I ran across this article from cnn.com on the garbage patch in the Pacific Ocean. Not too much "new" info or findings from their studies, but what they did re-iterate is that the garbage patch we may picture (mountains of garbage floating like icebergs) is more realistically tiny particles of plastic and debris floating just beneath the surface of the water. Of course this covers thousands of miles of ocean, quite a huge area!
Sometimes I feel most people will say "who cares!" unless it directly impacts them. Two sentences I saw were:
"Brainard says they find a lot of skeletons of seabirds on the Islands and "their gut content is just filled with plastic." Brainard says that has scientists wondering what other animals are eating this plastic. As the larger animals and marine life eat the smaller animals, this plastic eventually ends up in the human food supply, too."
Hard to think about your McDonalds wrapper ending back in your Big Mac after you throw the wrapper out the window! Hopefully with our reduce, re-use, recycle mindset that is slowly spreading, we'll be able to keep these garbage patches at bay until we can figure out a way to clean them up!
1 comment:
Matt, thanks for the latest on this topic. I remember reading, too, that they believe all this plastic is having an impact on global warming as well. First, due to reflection at the surface and second, something about its accumulation on the ocean bottom interrupting the carbon storage cycle in the ocean sediments. It has made me much more conscious of trash on the ground--when we were playing disc golf at Burke Lake, I was picking up trash between holes. I also just wrote to the Ffx County Park Foundation asking if there was any chance we could get recycling containers in more places--there are so many cans, and plastic and glass bottles in the trash cans at the parks (as well as on the ground), particularly at places where people are thirsty like the tennis courts. It would be great if we could all be proactive about encouraging more availability of recycling, alongside education.
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