offshore living quarters interior design

craig:i remember the first time i saw a pictureof a blue whale, which was ina national geographic magazine, a drawing of the whale, and then a tiny humanstanding beside it. this thing was biggerthan any dinosaur. and, as an 8-year-old, i couldn't imagine thatthere was anything that big. i've followed themsince childhood

with the absolute design to go and film themmyself at some point. and that was 40 years later. ( indistinct conversation ) dr. lindsay porteris a cetacean expert, and ben fogleis a u.k. adventurer. so, lindsay,just tell me, what kind of whalesin particular arewe looking for? today, we're lookingfor the blue whale.

there are two differenttypes of blue whalewe'll see in the area: the true bluesand pygmy blues. and how do they differ? pygmy blues areslightly smallerthan true blue whales. when you sayslightly smaller, what size are wetalking about here? twenty-five meters.( laughter ) lindsay has sucha depth of knowledge that she's my first go-to

when i've got a questionabout a whale. so, as the currentsand the waves come in, they create thisvery productive front, and this is why wethink the animals--the whales-- feed here. so, when you sayproductive front, i imagine krill, food,is being welled up... ben fogle rowed a boatacross the atlantic, and that meant that he hada sense of adventure. he was a risk-taker.

from the very first daywe saw them blowing, we knew they were there, but they were very hardto reach. these animals cando up to 30 kilometersan hourunderwater, and they can stay underwaterfor a half an hour, and go in any direction. when we saw them, we'd follow them,try to get near them, wait for themto come up again,

and then just neversee them again. tell me what i shouldbe listening out for. for whales, you needto listen for a low-frequency monotone, and for dolphins-- oh, can you hear itright there? that? the whistles?the high-pitched whistles? the high-pitchedwhistling, that's the group ofdolphins we justpassed here. how far away do youthink they are now?

they'll still bewithin a kilometer. that's a long wayfor it to go! it's a big ocean. they've got to talkto each other over distance. incredible! we traveled up and down,50 miles off the coast, for two weeks,trying to get closeto these animals. we ran out of time. we started headingback to port...

oh, look, look.at two o'clock,another blow. four. and it looks likehe's going to fluke up... and dive. so he'll probably bediving for anotherten minutes or so. whoosh! they look likefreight trains, like enormous spaceshipsthat just travel effortlessly. every piece of themlooked like something i'd seen on a--reengineered on an aircraft

or on a supercar. when they fluke, they arch like that, their tail comes upvertically and drops straightin the water, and you can barelyhear a sound. wow! look at that! wow! that is just beautiful!

( whale song ) it's the first timethat we believe that anyone has ever filmeda juvenile pygmyblue whale underwater. what do you thinkit's from, alex? is it from a ship? no, it came from a river. we were in the indian ocean, off the coast of sri lanka, where there hasn't beenany commercial fishing

because of the civil war. the beaches have beenclosed for up to 30 years. we thought thiswas a relativelypristine environment. floating on the surface,and a meter below, was just this horrible,crappy, emulsified mess of oiland bits of-- you know, it's horrible, and looking through it, you could see the tendrilsof the net hanging down.

that was certainly one ofthe most unpleasant divesi've ever done. tanya: i spentmy childhood in the sea. growing up in grand cayman, we didn't have organizedsports after school. we didn't even have a tvuntil i was 13, so the sea was my playground. as a free diver,it was the place where i proved myself to myself by traveling to the absoluteedge of myself.

( inhales deeply ) i need to put as muchoxygen in my blood as possible so that i can hold my breath for the three-and-a-halfto four minutes that the diveis going to take me. ( "packing" air ) 525 feet is beyondthe crushing depth of second world warsubmarines. in pushing so hard,

i learned about limits. i've got a fiery redhead, and she redefinesmy limits every day. ( audience laughs ) finally for me, it feels like there's a point to this bizarre gift i have of, quote, "looking prettyand holding my breath." i have the opportunityto pay the sea back,

but i'm learning on my feet. i didn't know thatin the last ten years, we've made more plastic than we did in the centurybefore that. half of thoseplastic products are considered disposable. but think about it: how can a disposable product be made of a materialthat's indestructible?

where does it go? this is a bryde's whale. it's dying,taking its final breaths. it was found to havesix square meters of plastic sheeting inside it. it couldn't eat, and it diedof malnourishment. its digestive systemwas blocked, and it died a terrible,painful death. okay, that's gota hole in it.

this is all some ofthe rubbish that we found in the floating jetsamand flotsam in the ocean. we'll get bento go through it, but there's even a packetof unopened biscuits. you can see it's been therefor some time, the molluscsthat are growing off it. there's crabs.there's a crab in there,have a look. so, uh, quite extraordinary. ah, another one.down here.

the detritus that's built upin these areas where they don't havethe benefit of getting ridof the rubbish. well, we're about20 miles offshore. it's been trappedin the river mouth, and now it's all beenflushed out into the sea. this is oneof the main areas where we're huntingfor the blue whalesto film, so this is right intheir environment.

they feed by openingtheir mouth and just sucking upwhatever's in their path. they take inhundreds of gallons of water, they express that water, and they feed off the krilland tiny fish. but they can't tellthe difference between krill and plastic. disposable lighters. this is never goingto degrade.

these are going to befloating there fora very long time. they'll break downto very small particles, and that's if somelarge marine mammal doesn't come alongand swallow them whole. it's got nowhere to go.this is where it lives now. well, to contrast that area of affected oceanby those plastics with the virgin blue waterthat you find very close by, well, there'sjust no comparison.

the animals of the worlddeserve the blue ocean, not that sort of shit. i started to wonderwhat's happening in oceans elsewhereon the planet. woman: sixty-three billiongallons of oil are used every year just to supply the u.s.with plastic water bottles. the u.s. alonethrows away38 billion bottles every year. that's two million tonnesof plastic

going into u.s. landfills, and that's only fromwater bottles. in this year alone,every single person on the planet will useand dispose about 300 pounds,or 136 kilos, of single-use plastic. man: plastic is wonderfulbecause it's durable, and plastic is terriblebecause it is durable. almost every piece ofplastic ever made

is still on the planetin some form or another. plastic productionglobally is expected to be more than 300 million tonnes, half of whichwe'll use just once... and then throw away. by 2050,when the population explodes to almost ten billion people, it's expected that plasticproduction will triple. the problem with that isthat today only a fraction

of the plasticthat we produce is recycled. the rest ends upin our environment, and it's coating our landand our oceans like a disease. tasmania smellslike freshness. it smells like salt spray primitive. it just smells natural. it has the cleanest airand water

measured anywhereon the planet. the ocean to me,it's my church, it's my temple,it's my synagogue,it's my mosque. it's where i feelthe most spiritual. it's where i go to work, where i go for my enjoyment, and where i go to think. and it's also the environmentthat challenges me more than any otherenvironment that i know.

growing up, my world was... exploring the rock pools... tiny little fish thati could catch and study and release a day later. my mother was very caring and very supportive of anything that we wanted to do, and she picked upvery early on, i think,

my fascination with wildlife. i'm fourth-generationjournalist. it is believed thathe's heading to moscow. we're on a track takingrice down to santa fe. okay, it's not live, is it? hang on, wait, wait!whoa! the further outside katmanduyou travel, the worse it seemsthe damage becomes. small villageslike this one, sankhu,

stood no chanceagainst the moving earth. these rescue teamshave been unable to accessinside this city. the town that i grew up inwas an industrial town. i remember coming outafter training from the surflife-saving club, where i was a member,with just stinging red eyes. so, when i workedfor the newspaper, i wanted to investigatewhat was causing that. we started doing testingon the water in emu bay,

and what we foundwas that there were these heavy amountsof organochlorines, and these contain dioxins, which arecancer-causing agents. i put this to the governmentof tasmania, and it admittedfor the first time thatthese dioxins existed, and thatthey were dangerous. within ten years, all ofthose industries had closed, and today the fishare back in the water.

the water is blue again, and it'sa very beautiful city. we think that when weput something in the trash, or when we just toss itfrom a boat or on a beach,that it goes away. ah! we're now freeof the plastic. over 80 percentof ocean plastic leaks from land-based sources. even if you don't livenear the ocean,

chances areyour plastic garbage has found its wayto the sea. the great lakesin north americaare a good example. eighty percent of the litteralong the shorelines of these majestic lakesis plastic. what trash doesn't remainon the shoreline or sink into the lake sediment flows through the canalsand river systems throughthe saint lawrence seaway

and into the atlantic ocean. these great lakesare just one example. this level of plastic debrisis found all around the world. thousands of yearsof agriculture and industry have made the medone of the most polluted bodies of water on the planet. about eight million tonnesof plastic is dumped into the world'soceans every year. more than 50% of marine debris,including plastic,

sinks to the bottomof the ocean. ahoy! hello, mike! hey, popov.welcome aboard. good to see you.yeah. i met up withfilmmaker mike degruy,a marine biologist and also an experiencedsubmersible pilot. it'll be interestingto see just how far-reachingit really is.

to be this far offshore and see whetherthe plastic that we know is comingfrom that direction is winding upout in the depthsout here, right? i'm really looking forwardto, of course, diving the sub,but diving the subin the med, a place that hasmore fishing impact than most bodies of wateron the planet. ( speaking french )

hey, mike, it's tanya. can you tell me whatyou're seeing down there? you turn the light on, and you're descendingthrough these particles. well, welcome to the bottomof the ocean, tanya. i wish you were down herewatching this operation. if you weren't hoggingthe sub, i would bedown there. mike:so, we're just under400 meters now. almost 1,200--about 1,200 feet.

( french accent )and a plastic bottle. plastic bottle.exactly. we're now starting to seemore and more plastic, more and more tiresand pieces of metal, and just absolutely disregardfor the bottom, really. it's just junk everywhere. fishing line is a reallydangerous thing to seein a submarine. you can get entangled in itand stuck to the bottom. not a good thing.

tanya, this is remora. we are right in frontof a pretty good sized bundle of plastic. is there any chancethat you can grab some of itwith the manipulator? mike: that's exactlywhat we're going to do. tanya:it looks likea lift bag. could it be a lift bag?( indistinct remark ) it's a what?( man speaking french )

tanya:we saw unexploded bombs, old parachutes,and plenty of plastic rubbish. our scientistscommissioned a small,remotely operated vehicle to travel overa mile and a half downto the deep trenches. the rov is coming down. there they are.which is kind of cool. tanya: here where the daylightnever reaches, the eddies and currentshave collected scores of plastic bottles.

this plastic couldremain here forever. you go down, you know,350, 375 meters, hit bottom,start moving around, and immediately startseeing trash. plastic. where in the worldcan you go anymore and not find plastic? tanya:our oceans are driven by five majorcircular currents, or gyres. these are created bythe earth's rotation

and the resultingpredominant winds. each continent is affectedby these massive systems. they collect waste flowingfrom our rivers and coastlines, and over time, anythingfloating within the gyre will eventually move towardsthe center of the gyre. our producer, jo ruxton,was familiar with the story about a huge,floating island of garbage twice the size of texasin the north pacific. jo joined dr. andrea nealand her team

on an expedition to thisgreat pacific garbage patch. so, we're deployingthe manta trawl, and we're going to look forfine particulates and debris. this mesh here is 330 microns, which is in the size rangeof zooplankton. craig: the manta trawl capturesmaterial on the surface. it will take anything the sizeof a pinhead or larger. looking outover the vast expanse of clear, sparkling water,

there is no plastic in sight. ( indistinct chatter ) the contents of the trawlare emptied and floated. the tiny pieces of plasticthen reveal themselves to jo and dr. neal. tanya: scientists estimatethat there are more than five trillion pieces of plastic afloat in our oceansworldwide. craig: there is no floatingisland of plastic.

what existsis far more insidious. what exists is a kind ofplastic smog. these tiny pieces of plasticthat are floating on the surface of the oceancome from larger pieces. over time,the sun's ultraviolet light, ocean wave action, and salt break it up into smaller piecescalled microplastics. microplastics haverough, pitted surfaces. waterborne chemicalsfrom industry and agriculture

stick to microplastics, making them toxic poison pills. there are fiveocean gyres, and the south pacific isone of the least studied, next to the indian ocean. i've been to threeof the five gyres, so this will bemy number four. so, let's go fishingfor plastic.all right, let's do it. bonnie:my first study was done

in the north atlanticin 2009. we took a seriesof seven samples, and by weightwe then estimated that the north atlantic had 3,440 metric tonnes of just microplastics-- we're not even includingthe larger plastics. seems really heavy. maybe we caught a coconut!

( laughter ) ah, that's--wow, look at that. you can see how wellthis device works.it collects everything. they look like they'vejust broken off something. they're very tiny.look at this. michael, i think we've foundour first nurdle. exactly what that is.preproduction pellets. those things floatall around the world,don't they? what does it look liketo you?

it lookslike a little egg. craig: the sea at nightis one of my favorite times. it's when the oceantruly comes alive, and you can virtuallysee the food chain in action. zooplanktonfeed on phytoplankton, small fish feedon zooplankton, squid feed on small fish, and so it goes on,up and up the food chain. ( indistinct,overlapping chatter )

well, shall we get themon the table and open them upand see what's in it? we'll start with this guy. that's something hardright here. oh, yeah, what's that? this is the very firstsample we did, and it was a night trawlso that we could catchlantern fish. after i dried the sample, i handpickedthe pieces of plastic.

this is what we found. so what this means isthe feeding that's occurring on the surface of the ocean has these plastic fragmentsfloating around, and is actually intermixingin the food chain. you know that plasticdoesn't degrade, and most of the timewe say it breaks down, but that's probably notan accurate way to say it. it actually breaks up,

so it's more proliferated, and when it's proliferated, there's more opportunitiesfor plastics to be ingested. many of the marine creatureseating this kind of plastic are in our food chain. does that mean, then,that this plastic is getting inside of us? the problem is, these plastics adsorbchemicals

that are free-floatingin the ocean, so when the fisheat the plastics, those toxins then migratefrom the plastic into the musclesor the fats-- the parts that we liketo eat in fish. building up in the fish,then, as they eat more and moreof them. that's the partwe like to eat, and that's wherethese chemicalsmigrate to.

( speaking native language ) big crab. nice, huh? it's a prawn, eh? hello, rosie. how are you? hi, this is bula.hi, bula. salote. dinner.what are we cooking? we're having taro leaveswith fish in coconut milk. that's a very traditionalfijian village dinner.yes it is.

it smells really good,except for the smoke. yeah, really makingmy eyes water in here. did you light your fireusing plastics?always, yes. and you do thatevery time you cook food?three times a day. instead of buying kerosene,you use plastic because it's easier to burn. much cheaper,easier to find,it's free. very much. and it's free. i'm feeling that in my eyes.

do you feel that thataffects you in any way? you start having problemsin breathing, and you have problemsin coughing, and sometimesyou can have headache, but we... it doesn'treally bother us, because, like, we'veused that for a long time. so you're used to it.we're used to it. yeah. whereas i'm not, which is why i'm cryingright now.

and i hope you're notcrying because of me. there's no chance.i'm crying because i won'tget to try this food. what i'd liketo do is bring backa scientist if i can, and do some measurementson the smoke, and just see what kind ofchemicals are being released from the plasticsas you cook. would you let us do that?yes, of course. then we can have a lookat maybe some of the health implicationsof starting the firewith plastic.

yes, i thinkthat's a good idea. people misuse plasticsfor a lot of things, but for cooking--i mean, that's, for me, it's kind of veryunusual circumstances. and we want to havea baseline study to show what kindof chemicals we're actually breathing in. because the lungis an interface between the airthat we're breathing in,

plus the smokeand our blood system, and then we get itin our systems. what did we find today,then, with the experiment thatyou did with this device? um, these filtersare white when youput them in, but-- that's brown, almost black. yeah.this is a mini lung. this could be what they'reabsorbing into their lungs. this can't be goodfor your health,can it?

what we know specificallyfrom this p.a.h. and a combination of those is that they arecancer causing. that's one thing. but there are alsomaybe phthalates in there which are evaporatingfrom plastics, which have a large percentageof the phthalates in there, to give plasticits properties. if you breathe them,

they have hormone-changingproperties, so-called endocrine-disrupting properties, and all-- lot of otherhealth effects as well. craig:professor sue jobling is the editor of the recentworld health organization report on endocrine disrupters. endocrine disruption is disruption ofthe normal functioning of the body'shormonal system.

they fool the bodyinto thinking that they are hormones, and then they either block or mimic the actionor production of hormones, and in doing so,they interfere with very manybodily processes-- growth, metabolism,reproduction, and, critically,early development. craig: the majorityof ocean plastic

comes from just six countries. radio voice:rthk news. news reader:billions of plastic pellets have spilled intohong kong's southern waters after several containersfell off a ship when typhoon vicentebattered hong kong. craig: six containersfull of nurdles. all of them broke upin the storm and disgorged most oftheir plastic bags

into the sea. the vast majority broke open, and the contents spilled out. run them throughyour fingers there. tracey: just plasticpellets everywhere. it looked like snowon the beach. craig: on the neighboringlamma island, they found tonnes of this stuffthat had come ashore. it seems the companythat made the nurdles

has unwittingly puttheir signature on them-- sinopec, a giantchinese oil company that makes nurdlesfor distribution worldwide. close by are some other sacks,also ripped open. the vast majority of themwould have been carried off by the typhoon to dispersetheir contents far and wide. four of the six are here, so we've got the oneon the top here. it's the one we foundat beaufort island.

it's totally destroyed. it's a 40-foot container. we've been told it carriesa thousand sacks. there's still onethat hasn't been found.still one out there somewhere. there's a million pelletsof plastic in these bags, so every single bag savesthousands of marine species, so every bag countsat this point. every day, pelletsare getting washed out, and trying to get thatsense of urgency across.

we put a call to action outon facebook: go to your local beach,this is what you're looking for. these are the bags,these are the pellets. we came up with a rapidaction plan-- get a quick surveyof the coast so we can seethe bigger picture, and from that then weisolated some hot spots. "which beach(cheung chau/ma wan) needs more people to help?"

uh, beach number one. i set up the facebook page, plastic disaster hong kong, and it went from 80to 1,000 likes in a few hours, and it became pretty muchthe one place where all the informationis being posted by everybody, and even the governmentwere checking in. sinopec were checking in. craig: sinopec sent downpeople from their head offices.

they had general managerson the beaches. they have beenvery responsible. we had an emergencymeeting about it. they're very concerned,and they're offeringall the assistance they can. thanks for helping, guys. there's some moreconcentrated pelletsdown the end there. craig: once you let peopleknow what the problem is, people have their own ideas and can contributetheir own ingenuity

to help solve the problem. the people of hong kong realized the severityof the problem, and just came outin their masses to help, and that is somethingthat i will never,ever forget. ( speaking chinese ) so, this is what theyfound in the fish farm. the pellets like thisfloating in the sea, and then they're foundin the bags.

we caught three fish. they cut them open,and each fish had five, six, seven pelletsin it. ( man speaking chinese ) because they can'tingest anything? they can't take inany more food? even the supermarketswon't buy them. so, it's completelydestroyed the local market. tanya: in a recent study

published inscientific reports, u.c. davis researchers examined 76 fishslated for human consumption in indonesiaand 64 in california. they found that in both groups,roughly one quarter had anthropogenic debrisin their guts. the researchersfound plasticinthe indonesian population, and plastic and textile fibersin the american one. when sampling blue musselsat six locations

along the coastlinesof france, belgium,and the netherlands, microplastics were present in every single organismexamined. when you eat shellfish, you're often eatingthe entire animal, so you're more likelyto eat plastic. lord howe islandis a world heritage site... and home to migratory seabirdslike the shearwaters. seabirds are incredibly helpful

because they actlikean army of scientists. they travel thousands of milesacross the ocean. they pick up plasticoff the surface of the ocean, they bring itback to their rookeries, where they feed itto their chicks, and that providesan incredible amountof scientific data, in terms of wherethe plastic comes from,its distribution, and how it breaks upon the ocean's surface. dr. jennifer lavers,

she's devoted her lifeto studying the plight of seabirds. shearwatersare incredible birds. they migratethousands of miles, stopping only here to breed. all species of shearwaternest in the earth. their parents return from their distantocean feeding grounds by night to feed their chicksin their burrows.

after 70 to 90 days, the chicks venture abovegroundfor the first time. they stretch their wings and begin developingtheir flight muscles. we're gonna take someambient temperaturesaltwater, just like he would normallybe fed by his parents, and ian's just goingto hold the mouth open here, and i'm going to put the tubedown into the stomach, if we can get himto cooperate for a moment.

have you ever received seriousinjury from one of these? indeed. have i ever. more than ican possibly count. depending on how fullhis stomach is, we could be herefor a little while. no, still nothin'.still nothin'. there we go. whoa. look at that. need to get some ofthe oil and stuffout of the way.

he's very sick,with all that oil, eh? that's a lot of plastic,isn't it? yeah, and someinteresting colors. the red is quite uncommon. it looks like we've gotquite a few of the resin pellets,the nurdles, lots of microplastics. right. there's no way,at 935 grams,

that he would be ableto take to the air. i'm going to makea bit of a note that he's got some damageto his lower mandible. forty-one point seven. craig: garbage thrown awayin the united states can make its way to antarctica. plastic in our coastal waters is pulled into the centerof massive, wind-driven, churningcircular gyres.

there are many otherocean currents also diverting the trash all around the surfaceof the ocean. in reality, it's justone ocean with no boundaries. yeah, the stomachis very, very full, and if we look here, there's some verydark pieces, some very light white pieces, and if you see, you know,as i push on this,

it's absolutely rigid, completely-- completely full of plasticall the way up. ah, look at that. absolutely no doubtthat this bird died as a result of that plastic. that is literallya gut full of plastic. it's quite alarming,isn't it? ah, it's awful.

range of plastic typesand colors. we've got everything fromthe blues and the reds, to-- his stomach's just filledwith it. big pieces, too. big, sharp pieces. oh, wow, look at the sizeof that big, black piece. that is an enormouspiece of plastic. unbelievable. look at the size of that. jen, i counted234 pieces of plastic

out of that one bird. is that a record?not even close,unfortunately. so, for the species, the record is 276pieces of plastic inside of one90-day-old chick. and that plastic,when we weighed it out, accounted for 15%of that bird's body mass. that's a prettyscary statistic. if we translate thatinto human terms,it gets even worse.

that would be equivalentto you and i having somewhere aroundsix or eight kilosof plastic inside of your stomach. it's equivalent to abouttwelve pizzas worth of food inside ofyour stomach. tanya: midway islandis milesaway from any coastline, but it has one ofthe biggest populations of laysan albatrossin the world. like the shearwater,

their parents have traveled thousands of kilometersto find food. it's quite a bit of plasticfor just one little bird. the parents were tryingto do the right thing. there's a lot ofsquid beaks in here, and this purple coloris evidence of the squid ink. it's just a shame thatevery now and then they got it wrong,and got it wrongin a bad way. to try and wrap your mindaround the conditionof this animal

and the quality of its life really is quitean overwhelming thing. i do have some prettyrough days, have to go homeand wrap my mind around "where do we go from here?" all week we've beencutting up birds, and this is without a doubtthe absolute worst onei've come across. that is an incredibleamount of plastic. tanya: i've cometo asinara,

a small island offthe northern tip of sardinia, to meet with cristina fossi, a professor of eco-toxicology at the university of siena. the turtle rescue center here has just receiveda loggerhead turtle. these plastics? does he have to performa surgery to remove this? ( speaking italian )

treat the gas, get everything moving,and get it out.yes. tanya: cristina's nameis well recognized around the worldfor her stand against the killingof whales and dolphins. tanya: an increasing numberof dolphins and turtles in the mediterraneanare turning up dead. cristina's focus is to getto the bottom of this mystery. and she has a very unusual way

of gettingthe information she needs. ( arrow whizzes ) ( man speaking italian ) tanya: how can you geta tiny piece of blubber from whales and dolphinswithout hurting them? the dart bounces off, taking a small pieceof flesh with it, which the scientists useto conduct their research. is very difficult.

( triumphal cry;speaking italian ) it may be, i don't know.but. you expect that you'refinding derivativesfrom plastics in the blubber ofthese animals because they're consuming other animals that aredirectly consuming the plastics. exactly.and so, if the plastics... are in the food chainfor the dolphin, they're also in our food chain.

exactly. tanya:when animals eat plastic, they're also consumingthe toxins attachedto the plastic. toxins passinto the bloodstream. there, they bio-accumulatein the fatty tissue and around the vital organs. when animalsuse the stored fat, the toxins circulatearound the body, interfering with reproduction,metabolism,

growth, kidneyand liver function. ( device beeps ) craig: smokey mountain i operated as a 2,000,000metric tonne waste dump for more than 40 years. it closed in 1995. this garbage tipcontains so much methane, which was producedby the garbage within it, that when it reachesa certain temperature,it catches fire.

that creates this smokethat comes out ofthe top of the pile and filters overthe city of manila. so, sweet potatoes,corn, sugar cane, all growing on40 years of garbage. you worked hereas a 12-year-old. yeah. to earn moneyto support my family needs. and what would youcollect up here? recyclables,like bottles, cans, and plastics.

this local chap hereis still harvesting the plastic that'sin the ground. yeah, lot of plastic.it's just everywhere. what's the most commondisease here? uh... pulmonary. pulmonary,such as tuberculosis, yes, emphysema. emphysema, yes.my father diedof emphysema. no one knowshow much plastic

has accumulatedin the sea in the last 50 years,but one thing is sure: the pace has picked up. vintage film narrator:the world of plasticsis present everywhere, yet this presenceis but a premonitionof a future world. our children will seea bit of that world, and our grandchildrenwill not see the end of it. craig: the smellis almost indescribable. it's kind of like a cross

between sewage and oil, and it's everywhere. the ground, to withintwo inches above it, is covered in flies. ( indistinct remarks ) craig: i could seea child flying a kite. you could see the kitewas made from a plastic bag, and he'd fashioned thishimself, and used strawsas the mainframefor the kite.

if you got behind himand looked towards the sky, he could have been any childanywhere in the world. every time it rains here, every time the windblows offshore, the sludge, the plasticfrom all of that rubbish ends up straightin manila bay, and i guess into the stomachsof whatever marine animals are still able to survivein the bay. a lot of plastic here.

i guess a lot ofthis is brought inby the river. yeah, it came fromthe pasig river. also it's beenwashed up by the oceanduring typhoons, and also people living herealso throw their garbagein this area because there areno garbage collectors coming into the areato collect the garbage. how much waste--plastic waste-- is putinto the waterways here? do you have any idea?

around 1,500 tonnes daily. one thousand, five hundredtonnes every day.yes. ( children playing ) man:one more, one more! ready?you go now! ( joyous shouts ) man:one, two, three, four. voices: whoa!man: thank you. i have to say, you're allmuch better basketballersthan i am.

i'm so bad. i'm sorry. i'm no good at basketball. you're very goodat basketball. this guy. very good. do you all live here?in pier 18? ( overlapping responses )young man: yes. and you play basketballall the time?yeah. do you go to school? yes.no.

yes, you go to school? you don't go to school?no? no.no? so, what do you doduring the day? oh, uh,scavenger work. scavenger, yeah?what do you scavenge for? this.the plastic? plastic.ah. and what do you dowith the plastic,once you--?

go to the... yeah? and whatdo they give youfor the plastic? money. is it good money? what kind of money? ( overlapping responses )fifty. got fifty. yeah?one day. for one day? and what do you dowith the money?

i give my mother.your mother. yeah.yes? and what does she dowith the money? buy-- buy the rice.rice. right. so you can play--grow up, be healthy,play good basketball. show me.give me your shot. craig: most of the wastecreated by the individuals within each of these villages,towns and cities generally ends upon the streets orin their canals.

it's easy to understandhow these sorts of places become delivery systemsfor plastic into our oceans. i understand that this wasten feet deep in plastic, literally ten feetof plastic that was pulledout of this canal. first we dredged, but when we realizedthat we were diggingdown to china, we stopped. what we did wasto cover it upwith good soil and garden soil,and then we put up

the coco-pillows. uh, it's made fromcoconut husk. and then we spreadit up until they arerevegetated here, in the vetiver grass. the plants take the restof the waste out of the water. and now we'vegot fish swimming. and turtles.wildlife. so it's clean enoughfor animals to live in now.

is it drinkable?not yet. not yet.working on that one.working on that one. and so you're going to dothis project now throughout the canalsand river systemsof manila. yes, uh,with the same idea of putting bioremediation and phytoremediationtogether. do you think thatwill solve the plasticpollution problem here? the one that will solvethe plastic solution

is the behavior ofthe people aroundthis area, so maybe we'll startwith that first, and then we'll solveeverything else afterwards. tanya: i'm off to visitthe tiny, isolated coral atoll of tuvalu in the south pacific,near fiji. as a mother, i care deeplyabout the effects of plastic on our health. tuvalu gainedits independence

in 1978. it began importingforeign goods and food, and with that came plastic. i realized just how tinythis nation was when i flew in over the atoll. tuvalu is a microcosmof the entire planet, and they have nowhereto put the plastic. during world war ii,in order to build an airstrip for the alliesin the pacific theater,

large quantities of coralwere dug up and carted off to becrushed and mixedfor the tarmac. gaping holes left behindare called borrow pits. they were neverfilled back in, and are now usedfor refuse. how long have you livedin this borrow pit? twenty five years.so, you're 25 years old? in your 25-year lifetime, have you seenthe amount of plastic

in your surroundingcommunity increase? yeah. very increase. before,in my early childhood, i don't see any plastic because we don't used toimport packaging, plastics. tell me what it was likegrowing up here as a child. we always swimmedat the borrow pit. we did not knowthat there wasaffectedness to us. we just swim,and then we go--we like fishing.

you used to fishin the borrow pits,and eat the fish? but you don't do thatanymore? no, we don't eat the fish.we just feed the pigs. you feed the fishto the pigs. yeah. what kind ofhealth problems are youseeing people suffer from? flu. some people,they get cancer. and then, some people,they don't pregnant. people in the borrow pitare having problemsconceiving?

mnh-mnh. if things don't changein the borrow pits, but the people stay here,what do you thinkwill happen? i think they get disease. and they don't want to leave. like, this is a nice place, but because ofthe imported packaging, they destroy our paradise. and i want to keepgood future for my children.

'cause i love my children. craig: how doesa u.s. navy aircraftcarrierhandle its waste? with about4,500 sailors onboard, just shy of halfthe population of tuvalu, the amount of waste generatedevery day is enormous. the u.s. navy islooking for a way to dealwith shipboard waste without having to gointo port. the belly of the latestaircraft carrier will be fitted witha gleaming maze of steel pipes

to devour the ship's waste. pyrogenesis of montreal was contractedby the u.s. navy to develop a green technology capable of processingthe waste generated by these sailors. at the heartof this technologyis a plasma torch that changesthe molecular structure of whatever is put into it,

transforming itback to its core elements. better still, it hasno detrimental effecton the environment, it runs off its own energy,and is affordable. if they could shrink the plantinto the size of something that you can putinto a shipping container, take to small islandslike tuvalu, set it upso that you can put in all of the rubbish that'sexisting on the island, and have it turn into inertor nontoxic substances,

that's going to go a long wayto help solving the problems that exist on islandsin the pacific. ( speaking local language ) ( all singing hymn ) craig: if an innovative,workable solution like pyrogenesisis not implementedin places like tuvalu, the quality of lifewill continue to decline. the island will eventuallybe choked by its ownplastic waste. combined withthe rising sea levelcaused by climate change,

tuvalu's habitabilityis under serious threat. ( hymn continuing ) craig: one of the kidswe've befriended here, tita, has developed a pretty badlingering cough. we think his problemsmight be linked to a hobbyhe shares with his friends, making jewelryout of melted plastic. ( baby cooing ) ( soft chuckle ) craig: tanya is extremelyprotective of her children,

so she's incrediblyengaged in their well-being, particularlywhere she has control, and she has controlover her environment. this is charlie, huh? surprised he wasn't bornwith a face mask. yeah, right?and a nose clip? it wasn't easyfor me to conceive.i'm an older mom. i workedreally hard for this, all the timetrying to conceive

being really cleanin my body. went throughmy entire pregnancy without taking so muchas a tylenol. throw the linein there, till. this is actuallycatfish corner. tanya: my kids make mereally passionateabout the subject annoyingly passionate. ask my husband.he'll roll his eyes. he goes from this guywho is washing ziploc bags,

and i think,"ah, i'm winning! my husband is washingziploc bags! i see them drying in the sink,and i'm like, "yes!" um, but then he'll forget,and i-i see, you know,plastic wrap over a food, and i'm like, "no!" now, you've had a veryhealthy lifestyle. you haven't beenable to controlevery aspect of it, so the likelihood ishe may have plasticin his system.

it's terrifying.it's awful. and it-- you know-- it's made me questionsometimes, "gosh, is even havingchildren the rightthing to do?" i'm still very,very motivated to obviously dothe right thingby myself and my family, but also to tryto incite change where i canas an environmentalist,as an activist. i'm optimistic becauseit beats the alternative.

craig: austin isa very cool city. it's environmentally aware. it was the first city in texasto ban the plastic bag. it's an oasis ofeco-friendly people in a state that's headquartersfor the largest oil companies and petrochemical plants. plastipure is where weformulate and test plastics for their physicalcharacteristics. on the certichem side,where we are here,

we test plasticsand other substances, as well asindividual chemicals, to see if they haveestrogenic activity. a lot of plastics-- perhaps the greatmajority, probably-- release chemicals that haveestrogenic activity. tanya: estrogenic activity,or e.a., happens when a chemicallike bpa or phthalate leeches from plasticand enters the body,

where it mimicsthe hormone estrogen. ninety-two point sixpercent of americans age six and older have detectible levelsof bpa in their bodies. the levels in childrenbetween 6 and 11 years of age are twice as high as thosein older americans. tanya: are all of thosechemicals not regulated? dr. bittner:no, the fda at present does not haveany regulations

for many chemicals, and what levels of chemicals having estrogenic activity can be released from plastics or from cosmeticsor papers or silicones. so, how is the generalpublic protected fromthat kind of thing? uh, they aren't.they aren't? news reporter:from baby bottles to sippy cupsto food can liners

to water bottles hydratingthe youngest athletes, consumers have been exposedto a root chemical called bisphenol a, or bpa, an artificial sex hormoneused as a core building block in close to seven billionpounds of plastic on the market today, because of its strengthand resiliency. this isn'ta weak contaminant, this is a powerfulcontaminant,

and it's striking rightat the core of american public health. when something saysthat it's bpa-free, is that somethingi can trust? over 90% of all plasticsthat don't have bpa nonetheless release chemicalshaving estrogenic activity. so bpa isnot the only bad guy that we need to belooking out for. bpa is only one bad guy.

it's like saying,"i've caught al capone! i've just handledthe criminal problemin the united states!" mike usey: we doquite a bit of this testing to see where the issues are,but we also use that data to help manufacturersmake safer products. the average consumer goes,"poly-whatta-whatta?" you know, "i don't--i don't get it. just tell me what isthe right one, what isthe safe, what isn't?" when we lookat baby bottles,

we have to look atall the differentcomponents that come in contactwith the milk orwith the baby. all of the hard and clearmaterials that we've tested leech theseestrogenic chemicals. other things,like the nipple, are generally madefrom silicone or latex. latex always,from our tests, has come back positivefor e.a., and silicone generallyis positive forestrogenic activity.

and stainless steelis obviously, i thought,a better option. if it doesn't have a liner, stainless steel,it tends to be fine, and glass tends to be fine. the colorants tend to leecha lot of chemicals, so we try to stay awayfrom colorants when we can. when we can't,white and blacktend to be... the least? okay.the least.

and we've started usinga lot more foil in our house, rather than this stuff. foil is a better option. we use foil in the lab because foil doesn'tleech these chemicals. and this, i know,styrofoam, is a personal--personal pet peeve of mine. the likelihood isestrogenic chemicals will leech out ofstyrene products.

cold foods, anything? likely, hot fluids wouldincrease the amountof leeching, but it would still beleeching something. dr. bittner:the majority of plastics increase the releaseof chemicals havingestrogenic activity after they've been exposed, particularly sunlight. tanya: how do younot consume it?

you can't go anywherewithout seeing foodwrapped in plastic. you can't go to a restaurant without,you know, takeout boxesbeing in plastic, hot foodsgoing into plastic. my answer there is,well, demand safer plastic. so, what we're gonna do is go insidea couple of restaurants and ask them about, uh-- we'll ask them for food

and see if theycan't give it to us in a non-plastic container. hello, how are you doing?good, how are you? i'm not too bad. can i get the power plant? can i get a smallberry blast? hello, there. um, can i getan orange juice, please? what can i get youfor lunch today?

i'm getting the blt.a blt. do you have anythingnot wrapped in plastic? i have nothing to dowith the food.( chuckles ) do you have anythingother than plasticto put it in? no. you can buy ourgiant little reusables. yeah, but that'sstill plastic. ( indistinct remark )withoutthe plastic lid's fine. is-- is that paper?it is. it is? great. yeah.

do you have anythingother than plastic? we have that onein a cold press. it's actually exposedto less oxygen, soit's way better juice with twice the amountof vitamins and nutrients. that sounds really healthy. yeah, it's the way to gofor the balance. yeah, that sounds great.cool, man. but do you serve itin anything otherthan plastic containers? we have them madeat our central kitchenevery morning,

and they bring 'em to us,on the cold press juicer, so it's ready to go,bottled for convenience. but that's in plastic, yeah? do you have somethingnot plastic?no. and you serve all yourdrinks in plastic cupsas well? yes, sir. keep the straw,'cause that's plastic. i'll have to leave itthen, i think.yeah. okay, that's okay.

yeah. okay.well, thanks very much. yeah. all right,what can i get you? yeah, i felt like i wasa bit of an eco-warrior. tell me, what'smy food wrapped in? it's not plastic, is it?( chuckles ) i'm going to dieof something. ( chuckles )yeah, but do you wantto die early or late? ( weak chuckle ) my boyfriend actuallytells me every singleday of my life

to not bedrinking water bottlesfrom my car... ...but if i'm thirsty,i'm thirsty.you know what?he's right. and you've got thatwrapped in paper.that's good. that's impressivefor a takeaway place. take the salad and stick 'emin, like, a few of these. yeah, that'd be betterthan sticking itin plastic. if you could put it,maybe, betweentwo paper plates. it's just allthe chemicals in thisthat get into the food. you've made such a greatsandwich, by the look of it.

tanya: we gave into the sales hype of the '50s that plastic was disposable, that we could throw it away. there is no away. it's so very hardas a parent, as a mum, as a woman, to feel like you can do the best thing, you know, that you cando the right thing anymore.

every day, you know,we're contributingpotentially to a dreadful health problemlater on down the line. no. there's nothing elseto put it in. beep beep beep. what this white stuff isis, like, the worst of the worst. craig: like a rubbish bin, the earth is filling upwith the stuff. there is nowhere elseto put it.

that's why,as much as possible, we choose foods and drinks that don't have plasticaround them. craig: it startswith the individual, and it starts with us. what do you do? you can't possiblyfilter out these tiny particlesfrom the entire ocean. you can't filterthe entire ocean.

in fact, so much plasticis in the ocean now in a form that we reallycan't get to it that i feel the emphasisneeds to immediately shift toward stop putting it in. craig: mike degruy is right, but how do we getto the point where we canstop putting it in? hi, there.i'd like to speakto the manager. that's me.

i notice when i camein here and ordered, uh, my sandwichand my drink, they both camein plastic containers. our cups are 100%plant-based, so they can be composted. you're one of the first placesin austin i've come to... ...that has an alternative.is that right? best alternative optioni've got for you today. perfect. i appreciate it.least you've got an alternative.

exactly.thank you very much.appreciate it. have a great weekend.you too. find me some gala applesthat are not in plastic. craig:demand that your supermarket deliver your food productsin paper or just as they come. they don't need to bewrapped in plastic, and if they are,take the plastic off and leave it with them,and say,

"you dispose of itand dispose of it properly." because once it becomestheir problem, you'll find that they willdo something about it. don't putyour plastic rubbishin a dumpster, where you knowit's going to landfill. craig: in 1991,germany became the firstcountry in the world to pass packaging lawsforcing plastic manufacturers to be responsiblefor the recycling or disposal of any packaging materialthey sell.

the industryset up a company to overseeplastic waste collection, recognized by the green dot. when i was a kid, we usedto run around the neighborhood collecting glass bottlesto take to the store to collect the 5-cent refundthat we'd get. plastic packaging pretty much killedthe bottle deposit system, but here in germany,

they've reinstated it. you can takeyour plastic bottles to almost any supermarket and put them in this machine, and what it doesis it reads a barcode which tells the machine the kind of plasticthat it is, that it's recyclable, and which retailerit comes from.

so the consumer getsa 25-cent deposit off every bottle, the retailer gets the plastic, which they cansell to recyclers fora lucrative amount of money, and on the streets of germany, you very rarely seethese things anymore because everybodyrecycles them. craig: the germansdemonstrated that thereis profit to be made. today, recyclingis a lucrative industry.

pressure your government. tell them that youdo not accept that plastic should bein the environment. the manufacturers of plastichave their own lobby groups, and they'll lobby the governmentto get the best possible deal for them to get their productsinto the marketplace for the least cost,and the least cost means that they don't have to beresponsible for it. if they manufacture it,they should be responsible

for its collectionand for its proper disposal. tanya:we will all be better off if less plastic is manufacturedin the first place. scientists are already callingfor governments to reclassify plasticas a hazardous substance because then existing lawsabout hazardous substances will already be in effect. plastic bagsand water bottles are the worst single-useoffenders.

what if we ban them outrightto stop that vicious cycle? rwanda is one ofthe very few countries that has banned plastic bags. i think it'sa shocking wasteof valuable resources, that these materialsare being putin the landfill. they're so muchmore valuable. if we put themin the landfill, the cost in europeis roundabout minus â£100 a tonne,$150.

but, as a useful plastic, it could be worthplus $1,200, $1,500 a tonne. so, that's a hugedifference in value. we actually havethe answers now to recycling most plastics, and the challenge reallyis to get everyone onboard with those ideas,and also to get the collection infrastructuregoing right

so that we getbig volumes comingconcentrated in one place, so that people can thenhave the confidence to invest in the recovery technology. craig: once sorted,recycled plastics are brought intofactories like this, where they can become partof a circular economy, cleaned of labelsand processedinto newborn nurdles, ready to be sold once again. as recyclers, we thinkgovernments could do more

to encourage developmentof circular supply chains. a lot of recycled plasticscan be used, as we say, in closed loop--back in the same products. and that's happening a lot,with bottles and pots, tubs and traysfrom the packaging stream, but there are plentyof other outlets where a short-life item,like a piece of packaging, can go into a long-lifeapplication. for example,in construction products,in automotive

and in making carsand trains and aeroplanesand things like that, where you can getthe performance of the recycled polymerjust as good as virgin materialthat's come out of the ground. you can take itfrom a bottle one dayto a shirt the next day. from that shirt,then it can becomea component in a vehicle. it can become somethingthat's sent to space. through the plastic bank,we make plastic waste a currency, so that peoplein developing countries

can earn an income, while preventing plasticfrom entering the ocean. craig:david katz and shaun frankson founded the plastic bank. they establisheda social plastic recyclingsystemin haiti that exchanges plasticfor solar cell phone charging, sustainable cook stoves,and cash. it's likea fair trade plastic, where it's ethically sourced,

and it's above market rateincome that they earn. the people in need can goand collect the plastic and create a microeconomyaround recycling. this is somethingthat we can scaleanywhere in the world. craig: this isa self-sustainingsocial enterprise. all of the plasticcollected through the plastic bankgoes through the recycling processand is sold as social plastic, to be used in manufacturingby values-aligned brands,

or it can be usedto 3d print. they're using itinstead of virgin plastic. if you're choosingbetween two products and one's made ofsocial plastic and one's not, you're really choosingbetween, "do i helpthe planet or do i hurt the planet?" social plasticis really our way that we can createan organic, globalinfrastructure. tanya: new technologymeans that waste

can now be convertedinto energy. in europe alone,there are 15,000,000 tonnes of end-of-life plasticgoing into landfill every year. cynar, a waste-to-fuelcompany, designed a machinethat turns end-of-life plastic like candy wrappersand snack packets, which aren't usuallyrecyclable, into diesel. using a heating processcalled pyrolysis,

it turnsan environmental problem into a valuable commodity. each machine can process about20 tonnes of plastic daily, making about 18,000 litersof diesel, or the equivalent of113 barrels of oil a day. craig:islands like lord howe manage their plastic waste with solutions that matchthe way they live. there is no burning,and there is no landfillon this island.

food waste,the garden waste, paper and cardboardgets composted. all the recyclablesare baled and sentback to the mainland, and currently the island'sdiverting 85% of all their wastefrom landfill. this is the recyclingsorting facility. we can separate,we can bale everything. you can galvanizea community to doamazing things. sue lipscombe:the whales are divinginto a sea of plastic bottles,

and the bottles were collectedfrom the bristol 10k race. tanya: it was importantto the artist,sue lipscombe, to make this sculptureout of sustainable materials. she used recycled plasticsand locally grown willow. there are 70,000 bottles. that means in some wayup to 70,000 people have contributed to this art. i kick off bytelling the kidssomething about whales, the reaction is--is just fantastic.

they-- they love hearingabout how big they are. they really get it. they ask you all sortsof perceptive questions that an adultmight not think about, and i really justlove the enthusiasmof the pupils. wouldn't it begreat if politicians40 years down the line still hadthat same enthusiasm that schoolchildren showwhen they come here. wouldn't the world bea different place?

dr. sylvia earle:we've treated the ocean as a place to throw things,dispose of things that we did not wantclose to where wethought we live. craig: in 2015,natural history broadcastersir david attenborough met with presidentbarack obama. obama, who spenthis boyhood in the naturalsplendor of hawaii, grew up watchingattenborough's films. what we're seeingis global trends that depend onthe entire worldworking together.

attenborough: yes.my daughters, i find,malia and sasha... ...they're much moreenvironmentally aware,this generation... i-i believe that....than someprevious generations. they think it'sself-apparent thatwe've got a problem and that we should bedoing something about it. i-i absolutely agree, and the young people,they care. they know that this isthe world that they're goingto grow up in,

and that they're goingto spend the rest oftheir lives in. but i think it's moreidealistic than that. they actually believethat humanity, human species, has no right to destroyand despoil, regardless. right.they actually feel thatvery powerfully. the whole of the ecosystemsof the world are based ona healthy ocean. and if that part ofthe planet

becomes dysfunctional,goes wrong, then the whole of lifeon this planet will suffer. the whole planetis where we live. there is no "away"that you can put things and expect that they'rereally away. this-- this phrase"not in my backyard," the ocean is everyone'sbackyard or front yardor living space. no matterhow you look at it,

this planet is governedby the blue part. the world trulyis mostly a blue place. i'll be just as worriedabout tilly and charlie when they'rein their 70s and 80sand i'm long gone. i still want themto be healthy, andcertainly not suffering the effects of anydecisions that i made. craig: i want to go backto where it all started. i want to goback to the whales. i want to go and findthe juvenile

that we-- we first saw. if whales could talk to us, i imagine they would ask us, what were we thinking? every other specieson the planet works towards the benefit of the ecology and environmentthat it lives in, but us humans, we just seemlike passengers on this earth. i want to say to the parentsof the juvenile,

"i'm sorry. i'm so sorry,on behalf of humanity, for putting plasticinto your home." and i want to say,"we'll share this story because from knowingcomes caring, and from caringcomes change." female vocalist:* the water is wide * * i can't cross o'er * * and neither have * i wings to fly

* build a boat * that can carry two * and both shall row * my love and i * a new horizon * beckons us * as we look out * across the sea * and we are called

* to do our best * and be the most * that we can * be

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