Ocean Waves, Plastic Graves

For whatever reasons: shipwreck, storm, or accident, strange things that have been dropped in the ocean. And when those strange things get dropped in, they usually then go on an epic tour around the world.

Often, the things in question are amusing. Some examples:

McVitties (a British cookie):

Bananas:

Doritos:

Rubber Ducks:

I can't help but smile at the thought of a flotilla of rubber ducks traveling the world's currents. It almost seems like it makes the world a better place.

Unfortunately, these fun and adorable stories are smaller examples of a larger, systemic issue.

Currently, in the Pacific Ocean, two new continents are being forged. These masses are twice the size of Texas, and 30 feet in depth. And they are made completely out of plastic. Let's dub our new land masses "Siliconus" and "Polystyrus".

How are they being created? Plastic finds its way into the ocean. Then, circular ocean currents trap the plastic in position and it gathers in increasing amounts. For every one pound of algae and plankton found in these areas, there is six pounds of plastic. Not nearly as delightful as rubber ducks.

Some interesting facts about ocean plastic:
1. Plastic is made of oil, a diminishing resource.
2. It *never* goes away. It just breaks into smaller and smaller plastic pieces.
3. 20% of the plastic in the ocean fell off boats. The rest washed in from land. 
4. Much of the ocean's plastic is the little pellets that plastic things eventually get made out of. When you buy plastic things, you support these pellets being shipped across oceans, and dropped into them.
5. When you throw plastic away, some will seep out of the landfill and find its way back to the ocean.
6. The average sea-bird has thirty pieces of plastic in their stomach.
7. Plastic cups have been found scattered amongst the wreck of the Titanic.

Clearly, an ocean clean-up on an epic scale will need to happen someday. In the meantime, we have the power to slow the growth of these islands.

All we need to do is try to enforce two easy rules in our lives:
1.  Avoid plastic when we can. Especially packaging.
2.  If we can't avoid plastic, recycle it.

Comments

[alex]

I really enjoy reading your blog, it always has great insight. But I am very frustrated with the fact that so few people are talking about presidential candidates and their thoughts on global warming. Now that it is down to just a few candidates I would think that this would be a bigger issue.

Live Earth just picked up this topic and put out an article ( http://www.liveearth.org/news.php ) live earth is also asking why the presidential candidates are not being solicited for their stance on the issue of the climate change. I just saw a poll on www.EarthLab.com that says people care a lot about what their next leader thinks of global warming. Does anyone know of another poll or other results about this subject?

Here is the page where I saw the EarthLab poll: http://www.earthlab.com/life.aspx. This is a pretty legit website; they are endorsed by Al Gore and the alliance for climate protection and they have a carbon footprint calculator. Does anyone have a strong opinion about this like I do? No matter what your political affiliation is or who you vote for this is an important issue for our environment, our economy and for homeland security.

[bravenewleaf]

Hey Alex!

Thanks for the compliment and for the links. I, too, am frustrated with the lack of discussion around the environment by the presidential candidates. The good news is, out of the remaining major candidates, 3/4 believe that the environment should be a priority.

Perhaps there aren't a ton of questions on this because they have made their plans and priorities pretty public.

I did a blog posting on this a few weeks back that had some details on their positions that you might want to check out.

http://www.bravenewleaf.com/environment/2008/01/environmental-p.html

It will definitely be interesting to see whether Al Gore endorses anyone for president...

[Yoko]

Nice blog. Keep on posting.
I really enjoy it. Save our planet! Thanks.

[Green Bean]

The plastic garbage patches are so eye opening. Just by paying attention to packaging, bringing your own produce and shopping bags, re-using what plastic you have and making your own, you can really cut back on plastic. I've stepped up my anti-plasticism in the last month and made huge inroads - even in my recycling bin because recycling plastic is a dirty, dirty business and is handled in China. Check out Fake Plastic Fish for the latter.

[Beth Terry, aka Fake Plastic Fish]

Did someone mention Fake Plastic Fish?

Well, I just want to mention that there's a crew out in the Pacific Gyre analyzing the plastic waste out there in a big way. You think my weekly tallies are interesting? You should see what these guys are picking up!

You can follow their blog here: http://www.orvalguita.blogspot.com/

I highly recommend that we all pay attention to what's washing into our oceans, and then be careful about what we purchase in the first place.

[Lu]

There was a great article written about just this very thing in Best Life Magazine. It's still on their website at:

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

[n8]

Great article. I to was enamored by the idea of the earth being dotted with rubber duckies. It does sound quaint.

Mind if I ask where you found the beach wash up pics? Great post. Stumbled, delicioused and dugg it. I love the blog by the way. Keep up the good work!

[Nigel Wintergreen]

Great post! I love my rubber ducks, but damn... that is truly creepy.