Ahyeong’s interview podcast, First episode : We have to pay attention to the “Sea pollution”

Hi guys! I’m Ahyeong Jeong, the hosts of Ahyeong’s Interview Podcst. Do you know that the U.S. has one of the worst sea pollution? Today, we are going to talk about marine pollution with Evie, who continued to participate in sea-clean up events in Russia, Sweden, and Connecticut. Our special guest Evie prepared her personal story about the sea-clean up experience.

Come here and get some tips from Evie that how can we solve this problem!

Links to indi­vid­ual research on dis­cussed topics:

U.S. gen­er­ates more plas­tic trash than any oth­er nation, report finds

How Many Marine Ani­mals Die From Plas­tic Each Year? | Earth.Org

 

Tran­script

Ahyeong Jeong hosts Evie’s inter­view podcast

Ahyeong : Hel­lo. Wel­come to the Ahyeong’s inter­view pod­cast ses­sion. My name is Ahyeong Jeong and I’m the host of this pod­cast. This is our first episode with Evie. Before intro­duc­ing our first guest, Evie, I have a ques­tion to you guys.

US gen­er­ates more plas­tic trash than any oth­er nation, accord­ing to new study

Ahyeong : Did you know that US gen­er­ates more plas­tic trash than any oth­er nation? Accord­ing to the research from sci­ence Advances, Chi­na may be the world’s largest man­u­fac­tur­er of plas­tic, the report finds, but the Unit­ed States is five fur­ther world’s largest gen­er­a­tor of plas­tic waste. It pro­duced about 32 mil­lion met­ric tons of the stuff in 2016. The US also lands as high as third among coastal nations for con­tribut­ing lit­ter, ille­gal­ly dumped trash, and oth­er mis­man­aged waste to its shore­lines. Let’s face it, we have a large coastal pop­u­la­tion in the US. We are mas­sive con­sumers and that has con­se­quences. And we have to get out of this silli­ness that all we have to do is stop Asians from dump­ing in the ocean and wed be all set, says Ted Siegler, an econ­o­mist and part­ner at DSM Envi­ron­men­tal ser­vices in Wind­sor, Ver­mont and a co-author of the study. In this point, we start to talk about the prob­lem and solu­tion of ocean pol­lu­tion. And today, as I said, we have our spe­cial guest, Evie.

Evie par­tic­i­pates in ocean cleanups in Rus­sia, US, and Sweden

Ahyeong: Hel­lo Evie. Can you intro­duce your­self to our pod­cast­ing listeners?

Evie: Hel­lo. I’m Evie. I’m 21 years old and I par­tic­i­pate in cleanups in Rus­sia, US, and Swe­den. My recent cleanup was in the US about a month ago.

Ahyeong : Thank you for intro­duc­ing Evie. When did you become inter­est­ed in ocean pol­lu­tion issues?

Evie: When I was in high school, I became high­ly inter­est­ed in the pol­lu­tion issues because my major was biology.

Ahyeong : Oh, that’s cool.

Evie: My, first cleanup was when I was 17. I was in high school and I enjoyed it a lot, but it also was a bit sad to see how much trash there is.

Aya: Mm Yeah. And I also heard that you attend­ed to the 28th and new­er Seoul two sea cleanup, which is held by Con­necti­cut riv­er con­ser­van­cies. Is it right?

Evie : Yeah, that is true. It was the most recent one.

Ahyeong : What was the extra sea pol­lu­tion sit­u­a­tion you saw when you par­tic­i­pat­ed in this sea cleanup event?

Evie : There was quite a lot of trash. I spoke to the oth­er par­tic­i­pants who have been doing the same site for more than ten years, and they said that in the years before, when they only start clean­ing it, it was much dirt­i­er. So the cleanups help. Every year it gets clean­er. but there’s still a lot of trash, espe­cial­ly a lot of small trash.

Ahyeong: Wow, that is too bad. So what was the extra sea pol­lu­tion sit­u­a­tion you saw when you par­tic­i­pat­ed in the sea cleanup event.

Evie: There are a lot of fish­ing sup­plies that are lying around. Maybe fish­ing rods and fish­ing nets, because peo­ple go fish­ing a lot. There are some car parts, like big tires thrown into the riv­er. Small trash like bot­tles is very pop­u­lar. Bot­tle caps, bro­ken appli­ances, any ran­dom stuff, to be hon­est. Toys, some parts of plas­tic that you can’t even tell where they came from.

Ahyeong: Uh-huh.

Evie: They kind of dis­solved a bit.

Ahyeong: Oh, I did­n’t know that. And where is the place? Did you see cleanup in the last,

Evie: So it was the sub­urbs of Hart­ford. yeah. My oth­er Con­necti­cut riv­er cleanup was in the mid­dle of Massachusetts.

Ahyeong : Oh, I got it. Yeah. And how do you think about this? Do you think the ocean pol­lu­tion sit­u­a­tion in the US is worse com­pared to oth­er countries?

Evie: I think that US con­tributes a lot to the pol­lu­tion because us is one of the biggest con­sumer of goods with one of the biggest economies. The ocean does­n’t always end up in the US because it’s in the sea and then it swims away. But us def­i­nite­ly con­tributes a lot to the plas­tic pol­lu­tion, I think.

Ahyeong : Uh-huh. So com­pared to your last expe­ri­ence in, in Swe­den, in Rus­sia, which was worse.

Evie: So I think that, first goes us, it’s a lot of trash, then goes Rus­sia, and then goes Swe­den. In Rus­sia, we don’t have that many peo­ple liv­ing near the sea­side. That’s why trash does­n’t go into the sea. We have a huge shore­line, but no one lives there. It’s

00:05:00

Yvie: too cold. Swe­den is very good at man­ag­ing trash, and Swe­den is very, mind­ful about where their trash goes. So they recy­cle 90% of their trash. In the US, we can see a bin for trash and mixed recy­cling. In Swe­den, you don’t have a bin for mixed recy­cling. You have a sep­a­rate bin for glass, a sep­a­rate bin for plas­tic, a sep­a­rate bin for paper, and that way it gets recy­cled in a much more effec­tive way.

Ahyeong : Oh, that is a good way.

Evie : Swe­den even buys trash from oth­er countries.

Ahyeong: Real­ly? I did­n’t know that.

Evie : At least Swe­den used to buy some of trash from Russia.

Ahyeong: Yeah. And I just want to hear more about your expe­ri­ence. Like, could you tell me more detailed things, what you did on that day? Because I have no idea about the sick cleanup.

Evie : So, it’s about four or 5 hours.

Evie : we get big bags and then we col­lect all the trash. We col­lect all the trash except for haz­ardous trash, like bones.

Evie : Because they can be con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed. there are a lot of peo­ple, around 50 peo­ple came that day. It was quite a big event because we gath­ered about 40 bags of trash and those were pret­ty big bags.

Ahyeong: Wow.

Evie : yeah. Some of the trash needs to be han­dled by sev­er­al peo­ple. For exam­ple, heavy trash, like tires, four peo­ple togeth­er can lift it up and throw it away, but not just one per­son. So it’s very good that there are a lot of peo­ple because, even com­pli­cat­ed trash can be picked up.

Ahyeong : And you guys use any tools or just pick up with the hand.

Evie : So every­one wears gloves. And some of the peo­ple use spe­cial tools for pick­ing up the trash. Gen­er­al­ly, if the trash is not sharp, which might be the case, the gloves do help for pick­ing up trash, like glass maybe, or some­thing sharp like nee­dles. Some­times you can find nee­dles. I have found too. You need some­thing to secure yourself.

Can any­one par­tic­i­pate in that event? Yeah, any­one can participate

Aya: And then can any­one par­tic­i­pate in that event?

Evie : Yeah, any­one can par­tic­i­pate. Old­er peo­ple can par­tic­i­pate. Mid­dle aged peo­ple can par­tic­i­pate. A lot of teenagers do par­tic­i­pate. And it’s free. you have to get there by yourself.

Ahyeong :Oh, yeah.

Evie: But there are a lot of sites along the Con­necti­cut riv­er, so you can pick the one that is the clos­est to you and get there in a way that’s con­ve­nient for you. For exam­ple, I got some mine by pub­lic trans­port, and it’s very pos­si­ble and con­ve­nient to get there this way.

Ahyeong: That’s a good idea.

Evie : Con­necti­cut Riv­er Con­ser­van­cy does mul­ti­ple cleanups through­out the year

Ahyeong : And I’m also curi­ous about the orga­ni­za­tion, which is Con­necti­cut Riv­er Con­ser­van­cy stove. Was it your first time?

Evie : that was my sec­ond time with this orga­ni­za­tion. I used to clean up in Mass­a­chu­setts. A cou­ple years ago.

Ahyeong : And do you know about the organization?

Evie : It’s a pret­ty big orga­ni­za­tion. They do mul­ti­ple cleanups and events through­out the, through­out the year. It has a lot of mem­bers and it, allies with oth­er orga­ni­za­tions in Mass­a­chu­setts, Con­necti­cut, oth­er parts of New Eng­land. It is pret­ty old. Like it’s been there since eight­ies, I believe. And they also have a fund where you can donate money.

Ahyeong : And how did you know and find that organization?

Evie : So, it was my high school envi­ron­men­tal, sci­ence teacher. I took AP envi­ron­men­tal sci­ence and we talked about the pol­lu­tion. And then she shared the resources that we could use to reduce the pol­lu­tion. So I was very inter­est­ed and I took a part in it and I liked it because the com­mu­ni­ty is real­ly nice. Like oth­er peo­ple who clean up, they’re very friend­ly and they’re very inter­est­ed in the issue of pollution.

Aya: Even if the first time you guys met in that event. Oh, that’s cool. And what makes you con­stant­ly inter­est­ed in this z clean of events?

Evie : So, I just know that, trash nev­er ends, so we always need to clean it up. Even if we clean up one year, there will be new trash and you will need to clean it up again. espe­cial­ly that the pop­u­la­tion grows and every­one buys more and more stuff as econ­o­my grows.

Evie : we need to keep up the efforts to make it clean.

Ahyeong : Okay, then.

Evie: Sea tur­tles, seabirds suf­fer from plas­tic pollution

Ahyeong : Do you know that ocean pol­lu­tion makes many peo­ple die, then? Painful?

Evie : Yeah, I know that ani­mals and peo­ple can suf­fer a lot. For exam­ple, sea tur­tles, seabirds, and some of the mam­mals, like dol­phins, suf­fer from sea pollution.

00:10:00

Evie : actu­al­ly, coral reefs suf­fer a lot from the changes in the ocean. And coral reefs are the earth­’s biggest ecosys­tems, and they’re very, very sen­si­tive to any kind of pol­lu­tion. So they’re dying out now, and that’s a very big issue.

Ahyeong: So have you ever seen that died ani­mals or coral reefs in dead events?

Evie : I have seen dead birds. I’m not sure how they died, but I see dead birds in the cities quite often. And, some­times it’s very big and beau­ti­ful. Birds, most­ly birds, crash into win­dows. So plas­tic or glass win­dows can make it appear for birds that they can fly in there and they can’t and they die. Yeah. Also I def­i­nite­ly saw some birds miss­ing, like legs, miss­ing wings.

Ahyeong : I’m sor­ry to hear that. Also, I have some resources of the died ani­mals because of ocean pol­lu­tion. Accord­ing to the arti­cle, how many marine ani­mals die from plas­tic each year, pub­lished by Earth? The author said that we find about 100,000 marine ani­mals killed by ocean plas­tic inges­tion or entan­gle­ment each year. And this is only the tip of the ice­berg. There are like­ly firmer lying at the bot­tom of the ocean who, once decom­posed, will release the plas­tic for oth­er ani­mals to encounter. Approx­i­mate­ly 1 mil­lion sea birds also die from plas­tic annu­al­ly. And it remains to be seen what the toll is on humans who ingest approx­i­mate­ly 30,000 dur­ing their life­time. And all of the above is unsur­pris­ing. Once we under­stand the sheer quan­ti­ty of plas­tic in the ocean, about eight to 10 mil­lion tons make their way into the water every year. And we believe there are over 46,000 pieces of plas­tic in every square mile of ocean. Every sin­gle day, 13,000 to 15,000 pieces of plas­tic are dumped in. I was also sur­prised with this report when I searched these resources. Evie, did you know that so many ani­mals are suf­fer­ing from plas­tic waste?

Evie : Yeah, I did­n’t know the exact num­bers, and it’s a lot. I knew that there were a lot of ani­mals who are suf­fer­ing, and a lot of species of birds, fish and oth­er species, they go. So, yeah, the num­bers are very big.

Ahyeong : How can we pre­vent or solve this prob­lem? You know, most of our ages are just stu­dents, so can you give me an advice?

Evie : Yes. I would say, be mind­ful of how you dis­pose of your trash. Nev­er just throw it away. Try to find places that accept your trash, dri­ve it there, and get a recy­cled. For exam­ple, there are cen­ters that accept paper. There are cen­ters that accept plas­tic. And you can get your waste there and get it recy­cled in a prop­er way. It’s a good idea also. Yeah. if you see any trash lying around, pick it up, throw it away, attend cleanups. It’s very impor­tant. Try to con­sume less, try to gen­er­ate less trash. Try to talk to oth­ers about the issue. It’s very impor­tant because even if you, as one per­son, do every­thing you can, that will not be enough. Oth­ers need to know about this, too, and they need to do the same thing. So try to talk to your friends, to your fam­i­ly, and to every­one you know.

Ahyeong : That is a real­ly good point. Yeah. So I just sug­gest that let’s make a habit of min­i­miz­ing the use of plas­tic and dis­pos­able prod­ucts. Even if it’s incon­ve­nient right now. It’ll be a start­ing point. Point to pre­vent seed pol­lu­tion. So I hope that the infor­ma­tion we shared today will make a dif­fer­ence in your thoughts and actions. Also, like Evie, we can par­tic­i­pate in the seed cleanup events. Yeah. That is also a good way to pro­tect the marine ani­mals. Yeah. Thank you for lis­ten­ing Ahyeong’s inter­view pod­cast ses­sion. And also, thank you, Evie, for shar­ing your experience.

Evie : Sure.

Ahyeong : This pod­cast will be come back next week with a new spe­cial guest. I hope you guys enjoyed this episode once again. And I will see you guys later.

Evie, Ahyeong : Bye.

00:14:31