From Common Ownership, newsletter of the Socialist Party of Canada

It isn’t sufficient for capitalism to pollute the land, air, rivers, and forests of this planet. Having achieved that, being the dynamic, resourceful, and enterprising system it is, capitalism is now polluting the oceans by using them as an enormous, free garbage dump. In 1977, Trash Island was discovered in the pacific, and by 2008 had influenced the circulation of ocean currents and divided into two enormous entities, an eastern one between Hawaii and North America, and a western one between Hawaii and Japan. Together, the two islands make an area more than twice that of the continental USA. The western patch almost reaches Japan, while the eastern section is within five hundred miles of California.

Frequently, the western arm encroaches on the beaches of Hawaii leaving a whole slew of plastic behind. Some of this plastic is biodegradable but large amounts are non degradable and durable. Some fifty-year-old plastic objects have been found on the beaches. Tiny plastic pellets, or nurdles, are the raw material of the plastics industry. Hundreds of millions of them are lost, or split, each year and many find their way, through drainage systems, into the oceans. Plastic is now thought to make up ninety per cent of all the rubbish floating in the seas. A United Nation’s research program concluded that an average square mile of ocean contains 46 000 pieces of floating plastic.

The rotation of the North Pacific water around the islands helps garbage from California and Japan to accumulate. Some is thrown from ships and from oil rigs, but eighty per cent originates on land. It includes footballs, kayaks, lego blocks, and carrier bags. Trash Island has gone undetected until recently because it is in a relatively unused part of the ocean and most debris floats below the surface. Much of the plastic is transparent and. when immersed in water, becomes virtually invisible, and is not picked up by satellite images. The Caribbean, unlike the North Pacific, is well  traveled, especially by cruise ships that, apparently, feel free to dump ground up glass, rags, and cardboard packaging at will. Environmentalists say that debris dumped in the oceans can entangle sea creatures, damage water quality, and alter eco systems. Some trash washes ashore with the winds and currents, fouling the beaches. In the Cayman Islands, the government has traced milk cartons found on shore to a passing cruise line. At the urging of environmentalists, some politicians have passed laws to prevent or reduce dumping at sea, but that brings forward the problem of dealing with the effects of capitalism within the system. Some of the countries with coastlines abide by a UN dumping ban that requires them to treat ship-generated garbage on land. The Caribbean Islands, however, have yet to adopt the ban, saying they do not have the capacity to treat the ship garbage on shore.

The UN International Maritime Organization outlawed dumping in 1993 for the Caribbean, a largely enclosed area where a string of islands blocks currents that would flush waste into the Atlantic. It will not take effect until enough of the surrounding countries report their ability for treating trash from cruise ships. This has not been the case, so far. The Caribbean Islands have struggled to establish a common policy, but when it comes to the cruise ship industry, they see themselves as competitors, not partners. Cruise ship arrivals are major economic events with passengers annually spending $US 1.5 billion in Caribbean ports. With tourism as the major industry, it is evident that many businesses could not survive without it, and governments would lose a major part of their tax revenue. For example, the island of Saba, population 1500, is building a new pier to accommodate the larger cruise ships. Some islands fear that a ban on dumping would push ships to dock in their competitors’ ports.

At present, a battle rages between the environmentalists and capital. The UN and the US coastguard have held seminars on six islands to push for a regional approach in the Caribbean, including the Gulf of Mexico. The officers have stressed how vulnerable their tourism-driven economies are to polluted coastlines. One may well wonder if, eventually, cruise lines would steer clear of the Caribbean permanently.

Of course, it is possible but the hotel and resort interests, who depend on tourists for patronage and profit will fight strongly for immediate gain, ignoring long term considerations. Given the anarchic, unpredictable, nature of capitalism, it is a natural response.

The companion parties of socialism have explained clearly for over a century that the ownership of the tools of production by a minority and production for profit are the root of this and other problems we face today. They cannot be eradicated within the system if the proposed solution interferes with the profit motive, as shown above. In a socialist society one could enjoy a cruise, and waters and beaches could be clean because there would be no profit consideration to stop it. Why not organize for socialism and give capitalism a ‘wide berth’.