Diana Hubbell

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch sprawls for over 1.6 million square kilometers, covering an area approximately three times the size of France. According to Ocean Cleanup, its mass is believed to be around 100,000 metric tonnes. Although some mistakenly envision it as a single trash island, this depiction is misleading. There’s no solid surface that humans could walk around on, rather the patch consists of bobbing congregations of plastic propelled by the oceans currents. The debris is actually concentrated in different clusters, with two particularly large eastern and western Pacific patches. What matters though is that it is growing—fast. Scientists believe that the Great Garbage Patch is increasing at an exponential rate. Each year, an estimated 1.15 to 2.41 million tonnes of additional plastic enters the Earth’s oceans. Since around 60 percent of it is more buoyant than sea water, it remains afloat, a shifting, amorphous sea of debris quietly throttling the ecosystem. As horrifying as the visual image of millions of pieces of discarded plastic waste bobbing on the waves is, the more disturbing element is the one lurking out of sight. Closer inspection of these garbage clusters reveals what appears to be a murky soup near the surface—in reality, millions upon millions of plastic particles less than five millimeters in diameter. Currently, much of the fate of the ocean—and by extension, the planet—rests on how humans tackle this ever-growing problem. Now, tech innovators are wondering if artificial intelligence could pinpoint new strategies. Sea of PlasticThe main reason that plastics are such an environmental hazard is that they can take up to 500 years to decompose. In the intervening time, they have a nasty tendency to accumulate in an ecosystem—and in the bodies of the living creatures that inhabit it. According to a 2022 study conducted in Australia and New Zealand, 75 percent of wild fish species examined contained microplastics. That contamination extended more or less all the way up the food chain. Oysters and other simple bivalves contain microplastics. Far more worrying are larger, predatory fish like tuna, swordfish, salmon, and bluefish. Since all of these species ingest the microplastics of the smaller fish that they eat, the build-up can be considerable. One study in 2022 found that a can of tuna can contain hundreds of microplastics. The Human and Environmental CostsNo one quite knows the long term impact of microplastics in human bodies, largely because the research is all relatively new. It is possible that these tiny particles could simply remain inert in our bodies, but scientists are concerned about a range of possible symptoms running the gamut from cancer to asthma. So far microplastics have been found in blood donated to hospitals, in the lungs of patients undergoing surgery, and in placentas. Some microplastics are so small they have the ability to enter human cells. Aside from humans, microplastics have the potential to wreak havoc on all sorts of marine life. One particularly troubling example is that a 2022 Stanford study found that humpback, fin and blue whales consume as many as 10 million pieces of microplastics in a day. Krill, the small creatures that these species feed on, eat the microplastics, which are then eaten by the whales. As with humans, no one knows yet what the long term effect may be on marine mammals. Seeking A.I.-Driven SolutionsPart of the problem with microplastics is how much we still just don’t know. To increase the amount of data we have in order to effectively combat the problem, scientists at UC Berkeley and UC Santa Barbara engineered an A.I.-driven online tool that helps delve into the potential impact of current legislation on the world’s plastic problem. “Finally solving the plastics crisis means a win for the environment, a win in our fight against climate change, and a healthier and more just future for all people,” said Douglas McCauley, director of BOSL and an associate professor at UC Santa Barbara in an interview with the UC Santa Barbara Marine Institute. At present, A.I. models are being used to detect microplastics in wastewater, food, and in soil, with encouraging results. One of the leading large language models (LLMs) on the job is PlasticNet, which can recognize microplastics based on how they transmit and absorb lightwaves. Thus far, it has been able to correctly identify 11 kinds of microplastics 95 percent of the time. PlasticNet does more than provide information; it allows humans to do something about it. A sizable portion of the microplastics in the rivers and oceans come from wastewater. By helping wastewater treatment plants spot them sooner, it enables them to act to prevent as many of them from leaching out into the environment. There’s also hope that A.I. might be able to help reduce the overall volume of microplastics. In 2022, researchers at the University of Texas Austin revealed an A.I.-designed enzymes that could effectively break down polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastics within 24 hours. Hydrolase can reduce plastic to its molecular components, allowing it to be truly repurposed and recycled. While this research is still relatively new and not yet ready to be fully scaled up, the potential impact is enormous. PET packaging makes up around 50 percent of the global plastic waste. It’s used for all sorts of single-use plastics, from water bottles to disposable food containers. In an interview with Forbes, Hal Alper, one of the lead researchers, said, “The possibilities are endless across industries to leverage this leading-edge recycling process… Through these more sustainable enzyme approaches, we can begin to envision a true circular plastics economy.” At present, only about 10 percent of our plastics are recycled—and those disposed of in other ways, as we are learning, often never truly go away. There is an enormous amount of work to be done to free our oceans of the mounting deluge of plastic, but these sorts of innovative strategies provide hope.

In 1967, humans realized for the first time that the clicks, croons, and other noises made by whales weren’t just random sounds; they were “songs,” of a sort. Biologist Roger Payne noted complex patterns in whale songs that resembled human speech or even poetry. Some whales repeated ending phrases; some even used a form of repetition reminiscent of a sonata. Those songs changed throughout the year, depending on where whales were in their migration patterns and life cycles. What’s more, these underwater calls had the power to travel far—as much as 20,000 kilometers. The more scientists study whales, the more it becomes clear that these are sentient creatures with complex cultures and emotional responses. Whales grieve their dead, store memories for decades, and pass traditions down through generations. More than a few have speculated that whales may be the closest we get to communicating with an alien intelligence. To that end, scientist David Gruber has been immersed in a remarkable undertaking: using A.I. technology to allow humans to talk to whales. By monitoring the clicks of sperm whales over the course of years, Gruber and his team hope to be able to train large language models (LLMs) on the data sets, effectively allowing us to have a conversation. The more we know, the more heartbreaking it becomes to recognize the extent of the damage humans have done, both intentionally and not to these highly intelligent creatures. Although the majority of commercial whaling was banned in 1986, whales face another ongoing existential threat: noise pollution. The Unseen Toll of Noise PollutionThe ocean that whales and other marine life evolved in was a far quieter space. Since the invention of SONAR around the turn of the 20th century, that has changed drastically. Much like a whale’s own echolocation system, SONAR blasts sound waves out as far as 300 miles, which bounce back and allow ships and submarines to navigate. To accomplish that, SONAR operates at a level of about 235 decibels. For contrast, a concert by heavy-metal band Metallica that drew noise complaints was 126 decibels. Because whales have highly sensitive hearing organs, they’re even more susceptible to physical and psychological damage. A 2022 found that cetaceans—the broader family that includes both whales and dolphins—reacted to SONAR with same kind of terror normally reserved for apex predators. In some cases, a direct blast of SONAR is enough to permenantly deafen whales—which all but amounts to a death sentence. Without their hearing, whales are unable to navigate or communicate with their pods, putting them at risk for ships, predators, and beaching. As damaging as SONAR is, it’s far from the only culprit. At present, there are more than 100,000 commercial shipping vessels in active use, all of which contribute to the noise. As the global economy has grown, we’ve build both more and larger vessels to accommodate—so much so that the total carrying capacity quadrupled from 1996 to 2020. With the underwater roar of a large cargo carrier hovering around 190 decibels, that really adds up. All that cacophony impacts whales in a variety of ways, some of which we are only beginning to understand. Researchers have found instances in which it stops whales from feeding or mating, or disturbs their migration patterns. And as with humans or other intelligent mammals, the sustained levels of heightened anxiety can take a serious toll over time. Work to Be DoneUltimately, much of the work that needs to be done to make our oceans a quieter, safer place again needs to be done at a policy level. To that end, there have been several highly positive developments. In 2024, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) agreed on a new Action Plan in which member states will agree to stricter guidelines, in addition to funding more research and data collection. The good news is that this is one space in which small changes could make a big difference when applied on scale. One analysis from the National Resource Defense Council (NRDC) found that if the world’s ships could simply reduce speed by 10 percent, their decibel output would drop by 40 percent. Slowing down ships offers the added bonus of slashing their greenhouse gas emissions by up to 24 percent as well. Shipping technology can also make a significant difference. Hanhwha Ocean Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering, one of the largest shipping companies in South Korea, has been investing in several different technologies that could reduce noise. Air lubrication effectively blankets the ship’s hull in million of tiny air bubbles. This cuts down on friction, allowing the ship to glide comparatively smoothly—and quietly—throught the ocean. Air Injection, on the other hand creates a bubble curtain around the hull to block soundwaves. A number of private tech startups have also jumped into the arena to try and help out. U.S.-based AdBm Technologies has raised more than US$2 million for technology engineered to reduce sounds under the sea. Finally, researchers at the University of British Columbia and University of Glasglow have been looking into A.I.-powered solutions to tackle the problem. In a paper titled “Deep neural network for learning wave scattering and interference of underwater acoustics,” the researchwers lay how machine-learning could be used to predict just how far man-made soundwaves travel underwater. The team trained a long short-term memory network on 30 simulated underwater environments, then asked it to make predictions about how soundwaves would behave in other underwater scenarios. The results were impressively accurate. “Waiting seconds instead of days to produce models of underwater acoustic scattering would be a significant breakthroug,” said Dr. Wrik Mallik, of the University of Glasgow's James Watt School of Engineering in an interview with Phys.org. Having real-time feedback on devices which could be used out on the ocean would allow much more effective planning to help mitigate the effects of noise pollution on marine animals.”

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Diana Hubbell

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