The victims of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

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What should be a pristine paradise in the middle of the Pacific, Midway, is the end of the line for plastic waste floating in the ocean. Not only are its beaches awash in refuse, but the island's most iconic wildlife, the Laysan albatross, swallow everything from bottle caps to grocery bags, often dying as a result. Sharyn Alfonsi reports from the atoll on the next edition of 60 Minutes Sunday, December 16 at 7:30 p.m. ET and 7:00 p.m. PT on CBS.

 

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Midway is off limits to the public and sits inside one of the world's largest marine reserves. It also sits at the edge of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the largest of five ocean whirlpools where much of the worlds' marine plastic accumulates. Because of its proximity to the Patch, plastic finds its way onto Midway's shores. Plastic also arrives on the atoll in the stomachs of the million-plus albatross that live there, who pick it up while foraging for food.

 

"They do think it's food," says Kelly Goodale, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The plastic can also attach itself to real food, like squid and fish, she tells Alfonsi. "Flying fish, they can lay eggs on floating debris. And so they will absolutely lay eggs on pieces of floating plastic. So if the adults are out there foraging, they pick up those eggs as well as pieces of plastic in there."Goodale says about five tons of plastic comes to Midway in the birds' stomachs every year.  That plastic is often the only thing left after dead birds have decomposed. Every Albatross on Midway has plastic in its stomach, according to Goodale.

 

Hundreds of tons of plastic have been retrieved from Midway over the past two decades, says Kevin O' Brien, who oversees its removal for the National Atmospheric and Oceanographic Administration. He shows Alfonsi some of the larger objects they've retrieved. "Young monk seals often will get curious and stick their snout into these eel cones," says O'Brien as he shows one of those large items to Alfonsi.

 

Awareness of the problem of marine plastics is growing globally, and there are movements to ban items like straws and bags. But plastic is so ubiquitous, reducing the amount we put into the environment will be a gargantuan task.

 

Boyan Slat, a young Dutch inventor, has come up with an ambitious plan to try to clean up what's already out there. He's designed a boom, which he hopes can corral plastic into an area where it can be easily removed once deployed in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Critics say, even if his device works, focusing on cleaning up the Patch while millions of tons of new plastic continues to flow into the ocean every year is like trying to mop up a bathroom flood while the tap is still running. To this, Boyan replies, "I think humanity can do more than one thing at the same time. And-- you know-- if your bathroom is over-flooding, I'm still pretty happy that the mop exists," he laughs. "Eventually we need to mop it up, right?"

 

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