Plastic Bags a Major Problem for Marine Wildlife Critic

In an article entitled “Plastic bags a Major Problem for Marine Wildlife” written by Lori Brown (16 April 2009), the idea of plastic bags harming marine wildlife is explored. The University of Dalhousie performed some research looking at the contents of the stomachs of leatherback turtles, and they found that there were traces of plastic found in more than one-third of the animals that they looked at. In this article, Brown makes a claim that plastic and debris that is not properly disposed of is harming wildlife. She quotes the United Nations Environment Programme, and they state that “Marine litter is one of the most pervasive and solvable pollution problems plaguing the world’s oceans and waterways.” Brown seems to believe in this statement, and she concludes that “a simple solution to the plastic bag issue is, of course, reusable shopping bags”. Although I believe that the claim Brown is making is true, she does not have very many good arguments and evidence to back up her claim.

Brown explains that plastic and other waste products were found in the stomachs of leatherback turtles but she fails to explain the details of this study, leaving the readers wondering where the study was performed, making it unknown where the problem of the litter resides. Brown also does not use any statistics, numbers, or data when she talks about what was found to be harming the marine wildlife, and this makes her claim seem less credible. If the reader does not have hard evidence and facts staring them in the face, they cannot see how much of a problem the management of the plastic waste and waste generated from humans really is. Brown does talk about a report that was recently released from the Ocean Conservancy report,” A Rising Tide of Ocean Debris and What We Can Do About It”, who says that “plastic bags accounted for 12 percent of all marine debris collected during their 23rd annual Coastal Cleanup”. However with this being the only number given, the readers do not know what kind of debris accounted for the rest of the 100 percent found on the Coast, and we are uncertain of how big of a problem plastic debris really is.

Brown gives us advice of what we should be doing to diminish the plastic waste that we are producing, but the only advice she gives us is that we should be using reusable bags instead of plastic bags. Brown mainly talks about the harmful effects of plastic bags on the environment in her article, but she also mentions balloon fragments, fishing lines, candy wrappers, and spoons being found in the stomachs of the turtles that were tested. Because she mentions these others kinds of waste, I believe that she should talk about them a little more and outline some steps of things we should be doing to diminish the harmful effects of these objects too.
The claim that Brown is making is not backed up with very much hard evidence and facts, making it seem less credible to the readers. The issue she talks about is an important one and a very real one to our society, but because she gives no real data to support her ideas and opinions, the impact of what she is saying may be lost on the readers.

References
Brown, L. (2009) Plastic Bags a Major Problem for Marine Wildlife. Live Science, 16 April 2009. http://www.livescience.com/animals/090416-plastic-bags.html. Accessed 27 Sept 2009.