire people to take action, to reduce and prevent marine debris and reduce the use of plastics so that they can help save sea turtles, seabirds, other marine life, our ocean and coastal environment. So thinking in a way that you're not going to be producing waste is really what we're all about, is getting people to act and think about, do I really need this plastic thing or can I bring a reusable item like a reusable bag, a reusable bottle, a reusable utensil set, things like that to not cause waste? And in addition, it's not causing harm to either you or the environment. So Suzanne, since you know a lot about this topic, can you tell me and the rest of our audience about the harmful effects of plastics that people don't necessarily realize? Yes, well, it's taken a while, but at least the science is catching up with the problem. And I've got another slide there. You may have heard in the news about the average person eating about a credit card worth of plastic a week. And this study here found that if you're drinking water, you could be ingesting 1,769 particles of plastic with your water, either bottled or tap water, 182 pieces of plastic with shellfish, 10 with beer or 11 with salt. So what's been going on is that plastic has been breaking into smaller and smaller pieces and entering the food chain. And plastic isn't just plastic. Plastic has chemicals in it, and those chemicals are harmful to your health. So if we move to the next slide, you may have heard about bands on polystyrene foam. Our organization has been very much involved in helping to protect human health as well as the environment by passing laws, including a ban on polystyrene foam containers. And the reason for that is they leach a chemical called styrene into hot food, oily food, and acidic foods and drinks. And styrene is toxic to your brain and nervous system and affects red blood cells, kidney, and liver, and animal studies. So it's really not a healthy option to get hot food in styrofoam or even oily or acidic. You really want to avoid that. Other chemicals include antimony in plastic water bottles. And that's a potentially cancer-causing substance. BPA in water dispensers. You really want to avoid that too. Recently, like in the past couple of years, I learned about hot filling. And that was just shocking if we could move to the next slide. So clear plastic containers, such as these filling with honey and tomato sauce and juices and so on, they're in a plastic bottle that's clear, which is called PETE, or PETE for short. And that's your number one with the triangle. And as I mentioned, antimony is the chemical involved in that. And these items, the honey and the juice and all that, is being hot filled at nearly boiling temperature into that bottle. And obviously, the chemicals are leaching out of it. And then if you move to the next slide, this one shows tetra packs. And although they look like a harmless paper box there, they're actually lined with that same number one plastic, the PETE, or number one plastic, is inside the lining. And these items are also hot filled. So you're talking about, again, juices, soups, and so on, being hot filled into tetra packs. And then the next slide is showing soft packaging. Soft packaging, how they make plastic soft, is they add silates to it. And these packages of cookies, or roasted nuts, or chips, granola, and so on, anything that's cooked, baked, roasted, heated in any way, is put into those soft plastic packaging, warm or hot, again, allowing the chemicals to come out of the packaging into the food and drink. So you go ahead. No, go ahead. Don't please. Go ahead. I was just going to say we've got some symbols. You were probably going to ask about those in the next slide. Go ahead, Grace. Oh, yeah. So can you tell us about the different symbols and what they mean? Because it's not something that you're trying to do recycling. Right. Well, I mean, you know, this is so misleading because it looks like those symbols mean recycling, right? But actually, that's just false because very little plastic ever gets recycled, and even less gets recycled now because there's countries around the world that have just refused, like China, to take the garbage anymore. And what I'm calling garbage is because it's very hard to get people to do recycling right. It's generally you've got to put only one or two numbers in your recycling bin. Like on our island, it's meant to be one and two, and that's it. Because it has a triangle, people think, oh, it's recyclable. I'll just go throw it in my blue bin and fingers crossed, sort of hopeful recycling. But yeah, I mean, these should be squares with no arrows. That's what I think. Basically, it's the resin identification code. And what that means is the type of plastic and chemicals that are in that item, it does not mean that they're recyclable. In fact, number three, six, seven, forget it. Pretty much nobody wants to recycle post-consumer. Number three, six, or seven, four, and five, not even recyclable on this island. So it's extremely misleading. And it was developed really for that purpose of tricking the public into believing that all the plastic was good. And don't worry, use more. We can just recycle it. Yeah, I found a good, well, there was a really good PBS special about this, how the advertising from, it's very misleading, the advertising from companies when they initially made all these plastics and they tried to market it to everybody and people would not buy it until they tried to market the recycling. And that front line special is excellent. I highly recommend it. It's called Plastic Wars. I think everyone needs to watch that. It was brilliantly done. And they interviewed the actual insiders of the plastics industry from back in 1985, the people who are involved in it, in developing that code. And they even admit really in the documentary about the purpose of that code was really to mislead the public into believing that things can get recycled when they really couldn't. Yeah, it's so disappointing because you think that you're trying to do the best thing you're trying to recycle, but actually it's not possible. No, it's not. It's very disappointing. Well, I mean, if it's glass, glass is great. Like you can keep recycling glass over and over and over again and make it back into a glass bottle again, same with cardboard, paper, wood, metal, all those things are really great for recycling. But with plastic, even the plastic that does get recycled, the 1% to 2%, they actually have to dig up more fossil fuels and make more resin and add new plastic to the old plastic in order to turn it into something. And it's never the same item again. It's a downgraded item from the original. So, and really plastic can only be recycled one more time if it even gets recycled. So the whole recycling plastic thing is really misleading. Now, you mentioned the plastics not able to be recycled, but I know you talked about this at the VegFest, how people like Patagonia or big companies are saying that they're making these, kind of like winter clothing from the plastics and they're trying to recycle plastic bottles like that. Can you tell us what your thoughts are on that? Okay, well, yeah, what happens with those number one clear plastic bottles when you throw them in the recycling bin is if they do get recycled, they get sent to overseas, obviously, because nothing gets recycled here in Hawaii, shredded up, made into recycled pellets and then melted down and made back into items such as fleece bedding, fleece clothing and so on. Now, what happens when a person then washes that item is millions of microfibers made of plastic come off that item and go down the drain and do not get collected by wastewater. So they end up out in the ocean causing more harm. So you're actually not helping the environment by recycling. If that's what they're gonna turn it into, anything that's getting washed is just gonna cause more harm. Yeah, that's very disappointing to hear because I know I've bought some stuff that was made from recycled plastic bottles thinking that I was helping, but tell me more about the effect on animals in the ocean with these microbeads and other things that they might be consuming. Yeah, so we've got a slide, I think it's slide 10. How plastic affects marine life is through habitat destruction, entanglement and ingestion. And we've got a photo, the next slide shows a endangered Hawaiian monk seal that's entangled in a piece of rope. We called NOAA and they came and luckily cut the animal free. But the fishing industry, unfortunately, is from our research, is the top polluter of marine debris both in size, in volume, in weight and in pieces so far in our preliminary results, that's what it shows. And that means that animals are being harmed by getting entangled either underwater so they can't come up and breathe if they're air breathing. Smothering coral is another thing that happens with nets and rope and breakages and so on of the reef. Habitat destruction, there's beaches. Some beaches we went to, well, one in particular was one foot deep in plastic at Camillo Beach on the big island. I mean, where are the sand crabs gonna go? Where are the monk seals gonna give birth? I mean, it's just, sea turtles forget it. I mean, how are they gonna dig through debris to lay eggs? That's just terrific, the destruction of habitat on land. And then ingestion is just, right now the job I'm doing is looking at seabird debris and it's just so upsetting to be pulling, looking at these little pieces of debris and they're covered in blood, like the rope and the pieces of plastic and so on. You can see the blood's still there, even though this debris is a few years old or whatever, but it's sad, you know, how these animals are harmed. They either die from blockages, from ingesting debris, they're not able to then expel, from lacerations, from sharp pieces of debris. Quite often I'm finding sharp pieces of debris in the seabird debris that we're looking at that could easily puncture blood vessels and they can bleed internally from starvation where the stomachs are full of plastic that they're not hungry anymore so they're just not eating and dehydration because obviously plastic isn't like eating squid or fish so they're not getting any fluids and they die of dehydration. So it's very sad this is going on, it's very widespread, millions of animals and birds are being affected by this. And people too, because the chemicals are passed through the food chain, if people are eating fish and seafood, they're getting the, not just the hard pieces of plastic, they're more likely getting the chemicals that are being bio-accumulated up through the food chain. Now this just breaks my heart to hear that there's been blood that you found on the fishing nets from marine animals. I'm just wondering, why do they have so much waste? Like, do they literally throw away everything they have in the ocean, the fishing industry? Well, it's incredible to find this out but we had to one day, we were being interviewed by an Italian film company from one of the main TV stations over there and they wanted to go out on a fishing boat to see the garbage batch. And I kept telling them, look, it's right here on the beach, do you really need to get in the boat? And they insisted they have to get in the boat. So we go down to like one of the docks on the big island looking for a fisherman who's willing to take them out on their boat. And the fisherman's like, well, what do you wanna go see? And they said, marine debris. And he went, oh, we love marine debris. And I'm like, you're kidding, aren't you? You're joking, right? And he's like, no, we like it. And I'm like, why? You know? And he said, because it's a fish aggregating device and this is going on deliberately, like not just accidentally, there's some accidental loss of fishing nets and rope and so on, but there's also deliberate dumping in the ocean of masses of net and rope and anything else they wanna throw on top. And then they add a tracking device to it like a satellite tracking buoy and let the fish accumulate under this artificial area. And then they come back later and catch the fish. Yeah, this is really upsetting. I mean, these fishermen, is there any kind of penalty for them? Are they fined? Is there anything that you're working on or that might be in development for the future for some kind of consequences for these people who pollute the ocean like this Yes. That's what our organization's all about is we're not just researching for the purpose of researching to put it in some obscure journal somewhere that nobody reads. What we want to do is come up with solutions at the local, state, national and international level that specifically targets the harmful debris, the items that are most often discarded and so on and that's why we're working really hard to finish our research into the sources of marine debris and we're even hiring translators right now. We've got job opportunities for translators in Japanese, Chinese and Korean because we need these items. Sometimes we've only got a piece of the item but we need them translated so that we know anything we can find out what company it came from, what type of item it is, who might have used it and then develop those solutions at all those different levels to stop this problem at source. Yeah, that's wonderful. I mean, what kind of things can people do right now to help this whole situation? What can an individual like myself or somebody else do if they feel passionate about this? Well, I think that it all starts with caring about your world and where you live and taking action starts with good thoughts and I really think that it's important to think about what you're doing and is this wasteful or is this the right thing to do? So I really hate those words, single use plastic. I saw on the TV the other day all the words that need to be banned for the year or that get overused or something and I really would like to see single use plastic get banned. You know, the word even because it's a very wasteful way of thinking that you're gonna only use something once. That never happened when I was growing up. If you did have a plastic fork or a papa or something or rather, it would get washed. It would get taken to the sink at the end of the party and wash and reused again. So I think we need to get back to this idea of not thinking and behaving in such a wasteful way. One of my pet hates those pods. That's single use plastic and funnily enough, nobody calls it single use plastic but I'm calling it single use plastic right now on your show. Anyone watching, please don't keep buying those. That is just awful, wasteful, terrible and harmful because that stuff, there's no magic solution to plastic. It's not gonna just disappear in your washing machine. What it's actually gonna do is clog it up and that's another thing people need to do is if you make good choices for yourself, they're always gonna be good for the environment as well and marine life and vice versa. So being wasteful with pods is just harming, you know, your washing machine's harming the fish because it's gonna kill them. So if you do have some of those, my recommendation is to slit them open, take the powder or tablet or whatever it is out and use it, don't waste it, but just don't buy them again. Now same with K-cups. I mean, you're getting coffee with chemicals when you have K-cups, you know. So just, I think just thinking more about how can I be less wasteful and use less stuff, especially if it's plastic. Yeah, that's great advice because a lot of people don't realize even those, aren't those receipts coated in plastic? Unfortunately, yes. Yeah, BPA is on the shiny cash register receipts. So yeah. You don't even see why they have to do that. Why do they have to make it shiny? It used to not be shiny. There's still some places that don't have it shiny, so. Well, here's my theory is that this billion dollar plastics industry, they work really hard to promote, change this to plastic, do that with plastic. Like they're always, I think, looking for a new market for plastic, this plastic, that all around us, it's gonna get even worse because of electric cars, because the oil that they used to make plastic, that they used to use for all the cars, they're now gonna be using to make more plastic. So they're looking for more markets for oil because of electric car use. So if we're not careful, if we don't stick on this and take notice and make better choices, then we're just gonna have plastic everywhere. I mean, it's already started. I mean, where I live, the neighbor got plastic grass. All our other neighbors got plastic fences. They tried to put styrofoam on everyone's roof. I mean, this is crazy. We've got to stop doing this. It's just not the right way to go when plastic doesn't go away. It lasts forever. Yeah, and what is plastic really? I mean, what is it made out of besides these chemicals? Isn't it made from oil and? Yes, it's made from fossil fuels, a non-renewable source. And these plastic fences and plastic grasses talking about, I mean, they're not absorbing any greenhouse gases. They're actually producing greenhouse gases and making our environment hotter, you know? So they're just, and off gas and chemicals at the same time, you know? So as I said, you know, if you make that good choice for you, it's always gonna be a good choice for the environment. Good choice for the environment, it's good choice for you. So it's just, I think the plastics industry is just trying to find whatever market they can. You know, if it's cash register streets, oh, we can make that out of plastic. Tools for the garden, we can make that out of plastic. Palm trees, let's just make some plastic palm trees. That's right. Well, thank you so much, Suzanne. We're out of time, so we have to wrap it up. I'm Grace O'Neill. This is Healthy Planet on Think Tech live streaming network series. We've been talking with Suzanne Frazier, co-founder of the Beach Environmental Awareness Campaign, Hawaii about the harmful side effects of plastics. Thank you for being here. Thank you, Eric, our broadcast engineer and the rest of the crew at Think Tech for hosting our show. And thanks to you, our listeners for listening. I'll see you January 20th for more of Healthy Planet on Think Tech, the show for people who care about their health and the health of our planet. Our next show features guests Dennis and Lissandra Rundewin of Seven Vegans, Hawaii. If you have ideas for the show, please contact me at healthyplanetthinktech at gmail.com. Check out my website at graceandhawaii.com for more information on my projects, including future show guests. I'm Dr. Grace O'Neill. Aloha, everyone.