WEBVTT

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I grew up on a beach in an island
called Tasmania, a beautiful place.

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It gave me the opportunity to meet
and interact with incredible creatures,

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and it was where I developed
a deep connectivity with the ocean.

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Now, Tasmania is one of the most beautiful
islands on the planet.

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But 30 years ago, the city I grew up in
had a terrible problem.

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The ocean was polluted
with the outfall from heavy industry.

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There was a pulp and paper mill,

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a paint pigment plant
and a slaughterhouse among them.

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These were causing rashes on the bodies
of swimmers and surfers,

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and when you got out of the water,
you had sore red eyes.

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Burnie, at that time,

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had one of the highest incidence
of cancer in Australia.

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Following the lead of three generations
of journalists in my family,

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I made it my investigative
mission to uncover

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whether these industries
were, in fact, responsible


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for the illnesses we were seeing

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and also the poor state
of the ecosystem along the coastline.

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So, I got a laboratory to test
the waters around Burnie,

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and they found that the outfall
from the pulp and paper mill

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contained organic chlorines.

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And these had dangerous
cancer-causing dioxins.

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So, I put these findings
to the state government

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and the minister for the environment,

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and he admitted for the first time

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that they knew about these organic
chlorines and these dioxins

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and that they were dangerous,
but they hadn't informed the public.

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So, I published my stories
in the local newspaper,

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and it caused a storm of protest
across Australia.

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National papers declared Burnie
"Australia's dirtiest city."

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I wasn't very popular with our local
tourism authority, I can tell you.

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I was 20 years of age at the time.

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Shortly after those stories
were published,

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the industries started to close down,

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and today, Burnie has some
of the bluest water along the coastline,

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and the fish have returned
to the waters around the city.

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I learned then about
the power of the media.

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Now, as I developed my skills in the media

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through newspapers, radio and television,

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I also developed a passion for film.

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Film gave me the ability to tell stories
and to make documentaries

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that gave voice to silent creatures
like the worms from my childhood.

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But I also had a deep love

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for a particular species
that had consumed my time as a child,

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and that was the blue whale,
an immense creature,

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also incredibly shy.

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An opportunity came to film a documentary
off the south coast of Sri Lanka.

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It was the culmination, for me,
of a life's dream.

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Now, blue whales are the biggest
animals ever to have lived.

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They're bigger than any dinosaur.

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They grow up to about 37 meters long.

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They have a heart as big as a car.

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But they were hunted almost to extinction,

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and as a result,
they're extremely elusive.

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Trying to find them is like trying to find
a needle in a massive haystack.

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We went up and down the coastline
of Sri Lanka for weeks on end,

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searching for these whales.

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We would see a spout in the distance,
we'd head towards it.

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We would get our cameras
into our underwater housings.

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We'd get our teams into the water,
we'd move towards the whales,

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and then we would never see them again.


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And this happened day after day
after day after day.

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And if you want to know
what it's like to go crazy,

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look out into an open ocean,
empty open ocean

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for day after day after day after day.

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That's where coffee
became a big friend of mine.

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So, we searched
near an underwater seamount,

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and this is where krill gather

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because they're brought in
by the currents.

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And we knew the whales would head there
because they eat krill.

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We didn't find whales.

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What we found was something
very significant.

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It was a floating landfill of plastic.

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This was a massive slick of detritus
as far as the eye could see.

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It contained old fishing nets, bait boxes,
plastic bottles, used lighters,

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even unopened biscuits -
the wastage of humanity.

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It was absolutely dreadful.

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It was the sign of a coming tragedy.

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We didn't know that at the time.

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We kept looking for the whales
for three weeks,

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and our time finally ran out.

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We had to head back to port
because our visas were about to expire.

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But I'm an incredibly stubborn individual,

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and I hadn't come this far and worked
this hard to give up this easily,

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so I refused to allow the cameras
to be packed away.

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I refused to allow the dive tanks
to be put under the boat.

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I was going to exhaust
every possible moment we had on the water.

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Now, when someone yells "Whale,"
your adrenaline really spikes.

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Someone yelled "Whale,"
and my adrenaline shot through the roof.

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There, 100 meters
off our bow, was a spout -

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(Splashing sound)

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high and very visible.

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We cut the motors on the boat,

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we put the dive teams in the water,

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and the cameras,
and I got in with the crews,

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and we slowly finned over
towards what was a pot of whales.

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And as we got closer, we realized
this was a family of eight,

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and in this family
of eight whales was a juvenile.

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And when I say "juvenile,"
he was 15 meters long.

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And he was as curious of us
as we were of him,

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and with the big flick of his tail,
he dived incredibly deep and out of sight,

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and then, moments later, he came up
right between our cameras,

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and we had, for the first time,

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footage, under water,
on cinematic cameras,

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of a juvenile blue whale.

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It was a profound moment for us.

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As we were heading back to port
and I was reflecting on the shoot,

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I realized that these whales
were resting and probably feeding

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right near where we had filmed
this floating landfill of plastic.

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Now, whales, when they feed -
blue whales - they open their mouths,

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they suck in thousands of liters of water,
and they expel that water,

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leaving behind the krill
in their baleen, or their teeth.

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But whales can't tell the difference
between krill and plastic.

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The Sri Lankan expedition
was the start of an epic quest for us,

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but it posed more questions
than it answered:

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If whales were consuming plastic

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in a pristine environment
like the Indian Ocean,

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what was happening to marine life
in oceans in other parts of the planet?

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And if as we'd found out that 350 million
tons of plastic were being made that year,

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how much of that
was ending up in the oceans?

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And if marine life in oceans
around the world were consuming plastic,

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and we're at the top of the food chain,

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what did that mean for human health?

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Well, we gathered teams
and crews and scientists,

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and we traveled for four years
around the globe to 20 different locations

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to answer these questions
for our film "A Plastic Ocean."

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Our investigation was relentless.

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For example, we found
that 70% of plastic sinks.

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Now, what we'd seen then
was just the tip of the iceberg,

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so we hired a research vessel
and two submarines,

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and we went to the Mediterranean,

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and we traveled to the bottom 
of the Mediterranean,

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1,600 meters below the surface,

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to see what happened
to plastic in the absence of light,

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in the absence of oxygen.

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We traveled thousands of kilometers

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to the Pacific, to islands
where seabirds were ingesting plastic,

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mistaking it for food.

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One of the most powerful scenes
in the film is of a heroic little seabird

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called a shearwater.

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These birds, chicks,
were turning up dead in their hundreds

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on an island called Lord Howe Island.

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And when we opened
the stomachs of these birds,

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we found them filled with plastic.

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In one particular little chick,

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we found 272 pieces of plastic.

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That's equal to about 12 pizzas
if you were to eat them all at once

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and put them in your stomach.

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Can you imagine the pain
this animal was going through?

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As we opened other chicks,
we found a red bottle cap,

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and I realized at that moment

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that that bottle cap could have been
a bottle cap I threw away years earlier

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without understanding
the consequences of my actions.

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Now, if I'm a surfer, a diver
and an ocean explorer,

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and I didn't realize the consequences
of my actions to the natural world

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eight years ago,

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how could I expect anyone else
to understand theirs?

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We needed awareness, and "A Plastic Ocean"
would become the tool for that awareness.

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Now, scientists told us

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that we would dispose of
between 8 and 12 million tons of plastic

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into the world's oceans every year.

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How on earth did we allow that to happen?

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Well, the answer's simple: We were
told plastic would make our lives easier.

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We would no longer have to do
the washing up.

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It would keep our food fresher.

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It would protect our consumer products
like no other material before it.

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And in many ways, it did just that.

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But we were also told that plastic
could be used just once and thrown away.

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Think about that.

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Plastic is the most durable product
we have ever made.

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How can the most durable product
we've ever made be considered disposable?

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The answer is, "It can't. It isn't."

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Every piece of plastic ever made is still
on the Earth unless it's been burned.

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In the past decade,

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we have produced more plastic
than the entire century before that.

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Fifteen years ago,

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the United States'
Center for Decease Control

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released a study which showed
that more than 92% of all Americans

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contain chemicals related to plastic
in their blood and their urine.

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And more disturbing than that

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was that children between the ages
of 6 and 11 have twice as much.

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Now, plastic chemical like phthalates
and bisphenol As contain compounds

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which have estrogenic activity,
which mimic and sometimes block

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the natural hormonal
production of our bodies.

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Recent research shows that these
can cause endocrine disruptive decease,

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cancer, diabetes, fertility
and other reproductive issues.

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But plastic has become
an integral part of our society.

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It's a very useful tool.

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My cameras, my car, my computers -
all contain plastic components.

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But our habitual consumption
of single-use plastic

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is destroying life-giving environments.

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It's killing other species,
and it's polluting our food source.

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So, what will happen
if we don't stop production of plastic?

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Well, as of 2015,
we had produced, globally -

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since plastic production
has begun in the '50s -

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8.3 billion tons of plastic.

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8.3 billion tons.

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6.3 billion tons of that has become waste,

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and of that 6.3 billion tons of waste,
only 9% has been recycled.

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By 2050, our population will explode
to more than 9.8 billion people,

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and by then, we will be sending
12 billion tons of plastic to landfill

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and to the environment.

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It's staggering.

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So, what's the solution?

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Well, we need to stop our addiction
to single-use plastic.

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We need to move to a zero-waste society.

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We need to change the very social
and financial paradigms

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that consider single-use plastic
a useful resource.

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We need a multifaceted approach
to this problem,

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with input from governments, retailers,
manufacturers, consumers.

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And we need to integrate new ideas,

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like new legislation, circular economies

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and cradle-to-grave responsibility
for manufacturers and retailers.

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And as consumers,

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each one of us needs to be smarter
about the choices we make.

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We all need to rethink plastic.

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So, how do we do that?

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Well, we stop buying
single-use plastics, to start with.

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When I'm at home, and I have a drink,
I don't need to use a straw.

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So why do I need a straw
when I go to a restaurant?

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I don't.

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Why would I spend up to 2,000% more
buying water in a plastic bottle

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when it costs me so much less
to refill a steel container from the tap,

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and it's quite often healthier?

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It makes no sense.

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Take a bag with you, a reusable bag,
when you go shopping.

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And when you get to the supermarket
or the market, call the manager over.

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At the checkout, unwrap all the plastic
from all of those fruits and vegetables

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that have been individually wrapped
with this plastic stuff,

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and give it to the manager,

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back to the supermarket,
back to the market,

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and tell them to dispose of it properly

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because you don't want to have
the responsibility of taking it home

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and having to do that anyway.

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But more importantly, we need to go back.

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We need to understand the systems
that sustain life on planet Earth,

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like the bird and the worm.

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The bird wasn't committing murder.

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They're part of a greater ecological,
environmental system

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which sustains life on Earth.

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I know that now.

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I didn't when I was five years of age.

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Just like eight years ago,

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I had no idea that by throwing
my plastic products into the rubbish bin,

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I was damaging the environment,

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and I was polluting the food chain.

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Awareness is a very powerful tool.

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As I say in the film,

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"With knowing comes caring,
and with caring comes change."

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And I'd like to leave you
with this last thought:

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Change starts with each
and every one of you.

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There is a need to change,
and when that need arises, it's right now.

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So, we all need to start change

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for our future, for ourselves
and for our children.

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Thank you very much.

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(Applause)