Plastic Plague

I stood in the laboratory door, savoring the feeling of success. I had finally done it; I had achieved my certification in the fields of biochemistry and microbiology at our Dome University and was now called Dr. Aisha Holston. I was ready to begin my career as a scientist, researching the Plastic Plague and ways to end its devastating impacts on our planet Earth. Could I finally achieve my dream to help the suffering life in the Outside? As for what led me to this spot, it all begins many years ago with an early morning walk on the beach…

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It was a cloudy weekend morning, and I was twelve. I was taking one of my peaceful morning walks along the beach, but little did I know that it was about to be disrupted in a way that would change my life forever. I was nearing the edge of the Dome, the massive glass and steel dome that cut us off from the outside world and protects us from the Plastic Plague, and had just decided to turn back when I spotted something in the surf. It was a dead seal, wrapped in colorful threads and bobbing belly-up in the gentle ocean waves. But we don’t have seals in the Dome, I thought. I had never seen a seal before, except for in a picture, so I waded out to it, curious. And then leapt back in horror.

The seal was not wrapped in bright threads of our fiber rope, as I had first thought, but instead it was entangled in thin plastic filaments that cut into its neck and the skin around its flippers. One of its flippers was nearly severed, and its snout was held shut by plastic threads. It had been strangled by several pieces of an old fishing net. It was a sorry site, but the most pressing problem wasn’t the seal itself: it was how it had gotten here. No seals lived under the Dome, and no plastic was made by us or brought inside the Dome after the Plastic Plague had decimated the Earth. How had it gotten here?

Watching the seal floating in the surf, I noticed something strange: a slight trail of colorful pieces of broken plastic and small plastic objects seemed to lead from the dead seal towards the Dome wall. Looking behind me, I saw more pieces being carried off in all directions by the simulated waves and currents of the Dome’s ocean. I frowned. Oh no. Deciding that I should investigate before our water became any more polluted, I waded out towards the Dome edge, standing in the shoulder-high waters right beside the Dome wall. That was when I saw it.

A hole, just barely big enough for a person or, in this case a dead seal, to fit through, had been broken open in the Dome’s glass side, partially under water. As I watched, several bright plastic shards, bottle caps and toothbrushes floated past me into the Dome, the stronger waves of the Outside carrying them into our oasis. So this is where the seal came from, I thought. The hole, for however long it had been there, had been leaking a small but steady stream of plastic “soup” into our normally plastic-free environment. Young though I was, even I understood that plastic pollution was dangerous and could not be allowed to contaminate the one place left on Earth that was hospitable to life.

I looked around, uncertain of what to do next. I will have to tell the Council about the hole, for someone must inform them that plastic has contaminated the Dome. The hole must also be fixed, so that the pollution won’t get worse and cause us to sicken once again from plastic’s deadly toxins. But for right then, I was too curious for my own good. What is it like in the Outside? I wondered. I have never caught anything more than a glimpse of the Outside through the distorted glass of the Dome. I awkwardly swam through the hole, determined to explore a bit before returning home. Heading towards the shore that I saw on the other side, I swam until my feet touched bottom and I could stand, and then walked towards the shore. Looking up, I stumbled to a stop, my jaw gaping with horror and disgust. I stood in the shallow waters just off a beach on one of the islands that connected to ours in a chain. But it was like no beach I had ever seen.

I waded up onto the beach. Instead of being covered in sand, the beach was composed of bright, colorful little bits and pieces of plastic. Scattered here and there among the plastic granules were objects discarded long ago and barely distinguishable as tennis shoes, rubber ducks, milk jugs, and more. The water around the beach, the very water I had just swam through, was a cloudy brine full of toothbrushes, plastic toys, LEGO pieces, plastic shards and filaments. Gross. How did I not notice all that rubbish? I stood there in silence, awestruck by the complete devastation around me. The land, which used to be covered in trees and grass, was now buried under piles of debris, placed there by the ocean’s waves. Here and there a small patch of dead scraggly grass could be seen, while dead, gray tree trunks reached like hands towards the sky from beneath the piles of trash. The air was silent; no birds calls, no animals, no buzzing insects. Everything seemed dead and still. It was then that I noticed the stench.

Layered under the smells of synthetics and plastics was a sickly, rotting scent. I slowly walked among the piles, finally noticing that some of the unidentifiable mounds on the beach were rotting carcasses of seals, fish, birds, and turtles. Every single one of them had been killed by plastic. Most of the dead animals were wrapped in and strangled by plastic filaments. There were hundreds of skeletons of dead birds and animals that had piles of plastic pieces inside of them. Suddenly, I spotted something moving in the distance. I headed towards it – only to find a small bird, a plover, trying desperately to free itself from a discarded gill net that was wrapped around its leg. It feathers were grimy, slick with what looked like oil, and falling out. Catching it carefully in my hand, I gently untangled it and then set it free. Watching it fly away, I was saddened by the thought that this bird, and all others like it, would most likely die soon, killed by the toxins and plastic shards they ingest from the ocean. All of this death and ruin, started by humans years ago, is what we called the Plastic Plague.

The Plastic Plague, which began around the early 21st century, had a devastating effect on Earth. Plastic, invented in 1907, soon grew to a global industry, and plastic was used in nearly every household, replacing metal and glass objects (Roberts). However, by the 2000’s, the world saw signs of plastic’s detrimental impact on Earth. Plastic was washing up on beaches and killing marine life. Plastic discarded by consumers was blown into rivers and found its way into the ocean, where it affected anything and everything it encountered.

Plastic trash, once it entered marine ecosystems, wreaked havoc on the wildlife such as turtles, whales, porpoises, fish, seals and sea birds. Albatrosses swallowed so many indigestible plastic pieces that they could not eat or drink and eventually starved (Decker). Whales, seals, turtles and fish became entangled in floating plastic filaments that severed limbs and strangled the animals. Turtles and whales swallowed large amounts of plastic film and sheeting, causing them to die of starvation when it lodged in their stomachs (Moore). Even the fish ate plastic pieces, and most of the world’s seafood was contaminated with plastic toxins.

But it was when the affects started reaching humans that people finally started paying attention to the Plastic Plague. People not only ingested plastic toxins from the fish and other seafood that they ate, they lived around plastic so much that all of their food was contaminated. Plastic contains toxins such as bisphenol-A (BPA) and phthalates, which are carcinogens that negatively affect the immune system and childhood development (Andrews). With so much plastic in the environment and the resources we used every day, people accumulated so many toxins that they could not survive. The plastic trash that was either accidentally or carelessly discarded over the years wound up killing nearly the entire population of humans on Earth.

Nearly fifty years ago, in 2078, our leaders decided to quarantine the remaining human civilization (around 2,000 people) in a climate-controlled place that would protect us from the Plastic Plague. Even after the ban on plastic in 2060, which forbid the use or production of any plastic products, there was still too much plastic in the ocean and in our environments for us to survive. It was then that the Dome was built, a massive construction of steel and glass completely covering nearly half of a chain of islands in the South Pacific. These islands, on which we now live, was the only place left that could be cleaned up enough for it to be hospitable for humans. And so the remnants of civilization moved to the Dome, leaving behind a world of plastic, sickness, and death. I had learned about the Plastic Plague from my schoolbooks, but nothing could have prepared me for what I now saw. The Plague was so much worse than the Council had told us.

I turned away from the destruction before me, sickened by what I saw. I realized that I was no longer curious about the Outside, and I wanted desperately for all that I saw around me to not be real. Why had we left behind all of these suffering animals, dying from a plague that we started? Why were we not helping to end the Plague and stop the tragic effects that plastic was having on our world? Instead of solving our problems, we decided to turn our backs on the rest of the Earth and live a peaceful life in ignorance of the plight of wildlife in the Outside. Slowly, I made my way back to the Dome, found the hole, and swam through. I wanted to help in some way, but I didn’t know how. What could I, a twelve-year-old schoolgirl, possibly do to save a planet?

Later, after the hole was fixed, I told my family about what I saw in the Outside. At first they didn’t believe me, but I finally convinced them that what I saw was true. Even after I explained the devastation and the death that is caused by plastic, they didn’t seem to understand. Their concerns did not match mine. “Don’t worry, Aisha,” they said, “The plastic won’t affect us, for we are safe inside the Dome.” Who cares about us! I wanted to shout. What about the animals, plants, and wildlife that is being destroyed by the Plague! Can’t we help them? I resolved to do my best to help our dying planet, no matter what it takes. Surely, over time, I could find some way to help.

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It has not been easy getting certification at our one and only university under the Dome. I decided to become a scientist with the hope that I can someday find a chemical or microbial solution to the Plastic Plague. Years ago, before the Plague grew too widespread, there were rumors of a microbe that could consume and breakdown the plastic itself, but no trace of it remains. If I found this microbe, I could potentially help rid the world of plastic. Could I find some sort of solution to save the dying wildlife that I witnessed so many years before? Could I save our planet from civilization’s enormous plastic footprint? Perhaps…