Sarah Whitehouse

A while back I turned on the radio and caught part of an interview with a marine biologist. Talking about the way we humans affect marine habitats, she described how she had initially assumed a new species of giant octopus she’d seen during a recent deep sea expedition was a plastic bag; our rubbish is already such a common sight at the bottom of the sea. I was fascinated to hear about the hidden world she described, one still vastly uncharted, but upset to realise we humans are having a negative impact on it already, even though we’ve never been there. Apparently deep sea surveys by remote vehicle often show that our litter has beaten us to depths we don’t yet have the technology to reach in person. And a recent study to record the amount of rubbish entering the sea from the Thames helps to make the link between this deep sea littering and our lives here. The plastic bag I throw away in my city flat may well find its way, via a system of waterways, into the murky world of some unknown, deep-living creature—and will cause harm there.

Issue: only available as part of Journal, Spring 2015 pdf to download

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