Earth Island Sues Big Plastics on Behalf of IMMP
On March 26th, Earth Island Institute filed a MAJOR lawsuit against ten of the biggest plastic users in the US, including giants like Coca-Cola and Nestlé. The International Marine Mammal Project (IMMP) and three other Earth Island projects (One Thousand Fountains, Plastic Pollution Coalition, and Shark Stewards) are part of this landmark litigation to tackle the ever-growing problem of plastic pollution and to hold these companies responsible for the massive amounts of plastic waste they produce. IMMP’s focus in this lawsuit is to reduce injury and death of whales, dolphins and other marine life caused by plastic pollution.
You can read our entire legal complaint here.
The lawsuit goes after these companies for mislabeling their packaging, which leads consumers into thinking that nonrecyclables can be recycled. According to Plastic Pollution Coalition, less than 9% of plastic products are actually recycled. And yet the companies targeted in the lawsuit increasingly rely on plastic packaging – so much so that it has become inescapable when you walk down the aisle of a grocery store. And not surprisingly, plastic is now everywhere – from people to the oceans, to the bellies of whales and dolphins, to the deepest trench of the sea. Something must be done, and along with this monumental lawsuit, IMMP is developing plans to address plastic pollution mitigation and prevention as soon as possible.
Plastic pollution is a dire issue for marine mammals and their ocean environment. Cases of entanglement and ingestion of plastic are skyrocketing. Every day, dolphins around the world wash up wounded or dead. Even in Marine Protected Areas and the deepest of the deep sea, plastic waste proliferates. Last year, a dead sperm whale washed ashore in the Philippines with 88 pounds of plastic in its stomach (National Geographic: “This Young Whale Died with 88 Pounds of Plastic in Its Stomach”). A month later, a dead, pregnant sperm whale washed up on a beach in Italy with almost 50 pounds of plastic in her stomach. These disturbing tragedies are beginning to occur more often, and UNESCO reports that more than 100,000 marine mammals die from plastic pollution every year.
In addition to the problems posed by the plastic packaging targeted in the lawsuit, marine mammals are also being entangled by fishing net and gear. Globally, hundreds of thousands of dolphins and whales are killed in nets or are entangled in fishing lines every year. In Hawaii, researchers estimate that 30% of the humpback whales they monitor show scars from encounters with fishing gear. Along the Atlantic coast of North America, an astounding 95% of endangered right whales exhibit scarring.
IMMP has a long history of addressing fishing gear entanglement of dolphins and whales. We established the Dolphin Safe label standards in 1990 to protect dolphins. Prior to that, more than 80,000 to 100,000 dolphins were drowned in tuna nets every year. Recently, IMMP supported the efforts of a seal and whale disentanglement project for Sakhalin Island in the Russian Pacific Ocean. With our assistance, a group of Russian conservationists joined IMMP Associate Director, Mark J. Palmer, in Hawaii to learn techniques from experts on how to safely disentangle whales and seals. IMMP has helped our Russian friends to purchase special gear to disentangle whales.
As plastic production increases, the odds of survival for marine mammal species decreases. It’s a clear-cut case of the tragedy of the commons: big industry makes big money, but in the process inflicts suffering and degrades our shared life-sustaining oceans. So far, big plastics have taken no responsibility. We intend to change that.
