Swath of Pacific Ocean twice size of Texas full of floating plastic garbage

[HamdenRice]

An area of the Pacific ocean collects water borne garbage because of the low wind and circular currents. This growing garbage sea is now twice the size of Texas according to some estimates. The debris ranges in size from giant nets to tiny pieces of plastic. In fact, in this area, the tiny pieces of plastic are so prevalant that it is estimated that there is six times as much of these miniscule pieces of plastic as there is plankton. Small fish are eating the plastic instead of plankton.

Larger pieces kill birds that try to eat it, or wrap around mamals, fish and sea turtles, like this plastic band disfiguring a sea turtle:



You can read the full article here:

http://www.bestlifeonline.com/cms/publish/health-fitness/Our_oceans_are_turning_into_plastic_are_we_2.shtml

[warrior1]

1. I think I'm going to be sick

[Deja Q]

2. Sweet Jesus.

x(

The baby tortoise managed to get that red band around it when young and grew around it. :(

Pity it can't be collected and jettisoned into space.

[Blashyrkh]

58. Yeah, like the rest of space deserves our garbage.

Why not make less of it?

[DRoseDARs]

62. In HT's defense, that wasn't an elegant way of putting the thought but I agree with it...

Launching this stuff into the sun (rather than just into space in general) would be utterly harmless but in all likelihood prohibitively expensive.

[Blashyrkh]

63. Aside from the lift/gravity limitations on the size of the rocket.

I don't feel comfortable shooting a couple hundred ton ball of garbage into the biggest nuclear reactor within 4 billion light years.

I know we're all being slight facetious, but seriously, the only way to manage the garbage problem is to make less of it.

[jus_the_facts]

3. that's beyond horrific.....

....we doesn't deserve this planet. :(

[bluerum]

4. Are you sure that isn't a fresh water snapper? eom

[HamdenRice]

5. The article identifies it as a sea turtle nt

[bluerum]

7. I am sure it does.

Sea Turtles

It is possible they just pulled an archival image of a malformed turtle. It's front and rear legs do not have the flipper type appearance of a sea turtle. It also has a snout like a snapper. Maybe a marine biologist could weigh in.

In any case, the threat to sea turtles and other sea creatures from flotsam is all too real. They have been know to starve because all the indigestible junk in their stomachs prevents them from eating enough food.

[Ghost in the Machine]

9. Good catch!

http://www.acclaimimages.com/search_terms/sea_turtle.html

[mrcheerful]

11. Yep its a snapping turtle alright, I have had a few as pets when I was a kid

they don't make good pets and mom made me put them back in the river I got them from. Don't ask, my little brother was a snitch. I only kept them for a week or two, lol probably was the same one, I couldn't tell the difference from one snapping turtle to another.

[blues90]

31. Yes it is a fresh water snapping turtle

However even the fresh water ponds and lakes have their share of plastic dumped into them .

When I lived in southern Florida I saw all sorts of once clean and clear small ponds and canals that soon were turned into dumps with all sorts of crap such as tires , broken lawn chairs , six-pack plastic holders , old snags of fishing line and even BBQ pits along with the spent charcoal , even oil cans used to top off their ride and tossed into these ponds and soon there was no sign of life , not even a ripple on the surface . People seem capable of hauling all of their needed crap with them but never consider putting in the effort of putting in a trash bag and take it hame to put it in the trash , no one see's them dump it so why not .

It's insane and man does not deserve this planet of varied life forms of should i say the life forms did nothing to deserve man .

[mrcheerful]

36. Heck when I was a kid growing up in Saginaw even the science teachers were telling us

that the Saginaw river didn't greeze because it ran up river instead of down and the current was to swift so ice couldn't form on the river. What was odd was ice was forming down river from the last foundry on the river, about 2 or 21/2 miles from the foundry. The only fish to be caught on the river were carp. I also remember that the sea gulls weren't seen around Saginaw until I was about 18, about the same time as ice had started to be seen on the river again because of stricter river laws.

[mikelewis]

71. Where is Art Vandalay when you need him?

[alarimer]

17. But it isn't

It's some kind of tortoise.
I guess some debris washed ashore and it got tangled up when it was small.

[InvisibleTouch]

53. Not a freshwater snapper.

At first glance it looks similar, but the head shape is wrong, and most of all look at those front feet/paddles! I can't tell the species, as I'm a snake person more so than a turtle person, but it IS a sea turtle, no doubt.

Plastic rings are a threat to wildlife in freshwater habitats as well as sea water, of course. For years I've been obsessive about cutting up six-pack rings before I throw them away - though I don't often buy drinks held together by plastic rings these days.

[HamdenRice]

68. That's what I thought also

It definitely isn't a tortoise as someone wrote because it has flippers.

It is obviously an aquatic turtle because of the flippers and was identified in the article as a sea turtle. I think the assumption of some of the other posters is that there is only one or two species of sea turtles.

[YOY]

76. What paddles?

Those look like a snapper's claws used to dig in the mud.

Sorry, but can you find a picture of a healthy sea turtle with claws?

[Ghost in the Machine]

6. totally disturbing to read... what can be done to clean this up?

man that's a lot of plastic! The threat to our sea life is chilling.

How would one go about organizing a clean up effort for something like this?

[LeftCoast]

8. I would also like to know

This is something that I would like to contribute money to. We should not allow our oceans to be treated this way.

[Ghost in the Machine]

12. I would volunteer my time in any way I could, from actually being out

on a boat helping collect the trash, to fundraising and/or helping with work on a website and promoting this effort.

[HamdenRice]

15. In a way, this potentially could be a good thing in terms of clean up

I know it sounds strange. But one of the points the article is making is that wind patterns are basically pushing a vast amount of sea garbage into one place and keeping it there. It's kind of like when you see all the surface gunk in a pond pushed into one area by currents and prevailing wind.

So the oceans could actually help us clean up but placing this stuff in one place where garbage collecting ships could pick it up more easily than if it were scattered across the entire Pacific.

It does make for one very toxic ocean neighborhood, though.

[drm604]

19. I'm not sure that it's even possible.

Maybe in theory we could scoop out the larger stuff, but the fact that it's twice the size of Texas makes that pretty unlikely.

Even if we could do that, what about the microscopic and near-microscopic stuff? How would you even begin to filter all of that out? Even if it was possible, you might cause worse damage in the process.

[Ghost in the Machine]

21. How about a floating incinerator to help get rid of the trash?

of course it would have to be outfitted and designed so the smoke stacks weren't polluting during their discharge, but I think we have the technology to accomplish this...

[drm604]

22. First we have to get it out of the water.

Then, after incinerating it, we have to do something with all of the resulting ash. That means getting it safely to shore and putting it in some sort of landfill.

But, as I said, we have to gather it first. Even if we did manage to gather the large pieces, how do we remove all of the algae size pieces from an area bigger than Texas? How do we filter all of that water without causing other major environmental problems?

Keep in mind that there's more plastic gathering all the time so, unless we stop all of this plastic from getting in the sea, gathering and burning it will be a constant ongoing task.

[Ghost in the Machine]

23. I'll go out on a limb here. We could use salvage ships outfitted with cranes

to get it out of the water, along with hiring fishing & shrimping trawlers that are out of service for the season. Of course, this would require ending the war, and spending some of that $1,000,000,000,000(one BILLION dollars) per day on this. If we can finance a war, we should be able to finance an effort to help keep our natural resources from dying off too.

[drm604]

26. Keep in mind that this is an area twice the size of Texas.

I'm just not convinced that salvage ships could do it. Imagine trying to scour the entire surface of the state of Texas. Even if we could somehow use salvage ships to remove 99% of the bigger stuff, how would they remove the plankton sized stuff? The microscopic pieces may be the bigger ecological problem, and I don't see how cranes are going to gather them.

I'm not trying to be negative about this. I just can't see a reasonable way to do anything about it.

One thing we can do is try to keep it from getting bigger. And we can at least try to gather the bigger pieces and then hope that the ecosystem can somehow absorb the rest.

Sometimes I feel like there's no way we can ever clean up all of the messes we've created. :cry:

[HamdenRice]

27. The little stuff comes from the bigger stuff

That's how I understand it. Even though plastic does not bio degrade, it does break up, and the tiny pieces are broken up big pieces of plastic.

Even if it is unrealistic to solve the problem, it's imperative to start picking up the big stuff to ameliorate the micro garbage problem.

[drm604]

35. No doubt.

It just seems like a hopeless task.

[Ghost in the Machine]

42. It's only hopeless when you give up before you start. n/t

[april]

85. no it is not ..

Make a some copys of this and pass tem out or email this to others ,we all have to start somewhere
Its a begining

[MGKrebs]

87. Nah, if they can overfish some species to extinction, I am

confident this can be handled. Wouldn't happen overnight, but could be done.
What's Texas, about 450 miles x 450 miles? A ship could probably cover 150 miles a day, take about 10 sweeps to cover a mile wide (nets 1/10th of a mile wide?). So figure 3 sweeps to cover 450 miles, x 10 to get the 1 mile width = 30. Multiply by 400 miles wide = 12,000 sweeps. Use 10 ships and you can do 1200 sweeps per ship and it can be done in 400 days. Less than 2 years.

I'm in for some sort of activist participation/donation effort too.

[Ghost in the Machine]

41. Well stated, thank you.

Something, *anything*, needs to be done, and pretty quickly, imho. This guy has known about this for 9 years? Why hasn't something already been started? I understand he was studying the effects of HOW it got there, but he knew it was a danger to sea life also. How long has the government known about this?

You can't sit on your hands wonder what to do and how to do it or if you can do it. If you want to get started, you have to get up off the couch.

[Ghost in the Machine]

40. See posts #37 & 39

We're brainstorming (brainfarting?) ideas here. Any suggestions?

[FogerRox]

56. Same thing in the Atlantic ocean. >snif

[dorktv]

37. well I think an international (starting first as a volunteer based thing)

effort with several boats and planes tracking the mass going out with some nets and slowly pulling up sections of it would help.

While we donate the money to pay for the clean up, we can badger to death Congress, and other governments regarding their putting some serious effort into it with some like Coast Guard cutters and what not.

Also, writing our congresscritters and things.

Group effort...does anyone know how to design a catchy website to give people a place to donate money? Anyone have experience creating an organization hire the boats/planes and things? Let us turn it into a DU project!

[Ghost in the Machine]

39. I like the path that you're on here. You have some good ideas.

I guess the first thing that would have to happen would be setting up an organization (non-profit?), to include officers and volunteers. Then we would have to set up a bank account to handle donations and costs. Setting up a website would be easy, as I could do that, and I'm sure many more DU'ers could too. You'd need a merchant account to handle online payments and donations. PayPal is always a good option, I've used them for 3 years or so, and have never had an issue with them.

We'd need people in every state working to get the word out about this, making people aware and collecting donations. This would appeal to environmentalists as well as animal lovers. We could target recruits at colleges and universities nation wide, maybe even getting class credits and pay for tuition, for working on the clean up ships. This could apply to environmental studies, marine biology, ecology, engineering, waste management, etc., etc.

Let's get this ball rolling, huh?

Ghost

[dorktv]

48. Indeed...I will write a note to myself. Anyone else have any ideas?

[amandabeech]

47. Scientists and entrepreneurs have been working on ways to

turn all kinds of plastic junk back into the oil and gas that it originally was through various processes, some of which are at least reasonably clean.

As the amount of oil and gas available declines, recycling plastic and other synthetic materials may help stretch out the supply, giving us a little more time to adjust to a very low to no petroleum era in addition to removing toxic materials from out environment.

[Ghost in the Machine]

55. I wonder about the feasibility of a floating refinery rig right in the middle of it?

Would that be a doable solution? They could keep the refinery moved close to the pile as the cleared area got larger, so they wouldn't ever have to transport the trash very far. The surface could also be dredged right from the rig. Dang, I'm just thinking out loud and writing it down, but there are dozens of ways of doing this with success.

[amandabeech]

91. I don't know, but it is one of my questions as well.

nt

[ClayZ]

60. I was on a deck that had been made to look like cedar.

It was not bad. I see they are using recycled plastic to make fencing, now, too.

[louis-t]

83. I cannot believe it took until reply #47 for you people to

say "recycle it!" Floating plastic!

[amandabeech]

92. I was a late comer.

Issues like this usually come up in the Environment and Energy forum.

Go Tigers and Wings!

[watercolors]

10. You can blame alot of this

on the cruise ship industry. We have watched people throw things overboard while we have been out fishing. Even picked up two plastic chaise loungers that were floating out in the ocean. Not to mention seeing feces floating also. I will never go on a cruise!

[progressoid]

13. Cruise ship passengers...

The crusie ships are generally good about trash disposal. Drunken passengers, not so much.

[pokercat999]

66. Not so much...Multible cruse lines have been fined

over the years (Miami, Fl)for unlawful discharge. One would think that discharging trash and waste into the ocean you make your living on would be a taboo practice for cruise lines. I guess the cost of legal discharge outweighs the cost of just pumping it into the ocean.

If I remember the fines were for discharging too close to shore, so according to our laws dumping over 12 miles out is ok? I guess, anyone know?

[KG]

32. the US navy dumps everything overboard. everything.

[ClayZ]

59. My son told me the same thing.

He was on the USS Constitution 10 years ago. We should all write our reps about the Navy doing that.

The whole world could use a little MERCY now!

[flyarm]

50. CRUISE SHIPS ARE NOT ALLOWED TO DUMP ANYMORE..AND BELIEVE ME

passengers watch for it!!..and the fines are very high if they do!!

fly

[Gregorian]

14. Can anyone really be surprised by this. And a sad comment. With pictures.

The garbage barges have left the harbors of places like New York, for years. They just dump the stuff at sea.

Billions of people all eating lunch, make a mountain of garbage in just one day.

I can't reply properly. But I will say that I have been in a state of disgust since I was a young adult. That's since around 1972. Now I know why so much prozak has been prescribed. I continued to think that soon I would find relief from my rage and disgust. I left Oregon, and it's draconian logging, to come back to Mendocino. But to my surprise, Mendocino is now a sea of idiots in cars. I don't dare go out on my porch to pet my cat, if I don't want to be inundated with the whoosh of cars. I can hardly get to my mountain bike ride without being hit by cretins in their cars who won't cross over the yellow line. I can't even get people to give me three feet! So why would it surprise us to find out we've killed the planet? No one cares. Even if they do care, they don't have the insight. I do. And all it has done for me is cause me grief. I can't find relief. And now I know I won't find it.

So bring it on India and China. They want to live like the USA and Japan and Germany and France and England. With our cars and houses and babies and products.

Well, I tried. I didn't travel. I didn't breed. I didn't consume. But one person doesn't make a difference. I honestly feel that it's over.

I know I haven't addressed the original topic here. I've just vented my frustration. I do that a lot on DU. Now I'm expressing my hopelessness.

Here. Let me post these. I feel this is finally the place to show what was.

I ride my bike amongst the stumps. I see a forest of what was. The majesty that no one remembers. That no one even cares about. What's a 25 foot diameter tree compared to a Lexus. We've forgotten how good life was. I'm sorry I ever got to glimpse at it. I know what I missed. We wanted Novocaine. Getting a filling without it was a horror. I'd take that horror, gladly, to have a beautiful world back. Every one of my days is full of intermittent rage over the ugliness we are perpetuating.

[HamdenRice]

16. Nice rant. Horrific picture

I remember reading an article in the New Yorker about ten years ago about the destruction of the rain forest in Papua New Guinea -- similar sized giant old mahoganey and other rain forest species -- and the horrible effects on the native people.

The journalist then tracked down where the wood was ending up. I turned out that most of it was being used to make plywood in Japan for concrete construction molds -- used once and disgarded. It turned out that the Japanese construction industry likes only the nicest plywood for construction molds.

Not even furniture, pianos or crafts. Disposable plywood.

[glitch]

18. Awareness is heartbreaking. You are speaking for me too, thank you. nt

[La Coliniere]

24. I hear ya..

I've had those same daily thoughts for years now. I do my best to keep them at bay, but some days they get the best of me too. Our fellow citizens are dumbed down and don't care. Let them have American Idol and their Stanley Cup Playoffs. That they care about.

[Blue_Tires]

64. well said nt

[entanglement]

20. Stunning - K & R

[La Coliniere]

25. The plastic exploding inevitable.

It's amazing and terribly distressing the amout of plastic garbage I see underwater whenever I go diving. I usually bring mesh bags down with me to haul the shit up. I know it's really just pissing in the wind and that it's not making any real difference at all. After I bring the junk back on land it will eventually wind up in a landfill where it will take a few thousand years to decompose. Every time I throw away a piece of plastic that is unable to be recycled I realize that I'm part of the problem. We all are. It's a nightmare for sure.

[ClayZ]

61. That reminds me of the starfish story.

Two people walking down the beach, one was piking up Starfish and gently putting them back in the water. The other asked, "Why are you doing that there are thousands of starfish washed up here? You won't make a difference! The Starfish rescuer replied, "It makes a difference to this Starfish."

[blondie58]

28. this is horrifying

I do cut my plastic rings and this shows why. Why is mankind killing our planet? We're supposed to be the guardians for Earth. Thanks for this article, Hamdenrice.

[malaise]

29. Human beings are the

scum of the planet.

[Jacobin]

30. A wonderful thing for a group of philanthropists to do:

Build three or four large ocean going vessels with rake-like equipment to scoop up the debris and bring it on board, where it would be compressed like a garbage truck compressor. Then have three or four commuting ocean going barges come to service the ships and off load the debris to ferry it to a disposal area. This would be a decades long project, as the amount of plastic is enormous.

Ongoing contributions from public interest funds would keep the operation going. After several years, it would probably start to make a difference. Keep it going in perpetuity, like we dredge rivers in perpetuity.

I love the ocean. Paul Allen? Bill Gates? Ted Turner (oops I think Steve Case plundered him). Warren Buffett?

Yooohooo!!

I'd love to see private enterprise work on this. (don't mention the problem of where you dispose of this. eventually, something could be worked out, even if it had to be encased in concrete and dropped to the bottom of the ocean.

[flvegan]

33. Dispose...or recycle it, if possible.

If it's twice the size of Texas, then at least a swath the size of Texas can probably be recycled in some way.

[Karenina]

34. LOVE YOU, HamdenRice!!!

:loveya:

Many years ago I translated a document from an NGO about quality control. I realized in the process that THE PROCESS was a scam. To protect what little sanity remained, I put it out of my mind UNTIL I opened a can of tuna and noticed something strange about the consistency. (I'd read an article about a plastic deposit the size of Texas and see now that the estimated area has DOUBLED over the years). My needle-nosed tweezer got a workout pulling tiny plastic fibers from the fish. I've not eaten canned tuna since and am challenged DAILY with the question, "WHAT shall I eat?"

Next stop: The MOUNTAINS of computer trash the U.S. sends to China...

[HamdenRice]

69. Wow, that's gross

Hi Karenina! That's what the author says -- that this plastic is so ubiquitous that it is getting in the food chain.

I actually like canned tuna and canned salmon, but I'll have to reconsider if, as you point out, I could very well be picking bits of plastic out of the fish.

Ugghhh.!

[Californian Dreamer]

38. As horrible as this is...

...The fact that all this garbage collects in a single area might actually be useful, since we can remove a big chunk of the oceans trash from a (relatively) small area. Not that it makes it a simple manner by any means, but being evenly spread out over then entire ocean would be worse.

Of course, it's more important to treat the problem itself rather than dealing with one large effect, but I can imagine a large well-publicized cleanup effort and disposal/recycling program doing much for public awareness.

[Ghost in the Machine]

43. Welcome to DU, California Dreamer

Public awareness would be a great thing for this project. Today was the first time I've heard about it, but it has been known about for over 9 years now, if I read the article correctly.

I agree that it might be useful that all the trash does collect in one place, maybe mother nature's way of cleaning herself? But you also have to wonder if it's killing the sea itself in this area and could we wind up with another Dead Sea? What happens as it continues to grow? More sea dies, killing off more of our natural resources. Isn't it ironic? A manmade material amassing in one spot and killing our natural resources.

SAVE THE PLANET!

Ghost

[sagesnow]

44. Kicked, Recommeded and Sent to my list. n/t

[Oilwellian]

45. Frightening article....I appreciate you posting it

This part was stunning:

Ask a group of people to name an overwhelming global problem, and you’ll hear about climate change, the Middle East, or AIDS. No one, it is guaranteed, will cite the sloppy transport of nurdles as a concern. And
yet nurdles, lentil-size pellets of plastic in its rawest form, are especially effective couriers of waste chemicals called persistent organic pollutants, or POPs, which include known carcinogens such as DDT and PCBs.

The United States banned these poisons in the 1970s, but they remain stubbornly at large in the environment, where they latch on to plastic because of its molecular tendency to attract oils.

The word itself—nurdles—sounds cuddly and harmless, like a cartoon character or a pasta for kids, but what it refers to is most certainly not. Absorbing up to a million times the level of POP pollution in their surrounding waters, nurdles become supersaturated poison pills. They’re light enough to blow around like dust, to spill out of shipping containers, and to wash into harbors, storm drains, and creeks. In the ocean, nurdles are easily mistaken for fish eggs by creatures that would very much like to have such a snack. And once inside the body of a bigeye tuna or a king salmon, these tenacious chemicals are headed directly to your dinner table.
One study estimated that nurdles now account for 10 percent of plastic ocean debris. And once they’re scattered in the environment, they’re diabolically hard to clean up (think wayward confetti). At places as remote as Rarotonga, in the Cook Islands, 2,100 miles northeast of New Zealand and a 12-hour flight from L.A., they’re commonly found mixed with beach sand. In 2004, Moore received a $500,000 grant from the state of California to investigate the myriad ways in which nurdles go astray during the plastic manufacturing process. On a visit to a polyvinyl chloride (PVC) pipe factory, as he walked through an area where railcars unloaded ground-up nurdles, he noticed that his pant cuffs were filled with a fine plastic dust. Turning a corner, he saw windblown drifts of nurdles piled against a fence. Talking about the experience, Moore’s voice becomes strained and his words pour out in an urgent tumble: “It’s not the big trash on the beach. It’s the fact that the whole biosphere is becoming mixed with these plastic particles. What are they doing to us? We’re breathing them, the fish are eating them, they’re in our hair, they’re in our skin.”

Though marine dumping is part of the problem, escaped nurdles and other plastic litter migrate to the gyre largely from land. That polystyrene cup you saw floating in the creek, if it doesn’t get picked up and specifically taken to a landfill, will eventually be washed out to sea. Once there, it will have plenty of places to go: The North Pacific gyre is only one of five such high-pressure zones in the oceans. There are similar areas in the South Pacific, the North and South Atlantic, and the Indian Ocean. Each of these gyres has its own version of the Garbage Patch, as plastic gathers in the currents. Together, these areas cover 40 percent of the sea. “That corresponds to a quarter of the earth’s surface,” Moore says. “So 25 percent of our planet is a toilet that never flushes.”

The word "nurdle" isn't in the dictionary.

[nam78_two]

46. K&R.nt

[DemGa]

49. We are so very f*cked n/t

[InvisibleTouch]

51. Here's an organization dedicated to protecting the oceans:

http://www.oceana.org/international-home-nao/

I've signed a few of their e-mail petitions, but haven't spent much time on their site. Am looking for a contact link to send them this info.

[InvisibleTouch]

52. Oceana's contact info:

http://www.oceana.org/north-america/who-we-are/contact-us/

(Found it!) Maybe if a number of us e-mail with a link to the above article, they'll take notice.

[LibertyorDeath]

54. Oh my god... more people need to be aware of this

I've passed it on to everyone I know.

Thank you for this !

Rec!

[Rex]

57. Our planet will be nothing but junk one day, layers upon layers.

And people will adapt. Paymasters are banking on it.

[OxQQme]

65. Humongous mining equipment

is well within our grasp. Harvesting machines on pontoons operating 24/7. Huge robots with maintenance crews. As mentioned above, recycled plastic is already made into decking planks, siding and roofing pieces that appear like the natural materials that we all cry about (if you're a greenie) wiping from the face of the globe. Why incinerate or bury the stuff? Turn it into 'last-forever' product. Light weight auto bodies and bumpers fit right in with theme of electric powered cars. The battery cases.
I could go on and on about the uses. I was just at Lowes looking around in the garden section and came across recycled plastic stepping stones, mulch rings, fencing that looked like white pickets.
Neutralizing it's 'poison retaining' attributes could certainly be dealt with.
I certainly agree about being conscious of buying habits.
In other parts of the world, product packaging is less abusive to the environment.

[muriel_volestrangler]

67. It's interesting how many people here go for the big technological fix

ie "send out large ships to cruise around and pick it all up".

Produce less. Don't put it in the rivers and oceans in the first place. After all, once you've picked it up, you still have to dispose or recycle it somehow, so why not concentrate on the problem nearer its source? Remember, the gyre is a place where there's little life anyway; the trash does its damage on its way there. Picking up the bits that haven't made their way into the food chain, but have ended up in the ocean desert, isn't a solution; it's not even a band-aid. Using that metaphor, it's more like mopping up the blood on the floor. We need to prevent the injury in the first place.

[Vilis Veritas]

80. Right on.

Produce less.

That which you do produce or receive...do something with, locally. Make sure it never get beyond you. Find your local recycler and make periodic trips with whatever you have accumulated.

[MGKrebs]

88. That's fine going forward, but there is an EXISTING PROBLEM

that also needs to be dealt with.

[OzarkDem]

70. Stop using plastic shopping bags

Our local grocery store sells the inexpensive, reusable cloth ones.

[derby378]

72. If we spent our tax dollars cleaning up the Pacific instead of fighting an illegal war...

...the world would be a much, much better place for it.

[DS1]

73. I still religiously cut every six pack ring I use

but crap needs to be cleaned up - and we as a planet need to figure out better ways to reuse our stuff.

[liberal N proud]

74. We are killing the plant

[jpak]

75. The North Pacific is full of plastic debris - I sailed from Dutch Harbor AK to Honolulu

a few years ago.

Right after lunch each day, I would stand on the bow and count the visible pieces of plastic that passed within 10 meters of the ship.

I counted one piece of debris every 24-27 seconds - and we we're doing ~10 knots.

I haven't done the calculations yet, but that's a lot of "stuff" - cigarette packs, fishing gear, lots of unidentifiable plastic sheeting, detergent and cleaning liquid bottles, you name it.

I suspect a lot of it originated from fishing vessels and cargo/container ships.

[Junkdrawer]

77. More on the plastic leeching problem...

...

Water bottles are be made from various types of plastic — polycarbonate (PC), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), Polypropylene (PP), high-density polyethylene (HDPE), low-density polyethylene (LDPE), polyvinyl chloride (PVC or vinyl), and others. To reiterate, they all migrate to some degree. I will focus on just one chemical that migrates out of one plastic that is used to make products with high use and sales profiles.

Bisphenol-A (BPA) is a monomer used in the synthesis of PC plastics, epoxy resins, and composites, as well as a heat stabilizer in PVC. The list of products containing BPA is long. Some rigid containers such as water and baby bottles are made of PC. The popular Nalgene® water bottles are made of Lexan® brand PC. In the medical industry, it is used for syringes, containers, lenses, and dental products. Keep in mind that the FDA regulates only plastics in contact with foods and not any of the other exposures a person might commonly experience every day at home, school, or the office. Because the FDA approves plastics for specific uses rather than for individual chemicals, BPA is not explicitly regulated.<20> It is important to note that all exposures, no matter what origin, are relevant and cumulative. Even other chemicals that act in the body in similar ways can be part of the total effect. The body’s natural defenses try to breakdown toxins as they enter. These are called metabolites and can be significantly more toxic than the original chemical.

...

In the year 2000, Consumers Union (CU) tested water from five-gallon PC plastic bottles for BPA, They found from 0.5 ppb to 11 ppb in water samples from eight of the ten 5-gallon jugs.<23> After industry spin-meisters discredited the study as being flawed, not many regulatory red flares were sent up within the FDA. This type of industry disinformation is standard operating procedure. Most times, the statements made could be compared it to one child calling another derogatory names, hoping that the recipient will become persona non grata with the other children. However, the CU study was indeed valid and the concentrations of BPA that were found are extremely relevant.

CU also found BPA in samples from baby bottles at worrisome levels.<24> CU advised its readers to avoid exposure to BPA by "dispos of polycarbonate baby bottles and replac them with bottles made of glass or polyethylene, an opaque, less-shiny plastic that does not leach bisphenol-A."<25> That advice attracted the wrath of the plastics industry. But I will go further and advise readers not to serve or store any food — liquid or solid, water-based or fatty, hot or cold — in any plastic.

.....

The list of negative health effects associated in some way with exposure to BPA is remarkably long. The most visible effect may be aneuploidy, a chromosome abnormality found in more than 5% of pregnancies. Most aneuploid fetuses die in utero. About one-third of all miscarriages are aneuploid, making it the leading known cause of pregnancy loss. Among conceptions that survive to term, aneuploidy is the leading genetic cause of developmental disabilities and mental retardation. About 1 in 300 liveborn infants and 1 in 3 miscarriages are aneuploid. It is associated with Down syndrome,<28> Patau syndrome, <29> Edwards syndrome,<30> Klinefelter syndrome, <31> Turner syndrome, <32> Cri du chat syndrome, <33> and Alzheimer's disease.<34> And each of these bears its own extensive list of maladies covering all parts and functions of the human body — both physical and mental. The condition at birth is directly related to the type of chromosome abnormality present in the embryo at the time of conception.<35> It is well documented that aneuploidy contributes to the increased risk of spontaneous abortion when the female partner is older, but it is also thought that males more than 30 years old may increase the risk of spontaneous abortion when the female partner is less than 30 years of age.<36>

....


http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Plasticizers/Out-Of-Diet-PG5nov03.htm

[NW_BEAST]

78. Can Anyone

Get a mapquest satalite or googleearth fix on this thing? If its twice the size of texas, we should be able to see it, if only as discoloration.

[Vilis Veritas]

79. Wrist-slittingly depressing...

Holy polypropylene!!!

I would have liked to see a list of sources at the end of the article that could be checked. There were an awful lot of numbers and facts cited and the magazine is not peer reviewed.

However, there is a lot of information that should be investigated and put into perspective.

For now? Use canvas bags. Buy in bulk from co-ops and bring your own containers to fill. Recycle. Do your part, that is all you can do. Then, Relax, a calm mind is better able to deal with stressful events or articles...;-)

Some Links...

Algalita Marine Research Foundation
http://www.algalita.org/index.html

American Cetacean Society
http://www.acsonline.org/

Ecology Center - International Plastics Task Force
http://www.ecologycenter.org/iptf/index.html

[Jim Warren]

81. New Yorker article

I want to say maybe a week in 2/07, maybe 3/07. It has a toy yellow rubber duck
on the cover. It's about the plastic in the world oceans. Amazing article that to illustrate it's point tracks a container ship accident mid-pacific, and among the lost cargo is a container full of yellow rubber duckies. They end up being found in almost every corner of the world.

[bluescribbler]

82. This is terrible

Many years ago, I was a regular canoe camper on the Saco River in ME and NH. It's a beautiful river, and on the stretch from Conway, NH to Brownfield, ME, the current is swift enough to carry you downstream without much effort, but not so swift as to be hazardous. There are many sandy banks which are ideal for pitching a tent. Unfortunately, the river has become little more than a floating frat party, :beer: in recent years, so I don't go there anymore.:-(

One year, as the wife and I were drifting downstream, we saw another canoe beach itself on a sandbar. The man got out, pulled a large plastic bag full of trash out of his canoe, deposited it on shore, got back into his canoe and continued downstream.:wtf: I couldn't believe my eyes.:wow: I picked up the bag and deposited it in the dumpster at the takeout point when we finished our voyage.:mad: :grr:

[LeftCoast]

84. *kick* for more attention to this issue

:kick:

[Sequoia]

86. Oh, what a nightmare that will never end.

[Beaverhausen]

89. Kick

this is horrible

[Junkdrawer]

90. How about a UN Administered "Super Fund" Cleanup...

Perhaps paid for by a levy on international trade. :shrug:

[Javaman]

93. Many years ago on Long Island I used to go to this old fish hatchery on the north shore...

It was a very pretty and relaxing place.

One day, while there, I spotted a goose that had a gotten a six pack plastic ring thing caught around it's neck. It was obviously cutting into its skin.

I alerted the people there and they told me that they knew all about it but weren't able to catch the goose to remove it.

I was so frustrated by it.

to this day i don't by beverages that have those rings on them and if I'm someplace where they are being used, I have this compulsion to cut them up so nothing can be caught in them.

We are killing ourselves one cut at a time. and at the moment, we are bleeding hard.

[HamdenRice]

95. I used to fish the south shore

and also remember seeing birds caught in old fishing lines, beer can rings, etc. It's heartbreaking to see.

[Javaman]

96. It's changed so much. I remember being able to eat

raw clams fresh from the north shore. If I did that now I would be taking my life in my hands.

I miss the flounder fishing on the south shore.

[jollyreaper2112]

94. I hear ya

There's a Texas-sized chunk of our country filled with trash, too. Come to think of it, it's Texas-shaped, too.

[AuntPatsy]

97. That is horrific, doesn't seem to bold well for out continued existance