Visualizing beloved aquatic animals when we reach for plastic might just help us use less of it and protect our oceans

• In 2020, the rate of plastic recycling in the US dropped by 5.7% from the prior year.
• New research shows that seeing pictures of ocean creatures can make people use less plastic.

Your summer beach getaway: sun, surf, sand — and plastic.

As many of us head toward the water for Memorial Day, it's more likely than ever that we'll find our oceans aren't just white with foam. They're also laden with plastic flotsam that never biodegrades but keeps breaking into smaller pieces.

But maybe the thing to remember as we near the unofficial start of summer isn't how severe plastic pollution has become but how much we have to lose. That's because new research indicates that visualizing beloved ocean inhabitants can make more of us willing to go on a plastic diet.

It's certainly one we need. We're using more plastic and often recycling less of it. The amount of plastic in the world's oceans is projected to outweigh fish by 2050. And in 2020, the rate of plastic recycling in the US, which was already low, dropped by 5.7% from the prior year.

There might be a way we can use nature to help battle the plastic problem. Jiaying Zhao, a researcher with the University of British Columbia, and her colleagues found that placing pictures of marine life like sea turtles, whales, and dolphins above the recycling bins in a Vancouver office tower reduced overall plastic waste — either discarded or recycled — by 17% compared with before the signs went up.

The photos of animals grappling with plastic waste in their aquatic homes were more effective than simple recycling signs or ones that asked office-goers to pledge to cut down on how much plastic they used.

The decrease in plastic waste held even after the signs with animal pictures were removed, Zhao told Insider. She said that suggested office workers had begun to change their habits and perhaps do without things like single-use water bottles and utensils.

When Zhao returned to the building to interview the workers who'd unwittingly been part of the experiment, those questioned by her team said they didn't remember seeing the animals on the posters.

"That was most surprising because I thought it would be memorable," Zhao said of the photos that showed a turtle chewing on plastic or a dolphin with a plastic bag caught on its fin. "If it elicited some kind of emotional response in me, and I felt bad for throwing away plastic stuff now — and I'm making a conscious effort to not do it — I should remember it, right?"

Zhao said the animal pictures above the recycling bin appeared to be an effective nudge to change people's behaviors without proving so distressing that they were traumatized, as was the case with a viral video several years ago of a turtle with a straw lodged in its nostril. Outrage over that video pushed some consumers and businesses to ditch plastic straws.

Happy turtles could help change behavior

In some cases, less dire images might win out. Zhao said subsequent experiments she and her colleagues conducted using images of "happy" turtles and dolphins appeared to be even more effective in changing people's actions than unsettling images.

There could be broader lessons in all this for the environmental movement, Zhao said, because many awareness campaigns ask consumers to commit to shifting their behavior in some way.

"A lot of the tactics are like making a pledge," she said. "I pledge not to do this or not to buy this. That didn't work in our study."

The researchers found that when people made an emotional connection to the animals — even if they didn't remember it — the effect was more powerful.

Linda Escalante, the Southern California legislative director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said giving thought to the influence of our actions, including our reliance on plastics, was essential to maintaining a successful coexistence with marine life. Besides, she said, as plastic pollution breaks down into tiny bits, it makes its way back to us.

"It is penetrating the food web," she said. "You find this stuff all over the planet in places where you could never imagine because it is easily transported by water and air."

That's why it's now in our lungs and in our blood. And it's why we consume a credit card's worth of the stuff every week. So doing more to protect water is in our self-interest.

Escalante, who also sits on the California Coastal Commission, a powerful state agency, said she believed demand for beach days would increase because rising temperatures in many inland areas — and even wildfires in the parched Western US — would drive demand for access to water and cooler coastal areas. That's yet another reason it's so important to safeguard bodies of water, she said.

She also pointed to humans' need to experience natural beauty, something on display during the height of the pandemic.

"We became more attached to getting out there, to the outdoors, to finding that connection," Escalante said. She said she didn't expect that to diminish, adding: "Our beaches, our coasts are going to be in very high demand."