1AC
From the Great Pacific Garbage Patch off the coast of Hawaii to the microscopic pieces
of plastics in the deepest nooks of the Mariana Trench debris litters every part of the
Earth’s oceans - Rather than addressing the perniciousness of marine debris current
exploration practices too often efface the materiality of trash by construing it as
nothing but a drop in pristine and vast oceans
Arnshav 14 - Mirja Arnshav. Research Coordinator at Maritime Museum of Stockholm University. June 2014. “The Freedom of
the Seas: Untapping the Archaeological Potential of Marine Debris”. Journal of Maritime Archaeology 9:1. Pages 1-25.
How then, are we to understand this engagement with the sea? The natural properties of water are a key to understanding humanity’s
relation with it. Within the field of garbage studies,
waste disposal is often discussed with reference to the truism
“out of sight, out of mind” (Scanlan 2005:157–158; Shanks et al. 2004:70; Thompson 2008:3). As has already been touched
upon, there is a strong tendency in modern society to conceal waste and create a distance to it
(Åkesson 2005a:146–147, 2008:147–150). Needless to say, the physical properties of water correspond very well to such requirements.
Hiding and separating whatever has been dumped, waterscapes make perfect places for oblivion.
As been pointed out by Swedish maritime archaeologist Carl Olof Cederlund, the surface of the sea has commonly been designated
as “a limit to our perception” (my translation) (Cederlund 1995:41, 1996:168). Similar reflections have been put forward by Kimberly
Patton, discussing the conceptual underpinnings of marine pollution. According to her,
the treatment of the world’s
oceans by industrialized nations arises from traditional beliefs, traceably in myths and religious narratives,
about the oceans inviolability. The genesis of these habits and attitudes are in turn located in the sea’s own natural qualities:
its vast size and depth; its chronic motion in currents, tides and waves, its apparent inexhaustibility (see also Simmons 1994:109). As
human habits of thought and action were, and still remain, a kind of
ritualized response to human constructions of the ocean’s physical qualities. Such ideas about the nature
of the sea may be culturally reinforced, but they are daily reinscribed by the testimony of our eyes. In
tons of water, in saltiness, in bottomless depth and endless horizon, and, above all, in many forms of ceaseless motion, human
populations, especially those who live along the littoral, see—and have always seen—in the world′s oceans a
mighty, efficacious means of “cleaning” our habitous and making it safe, clean, and viable. Our
Patton puts it: …I have… tried to argue that
impressions have lent themselves over the years to chronic, unreflective marine pollution (Patton 2007:133). In trying to understand
the phenomenon of marine dumping, I would like to put forward yet another potentially explanatory aspect, namely the suggestion
that people living in a seascape tend to cultivate a special linking for freedom (Rönnby 2010:77; Arnshav2011:95). Although an
argument still in its infancy, such a notion might very well be of importance for the understanding of the conceptual underpinnings of
marine dumping. It is notable that the legal concept of “freedom of the seas” was one of the earliest tenets of international law. And
as been observed by Charles Moore: Even now, with anti-pollution rules firmly in place, the notion of “freedom” persists… if not only
legally, then in the minds of many who ply the seas. It′s a hard thing to surrender: the idea of a place left on earth where anything
goes and no one will know better. (Moore and Phillips 2011:68). Regardless of why, the practice of marine dumping represents an
interesting example of humaity’s entanglement with the sea. Within maritime archaeology, the agency of waterscapes and influence
on human actions has been discussed in terms of “the maritime factor”. Also, the existence of “maritime durées”, i.e. long-time
structures as regards the interaction between people and the sea, has been put forward (Rönnby 2010). With reference to the examples
the tenacious human tendency to turn to waterscapes for the purpose of waste
disposal can be labeled yet another “maritime durée”, and that the natural properties of water are
essential for understanding such a strategy. Garbage in Action: A Mess with a Message In Sweden, the issue of marine
presented above,
littering is a hot topic. It is recurrently highlighted in the press, and there are several municipalities and environmental organizations
engaged in cleaning operations and education campaigns (for example see FRP AB 2012; Kimo 2012; Skärgårdsstiftelsen 2011a). In
July 2012, I attended an event which aimed to draw public attention to the question of marine debris. The happening was jointly
arranged by some of the leading partners and authorities dealing with the issue. It was held at Visby, Gotland, during the so called
Almedalsveckan (Sweden’s biggest annual political meeting, gathering hundreds of exhibitors, program items and journalists).
Centered around the brig replica Tre Kronor a wide range of actors were mobilized. On the quay two fishermen presented some
examples from their recent by-catch—a tangled skein of synthetic cloths, a bicycle, a couple of chemicals drums and an old Russian
ship telephone. Next by was a touring poster exhibition on marine pollution. Two divers went into the water and returned with a few
examples of the scrappy contents of the harbour. And in the meanwhile, a pair of entertainers, known from a children’s tv-show as
environmentally-minded diving characters, amused the audience. Later, a seminar focusing on environmental aspects of marine debris
was held onboard the ship (FRP AB 2012; Fig. 4). In the mingle that followed, I spoke to a man in the recycling business. “Why, he said,
does everyone go on talking about litter instead of material? Why do they focus on the costs and not the economical values? I refuse
to term it garbage. To me, it is nothing else than materials, and as such it ought to be useful!” (Pontus Almén, Stena, 2012-07-04). True
the tendency to embed these things as “garbage” is due to a specific point of departure.
From an environmentalist perspective, garbage is primarily understood with reference to harm and its hazardous
impacts on the physical viability of the planet and the human race (Patton 2007:14–15). By contrast, garbage can
also been pictured as a socially constructed category, lacking any objective reality (Douglas 2002:2;
enough,
Shanks et al. 2004:65; Thompson 2008). An example of this perception is anthropologist Michael Thompson’s authoritative Rubbish
theory, in which garbage is described as a thing approaching a ‘zero point’ of value. At its nadir in a cycle of consumption and
production, rubbish
is both ready for disappearance and yet ripe for reinvestment, reinterpretation or
revaluing. In this transitional state, operating apparently outside the world of the useful, functioning and valued, the discarded
thing may appear as autonomous, existing in and for itself (Thompson 1979; se also Pye 2010:6). [Within this context, one might also
recall anthropologist Ivar Kopytoffs, who’s work on object’s biographies has reveled how economic and social value varies through
time and as it travels through different spheres of exchange (Kopytoff 1986)]. Drawing from the argument that disposal is never final,
Kevin Hetherington has suggested that rather than seeing the rubbish bin as the archetypical conduit of disposal, the door might be
seen as a better example. Rather than being something totally absent,
garbage may have a structuring effect,
impacting on attitudes and relations (Hetherington 2004). Also, there is truth in the saying “one man’s trash is another
man’s treasure”. To entrepreneurs, waste disposal, recycling, ship scrapping and the like make for profitable businesses (Humes 2012:9–
14, 76–95; Richards 2008:145–177). To people on the margin, it can be essential for making a living. In the meanwhile, fascination with
ruins and tourism to abandoned places are developing into an economy on its own and phenomenon’s like dumpster diving and flee
market shopping are phenomenon’s on the rise (Åkesson 2005a:142–145; 2008:146–147). In conclusion, there are plenty of telling
examples on how discarded goods can be functional and valuable. During the Visby event, the usefulness of marine debris was proved
in a number of ways. It generated media attention. It underlined the credibility of the presentations given at the seminar and it created
valuable goodwill to all attending organizations. In addition, it provided props for a playful show. However, the principal application
of the garbage at Visby harbor did not concern economical values, but rather emotional and communicative ones. The main objective
of the arrangement was to gain attention to a pressing environmental problem: that of marine pollution.
Traditionally, the
ocean was commonly seen to be inexhaustible, almost resistant to human harm. In 1951, Rachel Carson wrote in The
Sea Around Us that man “cannot control or change the ocean as, in his brief tenancy on earth, he has subdued and plundered the
This was of course a grave misconception. In fact, in many
places the oceans were transformed hundreds of years ago (Roberts 2008/2007). Today, it is known that the
sea holds a considerable amount of liquid chemical and radioactive waste. Figure 5 Each year, tens of
millions of tons of sewage sludge, industrial waste and polluted dredged material are dumped
into the ocean. Along the shipping lines of the high seas, millions of metric tons of oil are spilled
annually, and thousands of containers—each capable of releasing numerous items—are being
washed overboard due to heavy weather each year (Hohn 2011:34; MarineBio 2012). Decomposed plastic
has established itself in the ocean as a ubiquitous, non-nutritive component of the ecosystem,
accumulating in massive garbage patches. In the most famous of them, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch—a vast mass
continents” (Carson 1951 cited in Hohn 2011:373).
of floating debris midway between Hawaii and California that is twice the size of Texas—microplastics significantly outnumber
zooplankton (Moore and Phillips 2011:116). It is now also that
accumulation of waste in the ocean is detrimental
to marine and human health (MarineBio2012). Despite this, the idea that the oceans could be harmed
by reckless practices of solid garbage dumping has proven underappreciated (Carson 1962:viii–xiii; Moore
and Phillips 2011:109–125; Roberts2008/2007:15:16). From our land-based reference point, quays and shorelines
somewhat frame our conception of the world, making most people blissfully aware of the mess under water. Of course, we have
all heard of marine pollution, but the term mainly connotates chemicals and intangible substances,
eutrophication and possible even microplastics. It is rarely conceived of as solid garbage. It was not
until fairly recently that the problem of marine littering did become a hot issue. An important milestone was the discovery of the Great
Pacific Garbage Patch in the late 1990s, an observation that was followed by further garbage patch finds around the world. Since then,
a raising number of seafarers, scientists and journalists have sounded the alarm over the invasion of garbage into the oceans (Coe and
Rodgers 1997; Earle 1995; Humes 2012:97–114; Moore and Phillips 2011). Two spectacular and “hilarious” container spill incidents–
the Nike shoe spill in 1990 and the loss of thousands of bath toys in 1992—contributed greatly to fuel a wider public and scientific
interest in the matter (Ebbesmeyer and Scigliano 2009; Hohn 2011). Today, ghost nets, flotsam and container spills are examples of
subjects with a high profile within the public debate as well as the environmental science. Above all, plastic debris attracts most of the
media attention (Moore and Phillips 2011:290, se also 344–346 for an overview of research papers). How then was the garbage selection
it is important
to point out a few general things about the agency of garbage and material culture. Normally, we
like to keep garbage at a certain distance (Scanlan 2005:157–163). As been pointed out by John Scanlan “Garbage
is everywere but, curiously, is most overlooked in what we take to be valuable from our lived
experiences…” (Scanlan 2005:9). Its elusiveness is due to its character: “it is when something means nothing to you
that it becomes garbage” (Scanlan 2005:10). Hence, although litter is virtually always within sight (hidden
in containers, garbage cans etc.) we are culturally trained to overlook it (Shanks et al.2004:69–71). On a wider scale, the
industrialized world invests endless thoughts and resources into “getting rid” of its unwanted
remains. However, as been pointed out by Gay Hawkins, things that we do not want to see or deal with tend to
matter a great deal to us. She speaks of “the force of the hidden”, meaning that what has been hidden, concealed and
separated still takes up a great space in our minds and govern social relations. It lurks under the surface and
demands cultural handling techniques. In that way, the absent can be of importance for
maintaining social order and political authority (Hawkins 2003:40–42). Much in accordance with that, Kevin
Hetherington speaks about “absent presence”, arguing that “disposal is about placing absences and this has
consequences for how we think about ‘social relations’” (Hetherington 2004:159, see also Buchli and Lucas2001a;
Humes 2012:98). Disposal thus is not only about throwing things away, it is also about how we manage
and are managed by the absent. As already been touched upon, debris does have a powerful impact on society in many
ways—also mentally. Garbage that has not been correctly discarded haunts us (Hetherington 2004; see Gordon
at Visby harbor activated in order to comment on the problem of marine pollution? In order to understand this,
1997 for a reasoning on the term haunting), and so does the thought on littered landscapes and mountains of garbage.
Marine debris assails ocean life killing hundreds of thousands of sea birds fish plants
mammals and threatens the existence of some of the ocean’s most endangered
species yet its affects are underestimated because of the perceived immensity of the
ocean and the lack of visible devastation
Derraik 02 - Jose G.B., Ecology and Health Research Centre, Department of Public Health,Wellington School of Medicine and
Health Sciences, University of Otago. “The pollution of the marine environment by plastic debris: a review” Marine Pollution Bulletin
44
Since the
use of plastics continues to increase, so does the amount of plastics polluting the marine
environment. Robert et al. (1995) examined the gut content of thousands of birds in two separate studies and found that the
ingestion of plastics by seabirds had significantly increased duringthe 10–15 years interval between studies. A study done in the North
Pacific (Blight and Burger, 1997) found plastic particles in the stomachs of 8 of the 11 seabird species caught as bycatch. The
list of
affected species indicates that marine debris are affecting a significant number of species (Laist,
1997). It affects at least 267 species worldwide, including86% of all sea turtle species, 44% of all seabird species, and 43% of all
marine mammal species (Laist, 1997). The problem may be highly underestimated as most victim are likely
to go undiscovered over vast ocean areas, as they either sink or are eaten by predators (Wolfe, 1987).
There is also potential danger to marine ecosystems from the accumulation of plastic debris on
the sea floor. Accordingto Kanehiro et al. (1995) plastics made up 80–85% of the seabed debris in Tokyo
Bay, an impressive figure considering that most plastic debris are buoyant. The accumulation of such debris can inhibit the gas
exchange between the overlying waters and the pore waters of the sediments, and the resulting hypoxia or anoxia in the
benthos can interfere with the normal ecosystem functioning, and alter the make-up of life on the
sea floor (Goldberg, 1994). Moreover, as for pelagic organisms, benthic biota is likewise subjected to entanglement and ingestion
hazards (Hess et al., 1999). 2.1. Ingestion of plastics A study done on 1033 birds collected off the coast of North Carolina in the USA
found that individuals from 55% of the species recorded had plastic particles in their guts (Moser and Lee, 1992). The authors obtained
evidence that some seabirds select specific plastic shapes and colors, mistaking them for potential prey items. Shaw and Day (1994)
came to the same conclusions, as they studied the presence of floatingplastic particles of different forms, colors and sizes in the North
Pacific, finding that many are significantly under-represented. Carpenter et al. (1972) examined various species of fish with plastic
debris in their guts and found that only white plastic spherules had been ingested, indicating that they feed selectively. A similar
pattern of selective ingestion of white plastic debris was found for loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) in the Central Mediterranean
(Gramentz, 1988). Among seabirds, the ingestion of plastics is directly correlated to foraging strategies and technique, and diet
(Azzarello and Van-Vleet, 1987; Ryan, 1987a; Moser and Lee, 1992; Laist, 1987, 1997). For instance, planktivores are more likely to
confuse plastic pellets with their prey than do piscivores, therefore the former have a higher incidence of ingested plastics (Azzarello
and Van-Vleet, 1987). Ryan (1988) performed an experiment with domestic chickens (Gallus domesticus) to establish the potential
effects of ingested plastic particles on seabirds. They were fed with polyethylene pellets and the results indicated that ingested plastics
reduce meal size by reducing the storage volume of the stomach and the feeding stimulus. He concluded that seabirds with large
plastic loads have reduced food consumption, which limits their ability to lay down fat deposits, thus reducingfitness . Connors and
Smith (1982) had previously reached the same conclusion, as their study indicated that the ingestion of plastic particles hindered
formation of fat deposits in migrating red phalaropes (Phalaropus fulicarius), adversely affecting long-distance migration and possibly
their reproductive effort on breedingg rounds. Spear et al. (1995) however, provided probably the first solid evidence for a negative
relationship between number of plastic particles ingested and physical condition (body weight) in seabirds from the tropical Pacific.
Other harmful effects from the ingestion of plastics include blockage of gastric enzyme secretion, diminished feedingstimulus , lowered
The ingestion of plastic
debris by small fish and seabirds for instance, can reduce food uptake, cause internal injury and
death following blockage of intestinal tract (Carpenter et al., 1972; Rothstein, 1973; Ryan, 1988; Zitko and Hanlon,
steroid hormone levels, delayed ovulation and reproductive failure (Azzarello and Van-Vleet, 1987).
1991). The extent of the harm, however, will vary amongspecies. Procellariiformes for example, are more vulnerable due to their inability
to regurgitate ingested plastics (Furness, 1985; Azzarello and Van-Vleet, 1987). Laist (1987) and Fry et al. (1987) observed that adults
that manage to regurgitate plastic particles could pass them onto the chicks duringfeedi ng. The chicks of Laysan albatrosses
(Diomedea immutabilis) in the Hawaiian Islands for instance, are unable to regurgitate such materials which accumulate in their
stomachs, becominga significant source of mortality, as 90% of the chicks surveyed had some sort of plastic debris in their upper GI
tract (Fry et al., 1987). Even Antarctic and sub-Antarctic seabirds are subjected to this hazard (Slip et al., 1990). Wilson’s storm-petrels
(Oceanites oceanicus) for instance, pick up plastic debris while wintering in other areas (Van Franeker and Bell, 1988). A whitefaced
storm-petrel (Pelagodroma marina) found dead at the isolated Chatham Islands (New Zealand) at a breedingsit e, had no food in its
stomach while its gizzard was packed with plastic pellets (Bourne and Imber, 1982). The harm from ingestion of plastics is nevertheless
not restricted to seabirds. Polythene bags drifting in ocean currents look much like the prey items targeted by turtles (Mattlin and
Cawthorn, 1986; Gramentz, 1988; Bugoni et al., 2001). There is evidence that their
survival is being hindered by plastic
debris (Duguy et al., 1998), with young sea turtles being particularly vulnerable (Carr, 1987). Balazs (1985) listed
79 cases of turtles whose guts were full of various sorts of plastic debris, and O’Hara et al. (1988) cited a turtle found in New York that
had swallowed 540 m of fishingline. Oesophagus and stomach contents were examined from 38 specimens of the endangered green
sea turtle (Chelonia mydas) on the south of Brazil, 23 of which (60.5%) had ingested anthropogenic debris, mainly plastics (Bugoni et
al., 2001). Among other C. mydas washed ashore in Florida, 56% had anthropogenic debris in their digestive tracts (Bjorndal et al.,
1994). Tom_as et al. (2002) found that 75.9% of 54 loggerhead sea turtles (C. caretta) captured by fishermen had plastic debris in their
digestive tracts. At least 26 species of cetaceans have been documented to ingest plastic debris (Baird and Hooker, 2000). A
young
male pygmy sperm whale (Kogia breviceps) stranded alive in Texas, USA, died in a holding tank 11 days later
(Tarpley and Marwitz, 1993). The necropsy showed that the first two stomach compartments were completely
occluded by plastic debris (garbage can liner, a bread wrapper, a corn chip bag and two other pieces of plastic sheeting).
The death of an endangered West Indian manatee (Trichechus manatus) in 1985 in Florida was apparently
caused by a large piece of plastic that blocked its digestive tract (Laist, 1987). Deaths of the also
endangered Florida manatee (Trichechus manatus latirostris) have too been blamed on plastic debris in
their guts (Beck and Barros, 1991). Secchi and Zarzur (1999) blamed the fate of a dead Blainville’s beaked whale (Mesoplodon
densirostris) washed ashore in Brazil to a bundle of plastic threads found in the animals’ stomach. Coleman and Wehle (1984) and
Baird and Hooker (2000) cited other cetaceans that have been reported with ingested plastics, such as the killer whale (Orcinus orca).
Some species of fish off the British coast were found to contain plastic cups within their guts that would eventually lead to their death
(Anon, 1975). In the Bristol Channel in the summer of 1973, 21% of the flounders (Platichthyes flesus) were found to contain polystyrene
spherules (Kartar et al., 1976). The same study found, that in some areas, 25% of sea snails (Liparis liparis) (a fish, despite its common
name) were heavily contaminated by such debris. In the New England coast, USA, the same type of spherules were found in 8 out of
14 fish species examined, and in some species 33% of individuals were contaminated (Carpenter et al., 1972). 2.2.
Plastics
ingestion and polychlorinated biphenyls Over the past 20 years polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) have increasingly
polluted marine food webs, and are prevalent in seabirds (Ryan et al., 1988). Though their adverse effects may
not always be apparent, PCBs lead to reproductive disorders or death, they increase risk of diseases and alter hormone levels (Ryan et
al., 1988; Lee et al., 2001). These chemicals have a detrimental effect on marine organisms even at very low levels and plastic pellets
could be a route for PCBs into marine food chains (Carpenter and Smith, 1972; Carpenter et al., 1972; Rothstein, 1973; Zitko and
Hanlon, 1991; Mato et al., 2001). Ryan et al. (1988) studyingg reat shearwaters (Puffinus gravis), obtained evidence that PCBs in the
birds’ tissues were derived from ingested plastic particles. Their study presented the first indication that seabirds can assimilate
chemicals from plastic particles in their stomachs, indicatinga dangerous pathway for potentially harmful pollutants. Bjorndal et al.
(1994) worked with sea turtles and came to a similar conclusion, that the absorption of toxins as sublethal effects of debris ingestion
has an unknown, but potentially great negative effect on their demography.
Plastic debris can be a source of other
contaminants besides PCBs. Accordingto Zitko (1993) low molecular weight compounds from polystyrene particles are leached
by seawater, and the fate and effects of such compounds on aquatic biota are not known. 2.3.
Entanglement in plastic debris Entanglement in plastic debris, especially in discarded fishingg ear, is a very serious
threat to marine animals. Accordingto Schrey and Vauk (1987) entanglement accounts for 13–29% of the observed mortality
of gannets (Sula bassana) at Helgoland, German Bight. Entanglement also affects the survival of the endangered sea
turtles (Carr, 1987), but it is a particular problem for marine mammals, such as fur seals, which are both curious and playful (Mattlin
and Cawthorn, 1986). Young fur seals are attracted to floating debris and dive and roll about in it (Mattlin and Cawthorn, 1986). They
will approach objects in the water and often poke their heads into loops and holes (Fowler, 1987; Laist, 1987). Though the plastic loops
can easily slip onto their necks, the lie of the long guard hairs prevents the strapping from slipping off (Mattlin and Cawthorn, 1986).
Many seal pups grow into the plastic collars, and in time as it tightens, the plastic severs the seal’s arteries or strangles it (Weisskopf,
once the entangled seal dies and decomposes, the plastic band is free to be picked
up by another victim (DOC, 1990; Mattlin and Cawthorn, 1986), as some plastic articles may take 500 years to
decompose (Gorman, 1993; UNESCO, 1994). Once an animal is entangled, it may drown, have its ability to catch food or to avoid
1988). Ironically,
predators impaired, or incur wounds from abrasive or cuttingaction of attached debris (Laist, 1987, 1997; Jones, 1995). According to
Feldkamp et al. (1989) entanglement can greatly reduce fitness, as it leads to a significant increase in energetic costs of travel. For the
northern fur seals (Callorhinus ursinus), for instance, they stated that net fragments over 200 g could result in 4-fold increase in the
demand of food consumption to maintain body condition. The decline in the populations of the northern sea lion (Eumetopias jubatus),
endangered Hawaiian monk seal (Monachus schauinslandi) (Henderson, 1990, 2001) and northern fur seal (Fowler, 1987) seems at
least aggravated by entanglement of young animals in lost or discarded nets and packing bands. In the Pribiloff Islands alone, in the
BeringSea west of Alaska, the percentage of northern fur seals returning to rookeries entangled in plastic bands rose from nil in 1969
to 38% in 1973 (Mattlin and Cawthorn, 1986). The population in 1976 was decliningat a rate of 4–6% a year, and scientists estimated
that up to 40,000
fur seals a year were being killed by plastic entanglement (Weisskopf, 1988). A decline due
to entanglement also seems to be occurringwith Antarctic fur seals (Arctocephalus gazella) (Croxall et al., 1990). Pemberton et al.
(1992) and Jones (1995) both reported similar concern for Australian fur seals (Arctocephalus pusillus doriferus). At South-east Farallon
Island, Northern California, a survey from 1976–1988 observed 914 pinnipeds entangled in or with body constrictions from synthetic
materials (Hanni and Pyle, 2000). Lost or abandoned fishingnets pose a particular great risk (Jones, 1995). These ‘‘ghost nets’’ continue
to catch animals even if they sink or are lost on the seabed (Laist, 1987). In 1978, 99 dead seabirds and over 200 dead salmon were
counted duringthe retrieval of a 1500 m ghost net south of the Aleutian Islands (DeGange and Newby, 1980). In a survey done in
1983/84 off the coast of Japan, it was estimated that 533 fur seals were entangled and drowned in nets lost in the area (Laist,
1987).Whales are also victims, as ‘‘they sometimes lunge for schools of fish and surface with nettingcaug ht in their mouths or wrapped
around their heads and tails’’ (Weisskopf, 1988). 2.4. Plastic ‘‘scrubbers’’ Studies (Gregory, 1996; Zitko and Hanlon, 1991) have drawn
attention to an inconspicuous and previously overlooked form of plastics pollution: small fragments of plastic (usually up to 0.5 mm
across) derived from hand cleaners, cosmetic preparations and airblast cleaningmedia . The environmental impact of these particles,
as well as similar sized flakes from degradation of larger plastic litter, has not been properly established yet. In New Zealand and
Canada, polyethylene and polystyrene scrubber grains respectively were identified in the cleansingpreparat ions available in those
markets, sometimes in substantial quantities (Gregory, 1996). In airblastingtechn ology, polyethylene particles are used for
strippingpaint from metallic surfaces and cleaning engine parts, and can be recycled up to 10 times before they have to be discarded,
sometimes significantly contaminated by heavy metals (Gregory, 1996). Once discarded they enter into foul water or reticulate sanitary
systems, and though some may be trapped during sewage treatment, most will be discharged into marine waters; and as they float,
they concentrate on surface waters and are dispersed by currents (Gregory, 1996). There are many possible impacts of these persistent
heavy metals or other contaminants could be
transferred to filter feeding organisms and other invertebrates, ultimately reaching higher trophic
levels (Gregory, 1996). 2.5. Drift plastic debris: possible pathway for the invasion of alien species The introduction of alien species
can have major consequences for marine ecosystems (Grassle et al., 1991). This biotic mixing is becoming a widespread
problem due to human activities, and it is a potential threat to native marine biodiversity (McKinney,
1998). Accordingto some estimates, global marine species diversity may decrease by as much as 58% if
worldwide biotic mixing occurs (McKinney, 1998). Plastics floating at sea may acquire a fauna of various
encrusting organisms such as bacteria, diatoms, algae, barnacles, hydroids and tunicates (Carpenter et
particles on the environment (Zitko and Hanlon, 1991). For instance,
al., 1972; Carpenter and Smith, 1972; Minchin, 1996; Clark, 1997). The bryozoan Membranipora tuberculata, for instance, is believed to
have crossed the Tasman Sea, from Australia to New Zealand, encrusted on plastic pellets (Gregory, 1978). The same species together
with another bryozoan (Electra tenella) were found on plastics washed ashore on the Florida coast, USA, and they seem to be increasing
their abundance in the region by drifting on plastic debris from the Caribbean area (Winston, 1982; Winston et al., 1997). Minchin
(1996) also describes barnacles that crossed the North Atlantic Ocean attached to plastic debris. Drift plastics can therefore increase
the range of certain marine organisms or introduce species into an environment where they were previously absent (Winston, 1982).
Gregory (1991, 1999) pointed out that the arrival of unwanted and aggressive alien taxa could be detrimental to littoral, intertidal and
shoreline ecosystems. He emphasised the risk to the flora and fauna of conservation islands, for instance, as alien species could arrive
rafted on drifting plastics.
Oil spill and the like pale in compassions to the loss of biodiversity due to marine
debris like plastics which risk ocean collapse and mass human death
Sielen 13 - Alan B., Senior Fellow for International Environmental Policy at the Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation at
the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. He was Deputy Assistant Administrator for International Activities at the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency from 1995 to 2001.
The prospect of vanishing whales, polar bears, bluefin tuna, sea turtles, and wild coasts should be
worrying enough on its own. But the disruption of entire ecosystems threatens our very survival,
since it is the healthy functioning of these diverse systems that sustains life on earth. Destruction
on this level will cost humans dearly in terms of food, jobs, health, and quality of life. It also violates the
unspoken promise passed from one generation to the next of a better future. LAYING WASTE The oceans' problems start
with pollution, the most visible forms of which are the catastrophic spills from offshore oil and gas drilling or from
tanker accidents. Yet as devastating as these events can be, especially locally, their overall contribution to marine pollution pales
in comparison to the much less spectacular waste that finds its way to the seas through rivers,
pipes, runoff, and the air. For example, trash -- plastic bags, bottles, cans, tiny plastic pellets used in
manufacturing -- washes into coastal waters or gets discarded by ships large and small. This debris
drifts out to sea, where it forms epic gyres of floating waste, such as the infamous Great Pacific
Garbage Patch, which spans hundreds of miles across the North Pacific Ocean. The most
dangerous pollutants are chemicals. The seas are being poisoned by substances that are toxic,
remain in the environment for a long time, travel great distances, accumulate in marine life, and
move up the food chain. Among the worst culprits are heavy metals such as mercury, which is released
into the atmosphere by the burning of coal and then rains down on the oceans, rivers, and lakes; mercury can also be found in medical
waste. Hundreds of new industrial chemicals enter the market each year, most of them untested. Of special concern are those known
persistent organic pollutants, which are commonly found in streams, rivers, coastal waters, and,
increasingly, the open ocean. These chemicals build up slowly in the tissues of fish and shellfish and
are transferred to the larger creatures that eat them. Studies by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
have linked exposure to persistent organic pollutants to death, disease, and abnormalities in fish
and other wildlife. These pervasive chemicals can also adversely affect the development of the
brain, the neurologic system, and the reproductive system in humans. Then there are the nutrients, which
as
increasingly show up in coastal waters after being used as chemical fertilizers on farms, often far inland. All living things require
Fertilizer that makes its way into the
water causes the explosive growth of algae. When these algae die and sink to the sea floor, their
decomposition robs the water of the oxygen needed to support complex marine life. Some algal
blooms also produce toxins that can kill fish and poison humans who consume seafood. The result
has been the emergence of what marine scientists call "dead zones" -- areas devoid of the ocean life
people value most. The high concentration of nutrients flowing down the Mississippi River and
emptying into the Gulf of Mexico has created a seasonal offshore dead zone larger than the state
of New Jersey. An even larger dead zone -- the world's biggest -- can be found in the Baltic Sea, which is comparable in size to
nutrients; excessive amounts, however, wreak havoc on the natural environment.
California. The estuaries of China's two greatest rivers, the Yangtze and the Yellow, have similarly lost their complex marine life. Since
2004, the total number of such aquatic wastelands worldwide has more than quadrupled, from 146 to over 600 today.
Framing garbage as “out of sight out of mind” not only disregards its effect on ocean
life but positions all things as garbage in waiting always on the verge of disappearing
into the abyss - The treatment of garbage exposes the underbelly of habits of
consumption and disposal
Arnshav 14 - Mirja, National Maritime Museum, Stockholm. “The Freedom of the Seas: Untapping the Archaeological Potential
of Marine Debris,” Journal of Maritime Archaeology. [rcm]
When suddenly bringing the unseen into light, it tends to attract even more attention. Representing something foreign and
unexpected, it may stand out as very striking. Further, as been argued by Alfredo González-Ruíbal and others, material culture in
general often does appear as very straightforward.
Things have the capacity to evoke emotions and make way
for an instant understanding in a way that worlds are not always able to do (Burström 2004:21; GonzálezRuíbal 2008:248–252). When broken and decayed, they might even be greater than the whole, since a fragment (just like in the case
with fragment literature, poetry or art) stimulates a wider range of thoughts, associations and feelings, reminding us of the complexity
of the world (Burström 2012). Hence, material culture does hold rhetorical qualities (González-Ruíbal 2008; Gustafsson Reinius 2005).
Much in accordance with what has been stated above, there are plenty of examples of artistic installations, museum exhibitions and
other campaigns, where garbage is used in order to mediate a message (CRRA2011, 2012; Noble and Webster 2011; Schult 2012;
Svenska kyrkan 2012; Åkesson 2008:143). Marine debris too lends itself very well for communication purposes.
Scientists, journalists, museums and others has used it in order to draw attention to the pressing
environmental issue of ocean pollution (Ebbesmeyer and Scigliano2009; Electrolux 2012: Heyerdahl 1993; Hohn 2011;
Statens maritima museer 2010; Moore and Phillips2011; Museum für Gestaltung 2012). In archaeology, a prime example would be the
Titanic. Considering the high density of history at the site and the fact that it is the final resting place for more than 1500 unlucky
travelers, contemporary trash is an affront to its heritage status. However, being such a grand icon, the Titanic offers a perfect stepping
stone for attention. At a paper given in Stockholm in 2012, James Delgado argued that one of the greatest archaeological potentials
of the Titanic derives from the shocking fact that the wreck site has been littered by recent visitors (MacPherson 2012; Vergano 2012;
Fig. 6): When people see the litter they ask: “why are people throwing garbage on the Titanic?” I believe the more important question
is: why do people throw garbage in the sea at all? One of the great potentials of the Titanic is that it can help us spark discussions
about this (James Delgado 2012-05-30). It is a well known fact that the industrialized world, due to population growth in combination
with phenomenons such as mass
consumption and throw away living, produces waste on a previously unimaginable
pointed to a strong correlation
between garbage and “supermodernity” (Agué 2008): “all that does not fit the “global modern”
standard is thrown away “(Rathje and González-Ruíbal 2006:7). Designer Mike Thompson has taken the argument one step
further, suggesting that all products are garbage in waiting “..all products are garbage, it is the perceived
value of the item at that moment that puts the brakes on its procession towards the trash can”
scale (Strasser 1999). Archaeologists W.L Rathje and Alfredo González-Ruíbal has
(Thompson 2008:3, see also Owman 2006:143–154). Needless to say, the oceans become part of the circuit, receiving a good portion
solid garbage recurrently makes its way to
the ocean by means of tsunamis and earthquakes, landfills, river outlets and city sewer systems. In
fact, almost all discard will eventually reach the sea, being the lowest place on earth. As been
described by Moore: On land, it’s soothing to think that all those bottles and wrappers, all that
cheap stuff we handle every day, winds up in a landfill, safely sequestered from polite society. But
here in mid-ocean we’re finding hordes of escapees from imperfect collection systems…and
seeing flaws in hard-to-enforce international marine pollution laws. All this wayward plastic dreck
is beginning to look like civilization’s dirty little secret. Try as we may to control it, to hide it, to
manage it – it mocks us and goes where it doesn’t belong (Moore and Phillips 2011:84). Today,
there is a tendency within archaeology to aestheticize and romanticize modern discard and ruins
in a nostalgic manner. However, it has been argued that this fascination with modernity in decline
and ruin is a bit inapt, as it places modernity itself in the past, making it appear inevitable and
benign. An alternative approach would be to embed modernity in the present and emphasize it as an “unfinished project”—as
something partial, fragile and unfinished (Harrison 2011:151–152). In addition, garbage and ruins have also been
pointed out as a great source material for revealing the destructiveness of globalization and
modernity (González-Ruíbal 2006, 2008; Jörnmark 2011). At the Visby event, the nostalgic or aesthetic gaze on garbage was
of whatever is produced. In addition to the problem of marine pollution,
conspicuously absent. On the contrary, the garbage assemblage on show was used as a warning example and a way of stirring up
By raising a selection of garbage from its hiding place on the seafloor, a spooky feeling of
“presence” of all marine debris was put in appearance (compare Buchli and Lucas 2001a:171–174). In telling
unease.
contrast to the frolicsome music, the beautiful medieval city of Visby and the traditional wooden sailing ship, it clearly stood out as
something smelly, ugly, unnatural, lifeless and potentially dangerous. Figure 7 Drawing from this, the stage was set to promote
attitudes with a bearing on environmental sustainability. Finally, this message was further reinforced by the serving of locally produced
juices and delicious ecological canapés. Hence, apart
from highlighting the issue of marine pollution, a greater
ideological dimension of garbage was also being addressed. I this particular case, the garbage was
mobilized as an implicit critique against certain aspects of modernity and as a way of propagating
an environmentalist mindset. As a science dedicated to the study of physical remains, there is a strong link between
archaeology and garbage (Johansson Hervén 2006:124; Shanks et al.2004:6567; Rathje and Murphy 2001). In contrast to history,
archaeology has traditionally concerned itself with the ordinary and the everyday. Yet,
it is not easy to pin down the
ordinary and expose the nature of contemporary life. Many times we are either too habituated to be able to
question or even remember it (Rathje and Murphy 2001:24). As been pointed out by Anthony Giddens, we will not ordinarily ask
another person why he or she engages in an activity which is conventional for the group or culture of which that individual is a member.
It might also be that we are to certain that we already have a good picture of what is going on, or that we surrender to the notion that
the agents in question are not fully aware of the motives underpinning his or her actions (Giddens1986:6; Harrison 2011:184). Also,
our traditional archaeological methods and theoretical frameworks sometimes appear to be irrelevant and goofy when applied to
familiar conditions (Buchli and Lucas 2001b158–168). Other challenges might be a lack of support from colleagues and founders. Still,
for those involved in the quest, there might be plenty of thought-provoking conclusions to be
drawn. For instance, the archaeology of the contemporary past has shown that there might be a
considerable gap between what people think they do and what they actually do (Rathje and Murphy
2001:53–78). What is more, the banal, the obvious and the quotidian are often enough linked to wider concerns such as identity,
Concealed in the monotonous round of everyday life and the quotidian
material culture is the institutional basis of modern society—capitalism, urban civilization, the rule of law and so
on. Needless to say, garbage does form part of this unvoiced material testimony of the contemporary.
The study of garbage goes beyond the issues of production and consumption. Wasting can be
used to shed light on processes of classification, ordering, transformation and stigmatization. It
addresses notions about purity and pollution, and it can reveal culturally based decisions about
saving or discarding, forgetting or remembering, ignoring or resurrecting (Åkesson 2005b:44).
From an archaeological point of view, engagement with garbage may be a way of drawing
attention to the overlooked aspects of everyday life, making a useful source material for the
understanding of contemporary phenomenon’s. In that regard the study of garbage makes way
for ‘the archaeology of us’. Still, marine debris remains unrecognized within underwater
archaeology. Due to the preoccupation with shipwrecks, submerged landscapes and maritime strategies of the past the study of
ideology and cultural behavior.
the contemporary has largely been neglected. In order to stress the information sought for within the aims of a survey, we do not put
effort in documenting the actual surface assemblages, including recent bottles, cans, plastic bags and so on. Of course, all
archaeological documentation is inevitably filtered and sanitized. But it is worth underlining that in consequently omitting the recent,
we hamper a certain kind of research and mediate a misrepresented picture of a “clean” underwater world, where debris is almost
the question arises as to what the
archaeological potential of marine debris might be? As already been touched upon, the mere
praxis of marine dumping can be understood as a widespread illusion that the sea always renews
itself and that it has the capacity of making things “disappear” (Patton 2007:132). But can the
debris itself be interpreted in terms of an archaeological record, reflecting certain use-and site
related contexts? In order to investigate this, I would like to discuss the case of the deposits on the bottom of a selection of
nonexistent or at least at distant from ancient remains. Considering this,
natural harbours in the Stockholm archipelago. Drawing from the results of the Archipelago Foundation’s marine litter harvesting
project Surfacing refuse (Skärgårdsstiftelsen 2011a), I have looked into the material culture of five harbours, surveyed during the
autumn of 2011 (Skärgårdsstiftelsen 2011b).
The capacity to trash beings and to annihilate their existence is not limited to
aluminum cans crustaceans and seagulls but is the structuring logic for the
dispossession and genocide of all populations
Kennedy 07 - Greg, PhD in philosophy from the university of Ottawa. An Ontology of Trash: The Disposable and Its Problematic
Nature. New York: State University of New York Press. pp 154-155
By failing to realize the universal breadth of care, technological uncaring has entangled us moderns in a unique and precarious ethical
situation. Simply
leading our everyday lives of ordinary consumption causes us to act immorally, that
is, implicates us directly in the undue suffering of others. We read the various statistics in the newspaper, but, due
to our technological insensitivity and security, the magnitude of their moral condemnation does not impress or disturb us. The
industrialized world, containing only 20 percent of the planet's population, helps itself to 80
percent of its natural resources. By all reasonable standards, an inequity of this stature towers as a
fearsome monument to violence, especially when set against the very credible argument "that
economic growth in the West has historically rested on the economic and ecological exploitation
of the Third World."32 These overt demonstrations of violence against humans are symptomatic
of a deeper and covert ontological violence at the heart of technological uncaring. By trashing
entities, we intend to annihilate their being. Baudrillard simply elaborates the economic imperative for disposability,
legitimized by a capitalistic system under the constant threat of overproduction and market saturation, when he writes: The consumer
society needs objects in order to be. More precisely, it needs to destroy them. The use of objects leads to their dwindling
This is why destruction remains the
fundamental alternative to production: consumption is merely an intermediate term between the
two. There is a profound tendency within consumption for it to surpass itself, to transfigure itself
in destruction. It is in that that it acquires its meaning.33 The economic meaning of destruction implies relentless capitalistic
expansion, whereas the ontological meaning signifies the contraction or withdrawal of Being. The violence of consumption
concentrates on the disappearance of beings; when consumed, disposable items are supposed to
vanish. Although their material remains, it is willfully denied presence within the contextualized
disclosure of the meaningful world. We want no sight of our trash. Jettisoning all responsibility for the
disappearance. The value created is much more intense in violent loss.
physicalness of the commodity, the consumer forcefully falsifies its being. We do not let the disposed disposable appear, do not let it
The refusal on our part to let beings be indicates that, once
again and at its profoundest level, technological violence essentially assails humans. In other words, the
be as it is in the open truth of worldly disclosure.
violence of technology is fundamentally ontological because it wrenches us away from our ontological nature. This nature sends us
out to take care of things, yet commodities physically hinder, if not altogether prohibit, the manual expression of our essential care.
We falsify our own careful being in the destructive disclosure of beings as trash, as evacuated objects not worthy of appearance. When
only nothing, not even ourselves, is left to be, then nihilism prevails. The oblivion of Being swallows up our own self-diminished being.
We have just now caught a glimpse of human extinction. It approached us out of the
ontological shadows surrounding the modern phenomenon of trash. In this sense, the ontology of trash
Conclusion
comes to appear as the study of the impossibility of ontology. Of course, there could not be any ontology without human inquiry to
pursue it. More important, however, there can be no Being without an ontological nature to receive it. In all the many ways discussed,
trash is antithetical to nature. It contradicts our careful disclosure. It conceals and dissembles the interdependence of all beings. By so
doing, trash expels things from their essence, which consists in referring beyond themselves to the multiplicity of phenomena in such
a way as to unify and integrate them into a sensible world. As the result of the abnegation of our own physicality, trash signifies the
negation of physicality as such, on which all worldly existence, that is, Being relies. Technology promotes an uncaring way of being-in
that, unsurprisingly, discovers objects as uncared for, as disposable. The grand ontological paradox of this is that, a priori trash, the
phenomena of disposables counteract every stage of the process of disclosure that makes phenomenal existence possible.
Trash
thus piles high in free suspension over an abyss of nothing. But this abyss must not be confused with the ultimate
This abyss dissolves every relation by
destroying the thread that relates all things. Out of this abyss appears the phenomenon of human
extinction.
emptiness of all beings within the web of its worldly interdependence.
The United States federal government should substantially increase marine debris
monitoring of the Earth’s oceans
Increased monitoring expands data beyond solely macro-level marine debris
Ryan 09 - Peter G. Ryan, Percy FitzPatrick Institute, DST/NRF Centre of Excellence , Charles J. Moore, Algalita Marine Research
Foundation, 148 N. Marina Drive, Long Beach, CA 90803 , USA Jan A. van Franeker, Wageningen IMARES and Coleen L. Moloney,
Zoology Department and Marine Research Institute, University of Cape Town. “Monitoring the abundance of plastic debris in the
marine environment,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Science. Vol. 364 no. 1526
If the primary goal is to monitor changes in the amount and composition of plastic debris at sea, direct
surveys avoid many of
the complications of beach dynamics and contamination by beach users. However, at-sea surveys
are complicated by ocean current dynamics, shipboard disposal and accidental loss and are more costly and more
challenging logistically, given the intensive sampling needed to detect subtle changes. Surveys at sea are also limited to
assessing standing stocks rather than accumulation rates. Changes detected in the amounts of debris are the
balance between inputs and losses and do not necessarily reflect the efficacy of mitigation measures to reduce losses of plastics into
the environment. (a) Floating and suspended debris The abundance of floating plastics at sea can be estimated either by direct
observation of large debris items (e.g. Day et al. 1990a; Matsumura & Nasu 1997; Thiel et al. 2003; Pichel et al. 2007) or by net trawls
for smaller items (e.g. Carpenter & Smith 1972; Day & Shaw 1987; Ryan 1988a;Day et al. 1990b; Ogi et al. 1999; Moore, C. J. et al. 2001;
Yamashita & Tanimura 2007). Direct observations rely on competent, motivated observers. Studies comparing detection ability show
marked differences among observers (e.g. Ryan & Cooper 1989), which needs to be addressed if multiple observers are used to monitor
debris at sea. Counts of litter at sea can be used to provide an index of abundance (number of items per unit distance) or an estimate
of abundance based on fixed-width or line transects. Fixed-width transects assume that all debris is detected, which is unlikely unless
transects are very narrow (e.g. Willoughby et al. 1997). For line transects, the perpendicular distance to each item has to be estimated
to compensate for decreasing detection rate with distance from the observer (Buckland et al. 1993). This method assumes that the
probability of detection on the transect line is 1, and there are problems with variable detection rates depending on sea state, light
conditions and the size, colour and height above water of plastic objects. Observations should be conducted only on that side of the
ship with the best viewing conditions. Separate detection curves should be estimated for different sea states, and studies should state
the smallest size of items recorded. Most surveys are conducted from ships
or small boats, but aerial surveys
also have been used to estimate the abundance of plastic litter at sea (Lecke-Mitchell & Mullin 1992) and to
locate major aggregations of litter (Pichel et al. 2007). Aerial surveys cover large areas and are less prone to changes in litter
detectability linked to wind strength and sea state, but they only detect large litter items. As with ship-based surveys, unless interobserver effects can be strictly controlled, aerial surveys are more valuable for detecting spatial differences in abundance than for
monitoring changes over time. Net-based surveys are less subjective than direct observations but are limited regarding the area that
can be sampled (net apertures 1–2 m and ships typically have to slow down to deploy nets, requiring dedicated ship's time). The plastic
debris sampled is determined by net mesh size, with similar mesh sizes required to make meaningful comparisons among studies.
Floating debris typically is sampled with a neuston or manta trawl net lined with 0.33 mm mesh (figure 3).
Given the very high level of spatial clumping in marine litter (e.g. Ryan 1988a; Pichel et al. 2007), large numbers of net tows are required
to adequately characterize the average abundance of litter at sea. Long-term changes in plastic meso-litter have been reported using
surface net tows: in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre in 1999, plastic abundance was 335 000 items km−2 and 5.1 kg km−2 (Moore,
C. J. et al. 2001), roughly an order of magnitude greater than samples collected in the 1980s (Day et al. 1990a,b). Similar dramatic
increases in plastic debris have been reported off Japan (Ogi et al. 1999). However, caution is needed in interpreting such findings,
because of the problems of extreme spatial heterogeneity, and the need to compare samples from equivalent water masses. To date,
most studies have sampled floating plastic debris, but some plastics are more dense than seawater,
making it important to sample mid-water and bottom loads of plastic debris. Suspended debris can be
sampled with bongo nets with a 0.33 mm mesh (Lattin et al. 2004). Few such surveys have been conducted, but data from the eastern
North Pacific suggest that the abundance of suspended plastic within 10–30 m of the sea surface averages two orders of magnitude
less than that of surface plastics (AMRF, unpublished data). All subsurface net tows should be deployed with a flowmeter to assess the
volume of water sampled. The continuous plankton recorder (CPR) offers a valuable subsurface tool to track changes in the distribution
and composition of micro-plastic particles at sea, both spatially and temporally (Thompson et al. 2004). (b) Litter on the seabed Surveys
of macro-debris loads on the seabed have been conducted with divers (e.g. Donohue et al.2001; Nagelkerken et al. 2001), submersibles
and remote-operated vehicles (Galgani et al. 2000) and trawl surveys (e.g. Galil et al. 1995; Galgani et al. 2000; Moore & Allen 2000;
Lattin et al.2004; OSPAR Commission 2007b). Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, plastics dominate macro-debris on the sea floor to an
extent similar to which they dominate floating litter and beach debris. Just like stranded debris, plastic on the seabed aggregates
locally in response to local sources and bottom topography (Galgani et al. 2000; Moore & Allen 2000). The amount of plastic litter is
so great in some areas with large amounts of shipping traffic that initiatives have been started to clean the seabed with trawls (OSPAR
Commission 2007b), despite concerns about the ecological impacts of trawling. To date,
most studies have measured
standing stocks of macro-debris, but some accumulation data have been obtained following cleanups of shallow reefs in
Hawaii (Boland & Donohue 2003; Dameron et al. 2007). The rate of litter accumulation on these reefs is correlated with initial standing
stock and is a function of reef exposure and depth (Dameron et al. 2007).
There has been little attention to the
abundance of meso- and micro-debris on the seabed. Epibenthic trawls have found substantial plastic loads just
above the seabed in shallow coastal waters off southern California (Lattin et al. 2004). Bottom sediments in deeper waters can be
sampled with a Van Veen grab or similar device. Micro-plastics have been found in subtidal sediments around the UK and Singapore
(Thompson et al. 2004; Ng & Obbard 2006). (c) Best practice for at-sea surveys Effective
monitoring of floating plastics
at-sea requires huge sample sizes to overcome the very large spatial heterogeneity in plastic litter.
Stratified random sampling can help with this issue, but it requires a priori categorization of water
masses into the relevant sampling strata. If resources are available, probably the best tool is to sample with neuston
nets with a 0.33 mm mesh. Direct observations, often using vessels of opportunity, are less resource-intensive, but are fraught with
potential biases linked to differences in litter detectability. Such surveys provide only a crude index of the abundance of floating litter.
Much less is known about the distribution and abundance of mid-water plastics, but they probably suffer
the same sampling problems, with the added complication of even lower abundances. The CPR is a useful tool for longterm subsurface monitoring of micro-particles. Monitoring changes in benthic plastic litter is
functionally similar to beach surveys, with the added complication of working underwater. Divers can
replicate beach sampling protocols in shallow water, but in deeper waters there are greater issues with quantitatively robust sampling
owing to variation in trawl and grab efficiency (linked to substratum type and other local conditions). Trawl nets also become clogged,
reducing their efficiency and thus underestimating actual plastic abundance.
Remote cameras may provide a more
objective sampling strategy for benthic litter.
Our affirmation more than a rote procedure is a rupture in habits of consumption
disposal and moreover an exploration of our relationship with the more-than-human
world
Hawkins 06 - Gay, Senior lecturer in media and communications at the University of New South Wales. The Ethics of Waste:
How We Relate to Rubbish. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. pp.120-122
Micropolitics emerge in the relational arts of the self, and these arts are always open to the possibility of change. They may not change
in big, dramatic, revolutionary ways, but they change. They shift and move because they involve the dynamics of relations and the
ongoing work of crafting a self. A recognition of the self as a product of relations and interdependency is not, however, guaranteed.
Many of the
minor practices we engage in day after day contribute to stabilizing the self, affirming
identity through the repetitive reassurance of habits. The relation that is enacted in these habits often involves an
arrogant assertion of a sovereign self separated from the world. This "transcendental egoism," as Connolly calls it, blinds us to our
dependence on otherness, making it difficult to see how much our identity emerges in and through relations of differentiation. Diprose
describes this relation of fundamental dependence in this way: "As one's identity and social value are produced through a
differentiation between the self and the other then the identity of the self is dispersed into the other."4 In other examples explored in
previous chapters I trace how various waste practices blind us to our dependence on the otherness of waste and our fundamental
interconnections with it. The effect of these practices is to deny relationality and interconnection, leading to a cavalier disavowal of
How then to nurture a micropolitics of the self that is aware of our
fundamental interconnections with waste and concerned to manage these connections in careful
and sustainable ways? What kinds of tactics and active experimentation would be needed to open
up the self to waste, to contest arrogant egoism and the exploitation and destruction it breeds?
As I've argued, a first step is to notice waste, to let it capture our attention. For in that momentary
glimpse, or shudder, or rush of feeling, a changed relation is enacted. Something flows across the membranes
the impacts of our waste habits.
of supposed separation that Patton calls the "connective power of relationality."5 He uses this term to explain Deleuze and Guattari's
emphasis on the in-between or the indeterminate conjunction that subtends all relations: and.6 For Deleuze and Guattari the inbetween is where things happen, it is a field of emergence. However, recognizing this connection, feeling the relational dynamics in
between yourself and waste, is not necessarily enough to transform that relation. It can often lead to a virulent and reactive assertion
of separation and mastery. Something else must happen to nurture an ethos of positive engagement with waste, to trigger a relation
of openness and care, and to encourage the cultivation of new habits. Perhaps that something
is recognition of the how
the affective responses that waste can trigger disrupt oppositions between self and world or self
and waste. When we notice waste, or when it touches the most visceral registers of being and
unsettles us, we are reminded of the body's intensities and multiplicities. These affects can feel like
a qualitative overspill, an excess that escapes the knowable, manageable subject. Recognizing the
affective dimensions of waste makes trouble for all those epistemologies that begin with the
knowing subject ready to act on the world, ready to "do the right thing"; for the affective body does not simply stand
as subject to the world's objectivity, it is an "articulated body in transition." This is Brian Massumi's term, and he goes on to explain
how affect is relationality, how to be in the world is to be in an everunfolding relation. Affect, then, can
disrupt oppositions
as it opens us up to the processual rhythms of being. It can allow us to see how we are in and of
the world.7 means sensing our similarities and interdependence with waste. It means sensing the inevitability of our own wasting.
Wasted things in all their various stages of decay—rotting, broken, abandoned—speak of time and endings. I've argued that to be
The refusal to notice waste is also the
refusal to notice the finality of life. In this way, waste defines the scope of ethics. Waste is inevitable,
and how we deal with this, what sort of calculations and values we create to make this
incontrovertible fact meaningful, is the terrain of ethics. While religion and other grand moral
narratives redeem waste and loss with righteous declarations, this is not ethics. Redemption does not
blind to waste and its materiality is to be blind to death and the fact of loss.
necessarily help us live with loss. Its idealism can overprotect us; stop us from accepting the world as it is, stop us from acknowledging
the ways in which death is not salvation but part of life. Ethics, rather than traditional moralities, tend to be more modest, more creative,
and more relational. This makes them more available to a realistic acknowledgment of finitude, because it's through ethical
experimentation in ways of living that it becomes possible to develop an affirmative acceptance of loss, a simple recognition of the
contingency of life and the paradoxical interconnections between destruction and renewal. David Halperin has an incisive account of
this distinction between ethics and morality in relation to waste: The difference between ethics and morality lies in their differing
attitudes to value and to waste. According to a moralistic perspective, life is not wasted if it is lived in the service of value. Value gives
transcendental meaning to life and redeems the loss of it. An ethical perspective, by contrast, is one that measures, assesses and
adjudicates among the diverse concrete practices of living one's life, the various calculations used to determine how exactly to throw
it away.8 What, then, does an ethics of waste that accepts loss look like? If living is shadowed by the reality of death, how might death
and loss be acknowledged, and how might this contribute to a positive rather than a destructive ethic of waste? In this chapter I want
to explore some examples of waste management that contest the dominant ethos of disposal, distance, and denial. These examples
reflect not only active experimentation but also a different relational dynamic between the self and waste, a concern to manage waste
in ways that I are attentive to what Adam Phillips calls "the arts of transience."9
Exploring trash reframes what was initially inert dead matter into an active political
force and exposes the full extent of its entanglement with oceanic and terrestrial life
breaking the myth of an infinite ocean in which to hide our collective trash
Arnshav 14 - Mirja, National Maritime Museum, Stockholm. “The Freedom of the Seas: Untapping the Archaeological Potential
of Marine Debris,” Journal of Maritime Archaeology. [rcm]
In this paper I have tried to tie together garbage studies (including garbology), archaeology of the contemporary past and maritime
archaeology in order to chisel out a space for research that involves marine debris. Although I have just scratched the surface of such
a study area, I claim maritime garbology to be not just a possible but also a relevant and meaningful field of research. The examples
processed briefly in this paper points towards a number of conclusions. Marine dumping stands out as a long term maritime structure
and an unregulated waste disposal practice, existing off the record and beyond the focus of most garbage scholars. It ranges from
habitual actions like cargo sweeping to the spontaneous acts of everyday people. The discussion on marine dumping and the
underpinnings of the strategy implies a widespread human illusion; namely that the sea can “take it”, that it can make our discard
“disappear”. Obviously, “thrown
away” is nothing but a chimera: there is no “away”. As is clear from the evidence
from the Swedish natural harbours, praised for their high natural values, modern debris is all over the place (under
the surface that is). On the basis of this record, revealing several aspects of boating lifestyle, it is suggested that marine debris with
a known context may be a useful archaeological record for grasping practices and every-day actions associated with the site. As
marine debris raised from obscurity and oblivion
may also be turned into powerful symbols and actants. As such it enables tangible symbol
communication and affects our feelings, thoughts and actions. Within this context, its
“archaeological” qualities of ruination, abandonment and (normally) invisibility are significant,
forming the basis for a telling effect. Overall, the cases discussed in the paper all suggest that the
study of marine debris as material culture opens for a number of discussions as regards
entanglement with the sea and humanity’s relation to garbage. It has the potential of recapturing
a hidden part of our social history and everyday life of today. In particular, it seems to underline
the existence of an “out of sight, out of mind” mentality and point to a certain discord between
the mental seascape and the real one. However, studies of marine debris must not necessarily be not interpretative in
illustrated in the section on the environmentalist event at Visby,
the sense archaeology usually tackles a record. For example, the seafloor—where modern debris intermingles with ancient remains—
does not match the common modernist trope of depth in archaeology (archaeology-as-excavation), and the associated notions of the
past as being buried, closed, distant and alienated from the present (Harrison 2011; Latour 1993; Thomas 2004:27–29). Considering
that such notions probably have had a restraining effect on the archaeology of the recent past, the seafloor should make a perfect
laboratory for reorientation and testing of alternative approaches (i.e. Harrison 2011). Another benefit of a maritime garbology is its
potential to add to the understanding of the nested relationship between nature and culture, and illustrate how environmental
although the sea may appear as a non
articulated territory and one of the last wildernesses, reality is quite different. The importance of studying
humanities can contribute to the challenges of our time. It clearly shows that
of marine garbage may stretch beyond an archaeological concern with artefacts. In the end, containers and solid garbage may not
only be a hazard to marine life—it also changes the conditions for it. Forming artificial reefs it may have a good impact on biodiversity.
Along shipping lanes it may also create stepping stones of hard substratum across muddy expansive seascapes, allowing alien
species—environmental harmful as well as beneficial—to move from one area to another (Haifley 2011). In the Anthroposcene, the
deeper causes of environmental change are to be found in culture and in our everyday practices. A maritime garbology should be well
suited to counterbalance and complement the dominant natural science discourse on environmental change and sustainability
(compare Robin 2011, 2006; Robin and Steffen 2007; Sörlin 2012). In addition, marine debris is also well placed for shading light on
matters swept under the carpet, and might be used as a stepping stone for addressing burning issues. As clear from this study, there
is a political dimension of garbage. Such entanglement is not unfamiliar to the archaeology of the
contemporary past. On the contrary, it has been argued that political commitment lies at the heart of the
archaeology of the contemporary (González-Ruíbal 2008:259–261). As been stated by the famous Garbage Project, commenting
on the political environmentalist discourse as suffering from a general lack of understanding and serious misconceptions on the
garbage situation: The
most critical part of the garbage problem in America is that our notions about
the creation and disposal of garbage are often riddled with myth. There are few other subjects of public
significance on which popular and official opinion is so consistently misinformed. (Rathje and Murphy 2001:28). This quotation surly
applies to marine conditions too. As regards garbage, “The
silent world” still has its secrets. A maritime garbology
has the potential to investigate a range of matters—from the pleasure associated with a splash to
the destructiveness of modernity.
Rather than just a waste management proposal fixated with bureaucratic adjustments
our affirmation reasserts waste as part of our political ecology and is a pre-requisite
for any meaningful political intervention
Gregson and Crang 10 - Nicky, Department of Geography, University of Sheffield and Mike, Department of Geography,
Durham University. “Materiality and waste: inorganic vitality in a networked world,” Environment and Planning A., Vol. 42 Is. 5
At a first level, the papers in this theme issue provide a contribution to the diversity and vitality of current waste scholarship. At another
level they are a means to moving waste scholarship to a fuller engagement with materiality.i Our starting point here is a paradox.
Waste is intrinsically, profoundly, a matter of materiality and yet – notwithstanding a sustained engagement with materiality in certain
areas of the social sciences of late – much of what is most readily identified as waste research remains staunchly immaterial. Just as
much as societies have sought to distance themselves from and hide their wastes for fear of contamination, so academia has been shy
of the stuff of waste. Predominantly, social science work identifies waste in terms of waste management; a move which ensures that
waste is defined by, and discussed in terms of, ‘disposal’ technologies, or – more correctly – waste treatments, and their connection to
policy.
The stuff of waste therefore is translated into treatment technologies - principally the established
ones of incineration and landfill but also emergent technologies such as anaerobic digestion. Or, it is reconfigured as resource recovery,
that is, as recycling, re-use and re-manufacturing. Thence, for the most part, it is translated into metrics – tonnes and targets. To modify
Zygmant Bauman’s paraphrasing of Marx, with waste all that is solid (or indeed liquid) tends to melt, if not into air, into the register of
the radical separation of waste as material and matter from a policy world of
tonnes and targets inscribes itself into clear academic divisions of labour. Hence, waste in the social
sciences has hitherto been the primary concern of environmental policy and urban planning, whilst
stuff and its treatment remains the preserve of the technical and thus the domain of engineering.
the categorical. Further,
The matter of waste becomes fixed and limited through management. Caught within a teleological fix, that which is managed as waste
is waste, and that which is waste is what is managed. Waste’s identification with waste management, specifically its translation into the
categories and policies of waste management, is a manoeuvre which places the field firmly in accord with Latour’s ‘moderns’. In keeping
with that we find much work that problematises waste does so at the level of the categorical rather than opening out its ontological
So, albeit that there are considerable differences between work which seeks to evaluate
policy outcomes (Davoudi, 2000; Petts, 2000, 2004) and that which has moved waste debate into
the conceptual terrain defined by governance (Davoudi, 2009) and governmentality (Fagan, 2004; Bulkeley
politics.
et ai, 2007), these two force fields within waste scholarship remain firmly in the realms of humans acting on the world (cf. Hillier, 2009).
the field is defined by end-of-pipe policy, and focuses on the identification of
‘barriers to’ as the primary means to engage with waste policy. Policy outcomes are what matters
here, but - as Bulkeley et ai (2007) remark- such thinking perpetuates a ‘linear, techno-economic model’ of
the policy process, divorcing policy making from policy intervention. It also, we argue, works to
locate waste policy research at the furthest remove of all ‘end-of-pipe’ policies. In Bulkeley et al’ s own
In the first body of work,
work these difficulties are addressed by turning to the literature on modes of governing, with its focus on governmental technologies
as deployed by agencies in institutional relations. Through their analysis of UK municipal waste authorities, Bulkeley et ai identify four
modes of acting on the world with respect to UK waste — disposal, diversion, eco- efficiency and resource. Yet, notwithstanding its
it is the stuff that is being
governed, or that which is the outcome of policy. Black-boxed, manipulated, treated, distributed,
and contested, it is policy, its categories, governing and campaigning which are the primary agents
here, and where all the interest lies. The focus upon governance can be inverted, to ask how it is
that various forms of matter have different affordances and become governed differently under
different regimes (Gille, 2007). Alternately the different incarnations of waste can be used to suggest the situational and
conceptual sophistication, in this work, as in the earlier work of Davoudi and Petts, waste just is:
relational character of the category ‘waste.’ Far from being fixed in advance, waste is seen as historically mutable, geographically
contingent and both expressive of social values and sustaining to them. Symbolic analysis from Mary Douglas onwards has shown
how waste and dirt is defined as impure and reputationally damaging. Judith Williamson (1987) elegantly demonstrated this around
the adverts for a vacuum cleaner, that offered to clean ‘all three kinds of dirt’ – where the technology miraculously became the solution
to problems posed by its own advertising’s classification of uncleanly matter. Here the symbolic comes to define various materials
more or less arbitrarily as waste in ways that suite society. But, what is polluting waste in one society may not be treated so in another
time and place. From this it flows that categories and social orders use materials but are not determined by those materials. This
liberating move from waste as a self-evident category to waste as a social construction therefore begs the question of how different
matters matter differently.
Bureaucratic solutions to waste management foreclose the necessary affective
response to trash - Trash must be noticed not sequestered as something to be hidden
away - Positioning trash as something that works on human and ocean life as much as
we work on it cultivates an ethic towards the more-than-human world
Hawkins 06 - Gay, Senior lecturer in media and communications at the University of New South Wales. The Ethics of Waste:
How We Relate to Rubbish. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. pp. 73-75
In exploring the dynamic exchanges between subjects and objects, Sebald captures the translations and displacements that shape
human relations with the material world. Ornaments, utensils, dumped car wrecks, mattresses— objects that have outlived their former
owners—have what Bill Brown calls "history in them."5 Their dislocation and uncanny presence as remainders makes the traces of their
former uses and human attachments visible. Sebald's abandoned things speak of the full magnitude of what happened. He uses
cultural debris to confront the past not as moral lesson but as a source of philosophical reflection about loss, destruction, and grief.
His "method," if you can call it that, is a powerful evocation of Walter Benjamin's materialist history. For Sebald, like Benjamin, is
what can happen when you notice
waste, when you pay close attention to its presence. Suddenly, discarded objects appear animate
and able to make claims on us. By refusing to other waste, to reduce it to structure or metaphor, Sebald implicates waste's
materiality in questions of affect and ethics. Could the recognition of waste as things change our relations
with it? Could it lead to different forms of materialism less concerned with the vagaries of desire
or disposability? What would an ethics of waste mean for our material habitus, for how we actually live with things? This chapter
interested in the phenomenological hermeneutics of cultural debris.6 Sebald shows
explores these questions. While its inspiration is Sebald, its examples are two extraordinary films: Agnes Varda's The Gleaners and I
and Walpiri Media's Bush Mechanics. In both these films people engage with waste. While their motivation is often scarcity and need,
the material practices they invent involve an openness to the thingness of waste. It is the possibility of transformation and misuse that
makes waste available to other systems of objectification. But you
have to be willing to see and feel this. Inventing
a new materialism involves a responsiveness to objects that is mutually transformative of both
people and things.7 Waste captures the attention not simply of those in desperate need but also of those able to imagine
different uses, able to reanimate it. This is where necessity meets creativity and where ethics meet imagination. Before we look at these
films, the
value of thinking about waste as things needs to be considered more carefully. This takes us
into the realm of material culture and thing theory. Theories of material culture show how history and biography apply to things. They
show how the work of consumption and exchange creates value and how material forms can be coded and receded to satisfy human
needs and desires. This work is invaluable for reminding us how human uses give objects instrumental status. But is there a realm of
thingness that exists beyond this material object world? Is there a point where things cannot be reduced to objects, where their
presence is asserted in ways that disrupt their object status? And could this nascent thingness be a potential source of different, more
ecologically aware practices? According to Bill Brown, we glimpse thingness in irregularities of exchange, in moments when objects
stop working for us, or when we are not quite sure how to identify: all situations that could easily describe waste.8 These experiences
involve an encounter with the anterior physicality of the world, with the sensuous presence that exceeds the materialization and
These are experiences of objects asserting themselves as things, when things
provoke and incite, when they capture our attention and demand to be noticed. And in these
chance interruptions, these "occasions of contingency" as Brown calls them, different relations surface: "The story
utilization of objects.
of objects asserting themselves as things, then, is the story of a changed relation to the human subject and thus the story of how the
thing really names less an object than a particular subject-object relation."9 This approach shifts the focus from material culture's
anthropological inflections to phenomenology and philosophy. Brown is concerned less with the social life of objects than with how
things become "recognizable, representable and exchangeable to begin with," with the mutual constitution of human subject and
inanimate object.10 Elizabeth Grosz's account of the thing takes a similar approach. Like Brown, she is interested in how things assert
themselves and how we become enmeshed with them, and she draws on pragmatist philosophers to make her case. Darwin, William
James, Bergson, Rorty, and Deleuze all, in different ways, put questions of action and practice at the center of ontology. Here the thing
features as a resource for being. We make things with it, leave our trace on it, but this does not mean that the thing is subordinate to
human action. For the thing has a "life" of its own that we must accommodate in our activities. "The thing poses questions to us,
questions about our needs and desires, questions above all of action: the thing is our provocation to action and is itself a result of our
action."11 Although Grosz doesn't argue this, in her schema things are irrevocably implicated in ethics. For if things pose questions to
us then they must also be capable of making us consider what we do. What, then, of waste? Theories of material culture show us the
role of circulation and use in the creation and destruction of value; they illuminate the human and social contexts of objects in motion.
But what happens when objects stop moving, when they get stuck on the verge abandoned or when they turn into urban debris?
Thing theory explores how the latency of thingness might surface in these moments when objectification breaks down. For if the thing
is always a kind of remainder, so too is waste, hence the potential of waste to remind us of the liminality between useful and useless,
object and thing. If we noticed waste as things, what sort of new material relations and practices might this trigger? When
waste
is framed as dead objects and relegated to its proper place in the dump or garbage truck it often
fails to provoke. It poses no questions to us because it has been regulated and rendered passive
and out of sight. Waste as dead objects throws up few possibilities, but waste as things is full of
promise, full of the possibilities of becoming a resource for being.
Before entertaining the speculation of human extinction attune your decision to a
response to the continual killing and extinction of non-human life - An affective
rejoinder requires a care not for trash but for its affects in the world
Yusoff 2k10 - (Kathryn Yusoff Lecturer in Human (and Non-human) Geography, and Director of the MA in Climate Change at
the University of Exeter. Theory Culture Society 27.2-3, 2010)
If, as Haraway says, ‘Animals are everywhere full partners in worlding, in becoming with’ (2008: 301), what kind of colleagues are we
to be in our shared experience of climate change? And, furthermore, how
might we be better colleagues with the life
forces of the biosphere? In the ubiquitous iconography of polar bears, our colleagues might seem to be getting short shrift
in the presenting and practising of their complexity. Polar bears have become somewhat generic, ordered into taxonomies, ranked by
perceived importance, isolated from the habitats that make their worlds, and the lively relationalities in which they are already situated.
Or they are too located in our narratives of their worlds (forever swimming in the sea of melting ice) to allow them any other spaces
to practise in. Yet, if nothing else, to
represent is to assume responsibility for, to decide not to occlude, and
thus, in some way, to care. And this care, or non-human charisma as Jamie Lorimer characterizes it, provides ‘the
vital motivating energy that compels many people to get involved in biodiversity conservation’
(2007: 927). But, making present is a tricky business (and only half of the ethical story). How to make those significant
others that are the silent recipients of violence in an era of anthropogenic-induced climate change present and visible to the
imagination is a question for all who are concerned about the barely visible sites of destruction that constitute the experience of
the archive and archival impulses are important because
they represent the prevalent attitude towards the diversity and dynamism of life on earth. The
archival impulse is a well-established historical cultural practice, which has consistently been used
to approach and respond to life, predominantly through the organization of its dead subjects.
Attention to how biopolitical worlds are ordered through the archival principle is crucial to the
possibility of ethics, of living with rather than against (in-)significant others. So aesthetics clearly
does matter in the biopolitics of multispecies living, with often remote and absent communities
of human and non-human others. But, how does it matter? What and where are the spaces of this
biopolitical aesthetic? And what kinds of careful aesthetic practices open spaces to configure a
more exuberant and full politics of climate change? And, finally, in being careful, can we afford to
repress the violence that is so clearly part of this relating? Might violence open another
unexpected route into an ethical relation? If we know anything about abrupt climate change from ice cores and paleorecords, the impact of change has been experienced as a series of mass extinction events: the Holocene,
Cretaceous-Peleogene, Triassic- Jurassic, etc. To imagine the world without us – as one possible climate future
– is to imagine our own extinction event, much as Beckett did in ‘Imagination Dead Imagine’ (1965). But before we
ever get to such an end game, we must imagine the world as it is: as a world of diminishing nonhuman others, a world in which certain songs and calls and whoops are quieting. As the force of
these animal entities lessens, in the creative and destructive acts that constitute the ‘play of the
world’, this means not just their extinction but also the extinction of the aspects of our lives that
are co-constituted through these aesthetic experiences of the world. That is to say, while climate change is
climate change. In this equation of absence-presence,
the big narrative of the anthropocene, with carbon as the central player, there is not an adequately developed discourse that describes
the interdependence of multispecies flourishing and destruction within climate change. Furthermore, the conceptualization of climate
change as a human-centred, human-instigated global practice (i.e. a world- forming practice) does not properly represent the
an aesthetics that
is playful, pertaining to sensuous perception of the ‘play of the word’ and an aesthetics that is
politically engaged as a practice in politicizing ecologies and structuring what ecologies enter
politics (i.e. the political organization of life). Whereas Frederic Jameson went searching for the ‘political unconscious’ that haunts
biophysical world as an already full space of that which is not exclusively ‘ours’ to make. I want to argue for
aesthet- ics (Jameson, 1981: 17; see also Jameson, 1992), following Michel Foucault (1990[1984]; see also O’Leary, 2002), I argue that
aesthetics must be considered as part of the practice of politics; a space where things are made,
both materially and semiotically (to paraphrase Haraway) and a space that configures the realm
of what is possible in that politics. Foucault referred to this as the search for an ‘aesthetics of
existence’ (1990[1984]: 49). Aesthetics is, in Foucault’s terms, fundamentally biopolitical. Alongside this connection
between aesthetics and politics as a space in which ecologies are made, there are various kinds of
loss and violence that are an attendant part of anthropogenic-induced climate change, which
generate a social urgency to these questions of representation and violence, aesthetics and
existence. The article, then, is organized into three sections that question the perception, production and spheres of
action that the political aesthetics of climate change articulate for multispecies living. The first section
looks at Jacques Rancière’s concept of political aesthetics in order to extend an argument about the importance of aesthetics in
multispecies living beyond a concentration on practices into a consideration of how the distribution of the sense experience is crucial
to the political spaces of biopolitics. This is followed by a discussion of Bataille’s more energetic ontology on the exuber- ance and
destructiveness that inheres in biological life on earth. The second section looks at a range of archival practices that are employed to
order and represent the loss of biodiversity as a consequence of climate change, partic- ularly the animal species and animal spaces
where biopolitics are made. Against this scene of animal destruction, I want to look at George Bataille’s more chaotic ledger for
approaching our archives of destruction. His energetic thinking suggests how to make the ‘exuberance of presence’ part of the intimate
and ethical contract we have with destruction. As such, if we consign the violence of
climate change to the archive
– our normative economies of representation – we might forgo the possibility of a proper
relationship with that violence that might yet moderate its scope. To paraphrase Bataille (1991a: 23), what
is at stake here in a restricted framing of economies (of life) is that we are forced to undergo
violence rather than to bring it about in our own way, if we understood that violence more fully.
The conclusion considers how a biopolitical aesthetic comes into being Through such archival
practices, and asks what aesthetic shifts would make the ‘play of the world’ more present in its
absences during a time of abrupt climatic change. The strange couple of Rancière and Batailleis brought together
here,because Rancière articulates a way of thinking about aesthetics as crucial to creating spaces of politics,
and Bataille gives us the fullness of aesthetic experience as a corporeal expenditure that bears on
our every ethical relation to and in the world. Their thinking is by no means commensurable, but it does create a
(shaky)bridge between the intimacies of experiencing loss in the ‘play of the world’ and biopolitical
understandings of the distribution of sense experience in the politics of climate change. Furthermore,
Bataille’s archival or taxonomic approaches to thinking (discussed below) show us one space where we can begin making other
the distribution of the sensible as a condition of the visibility
and invisibility of political aesthetics suggests a way to practice this. For both thinkers, political
aesthetics are configured around fidelity to the event or experience, which means in the context of
climate change an engagement with the banal violence of systematic destruction. There are three themes that
situate this discussion of animality in the context of climate change. First, the consideration of aesthetics as a form of ethics,
that is, an ‘aesthetics of existence’ (Foucault, 1990[1984]). Second, the dual economy of excess as articulated by Bataille,
that pitches the restricted economy of banal, unthought excess of late industrial modernity that
participates in the wholesale destruction of environments against the excess of exuberance (and experience) that
is both violent and vital to the generosity of life, but is often excluded. The form of this article
attempts a fidelity to the aesthetics of excess and existence; thus it seeks to discreetly break off
from academic critique into other forms of engagement with animality.
biopolitical futures. And Rancière’s thinking on